Darkness and Daylight, or Lights and Shadows of New York Life; A pictorial Record of Personal Experiences by Day and Night in the Great Metropolis
Hartford: Hartford Publishing Co., 1895. First Edition. 8vo., 8 5/8 x 5 3/4 inches 220 x 145 mm). xii, 740 pp. Frontispiece bears the portrait of the author and is illustrated with over 250 engravings from photographs that were specifically taken for this work. Pages very lightly and evenly toned, a little spotting on the tissue guards. Embossed brown cloth covers with a decorative gilt plate on front board and spine; edges speckled; flowered endpapers; lightest of shelf wear.
A richly illustrated portrait of the city of New York, covering both its beauty and horrors. Accompanied by a series of anecdotal stories that cover themes from child labor and abuse, working women and living conditions, to alcoholism, gambling, criminality, and police work, the volume perfectly describes life in New York City in the 1880s and 90s. Supplemented by a journalist's description of little-known phases of New York life; and a famous detective's thirty years' experiences and observations, by Col. Thomas W. Knox and Inspector Thomas Byrnes. The illustrations were engraved from photographs taken from life expressly for this work "mostly by flashlight".
Helen Stuart Campbell (1839 – 1918) was an American author, economist, and editor, as well as a social and industrial reformer. She was a pioneer in the field of home economics. Her Household Economics (1897) was an early textbook in the field of domestic science. Her text Women Wage-Earners was published in book form in 1893 and came to be known as "the first major statistical monograph on the situation of American women working for wages." [Journal of Women's History. 4 (1): 14–36] She went on to study the conditions of women workers in New York and then spent 18 months doing the same in London, Paris, Italy and Germany, and produced a series of papers titled "Prisoners of Poverty" and Prisoners of Poverty Abroad, which caused a profound and widespread sensation. She also worked as a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin (1893–96).
Condition: Near fine.
Item number: 1754
Price: $400.00
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