Photo accompanying an article in Het Leven in 1914: "The Queen visiting the poor". In this account of a visit to Amsterdam it was not Queen Wilhelmina who played a key part but the citizens she visited and their living conditions. A family with six children lived in this basement flat - a back room in a property on the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. It was the only room. 

Het Leven was one of the few large magazines for a general public that made early use of photography to show social abuse, often with an appeal to society to do something about it. Not only the large cities were highlighted but also the situation in, for example, the countryside of Drenthe and countries abroad were shown. The newsworthiness or the unique character of the situation were more important than the quality of the photographs.

<< Back