"How the Other Half Lives" sold well and was much quoted. Reviews were generally good, although some reviewers criticized it for oversimplifying and exaggerating. Riis attributed the success to a popular interest in social amelioration stimulated by William Booth's "In Darkest England and the Way Out", and also to Ward McAllister's "Society as I Have Found It", a portrait of the moneyed class. The book encouraged imitations such as "Darkness and Daylight; or, Lights and Shadows of New York Life" (1892), which somehow appropriated Riis's own photographs.