For a large swathe of the UK’s population, life in the swinging sixties was not all miniskirts, psychedelia and Beatle wigs—it was hard dismal work, poverty, unemployment: a life crammed in overcrowded slums, with few amenities or pleasures. This was true for many who lived in the country’s former industrial heartlands—Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham and Glasgow—the war damaged cities that were being slowly gutted and replaced by equally oppressive concrete tower blocks and uniform housing schemes in new towns. In 1968, photographer Nick Hedges was hired by housing charity Shelter to document the “the oppressive and abject living conditions being experienced in poor quality housing in the UK” in order to “raise consciousness about the extent of unfit living conditions and to illustrate, in human terms, what the real cost of bad housing was.” Hedges arrived in Glasgow to find it a “devastating city,” full of grim deprivation and brutality—on his first night he witnessed two youngsters rob a blind beggar of his takings. Hodges began by photographing the tenement slums of the city’s Gorbals area—once the most populated district—before heading north and west to the equally overcrowded Maryhill, where an...
Powerful Photos Of Glasgow Slums 1969-72
Powerful Photos Of Glasgow Slums 1969-72
Photographic Print of Photograph shows laundry drying on clotheslines in the backyards of New York City tenement slums, circa 1900. (Photo by FPG/Getty Images) #MediaStorehouse
Jacob Riis, a pioneering journalist and social reformer in the late 19th century, is renowned for his impactful work exposing the squalid living conditions of New York City’s tenement dwellers through powerful photojournalism. His dedication to advocating for the marginalized and sparking change makes his story a compelling dive into history. Early Life of Jacob ... Read more
Several people featured in iconic photographs of Scotland’s tenement slums have come forward after housing charity Shelter issued a public appeal, Amateur Photographer has learnt.
Tomorrow's here. Gorbals, Glasgow, 1975.
Children playing in the slums. Photograph by Mark Kauffman. Glasgow, Scotland, September 1948.
(above and below) Tenements on the Lower East Side of New York in the 1880s. Photos by Jacob Riis. Social housing, or what we in the United States call public housing, means government supported li…
For a large swathe of the UK’s population, life in the swinging sixties was not all miniskirts, psychedelia and Beatle wigs—it was hard dismal work, poverty, unemployment: a life crammed in overcrowded slums, with few amenities or pleasures. This was true for many who lived in the country’s former industrial heartlands—Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham and Glasgow—the war damaged cities that were being slowly gutted and replaced by equally oppressive concrete tower blocks and uniform housing schemes in new towns. In 1968, photographer Nick Hedges was hired by housing charity Shelter to document the “the oppressive and abject living conditions being experienced in poor quality housing in the UK” in order to “raise consciousness about the extent of unfit living conditions and to illustrate, in human terms, what the real cost of bad housing was.” Hedges arrived in Glasgow to find it a “devastating city,” full of grim deprivation and brutality—on his first night he witnessed two youngsters rob a blind beggar of his takings. Hodges began by photographing the tenement slums of the city’s Gorbals area—once the most populated district—before heading north and west to the equally overcrowded Maryhill, where an...
Three children outside a tenement slum in New York City, circa 1970.
Photographer Nick Hedges travelled from Birmingham slums to Glasgow tenements in the 1960s and 70s to document poverty-stricken Britain. He found families who slept with the lights blazing to keep the rats away, children sleeping on wet floors and mothers cooking over an open fire
Powerful Photos Of Glasgow Slums 1969-72
For a large swathe of the UK’s population, life in the swinging sixties was not all miniskirts, psychedelia and Beatle wigs—it was hard dismal work, poverty, unemployment: a life crammed in overcrowded slums, with few amenities or pleasures. This was true for many who lived in the country’s former industrial heartlands—Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham and Glasgow—the war damaged cities that were being slowly gutted and replaced by equally oppressive concrete tower blocks and uniform housing schemes in new towns. In 1968, photographer Nick Hedges was hired by housing charity Shelter to document the “the oppressive and abject living conditions being experienced in poor quality housing in the UK” in order to “raise consciousness about the extent of unfit living conditions and to illustrate, in human terms, what the real cost of bad housing was.” Hedges arrived in Glasgow to find it a “devastating city,” full of grim deprivation and brutality—on his first night he witnessed two youngsters rob a blind beggar of his takings. Hodges began by photographing the tenement slums of the city’s Gorbals area—once the most populated district—before heading north and west to the equally overcrowded Maryhill, where an...
Sobering images reveal daily life in Glasgow's densely populated Gorbals district, where 40,000 Scots existed in some of the worst conditions of post-war Europe.
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Powerful Photos Of Glasgow Slums 1969-72
THESE are the pictures that shocked the nation into action over the housing crisis and now, 50 years on, a housing charity has tracked down some of the people in the iconic photos. In the sixties, …
One night Riis was bedding down in the Church Street Station Lodging-room when his gold locket keepsake was stolen and his dog clubbed to death.
Consuelo Kanaga Untitled (Tenements, New York City) c.1937
Jacob Riis' photographs were fundamental in spurring social reform of New York City's squalid and unsafe immigrant housing.
Few people realize that flash photography was responsible for one of the most important social reforms of the 19th century. It happened in New York City
One sweltering day in the late 1880s, journalist and photographer Jacob Riis found his way to a stifling slum tenement on Mott Street in New York. A family sat huddled around a small child who lay still, her breath labored. Their expressions were blank with futility. The little girl wasn’t sick with disease, and she […]
In the late 1960s the country’s crumbling flats and tenements were causing a breakdown in society. Shelter asked photographer Nick Hedges to document homes unfit for human habitation
