Social reformer jacob riis muckraker
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Riis, Jacob
in: People
Jacob Riis (May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914): Journalist, Photographer, Social Reformer
By Catherine A. Paul
“‘Are you not looking too much to the material condition of these people,’ said a good minister to me after a lecture in a Harlem church last winter, ‘and forgetting the inner man?’ I told him, ‘No! For you cannot expect to find an inner man to appeal to in the worst tenement house surroundings. You must first put the man where he can respect himself.’” – Jacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was born May 3, 1849 in Ribe, Denmark and died May 26, 1914 in Barre, Massachusetts. Riis was a notable American newspaper reporter, social reformer, and photographer. His most famous work, How the Other Half Lives(1890), shed light on the plight of the slums in New York City (“Jacob Riis: American journalist,” n.d.).
When he was 21 years old, Riis immigrated to America. As a recent immigrant, he took many types of jobs, which showed him the many sides of his new urban home (“Jacob Riis: American journalist,” n.d.). Moreover, he spent significant time homeless and penniless, surviving on charitable donations of food from religious figures and cooks. At one point, Riis became so desperate that he considering ending his life. However, thanks to a stray do
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Summary of Jacob Riis
Riis was one of America's first photojournalists. As a newspaper reporter, photographer, and social reformer, he rattled the conscience of Americans with his descriptions - pictorial and written - of New York's slum conditions. As an early pioneer of flashlamp photography, he was able to capture the squalid lives of immigrant families living on the very edges of society. His lectures and, subsequent books, including the famous How the Other Half Lives (1890), was so influential that they brought about new legislation to improve tenement housing conditions and general standards of sanitation across America. Riis's work is hailed now as the precursor to so-called "muckraking journalism" that became a fixture in American newspaper publications after 1900. His most glowing endorsement came from (the future US President) Theodore Roosevelt who referred to him as "the best American I ever knew [sic]" with "the great gift of making others see what he saw and feel what he felt".
Accomplishments
- With books such as, How the Other Half Lives (1890) and The Children of the Slums (1892), Riis created great public interest, and garnered widespread acclaim, that fueled several urban social reform programs. As a result, history sees him as both a forerunner f
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