Who was Jacob Riis?
Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914) was born in Ribe, Denmark. He immigrated to America at age twenty with hopes of one day marrying his teenage love, Elisabeth Nielsen [Gjørtz]. Riis wandered through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, taking odd jobs as a laborer and salesman, before landing newspaper work in New York City in 1873.
When did Jacob Riis write how the other half lives?
Jacob Riis wrote his first (and now enduringly famous) book, How the Other Half Lives (1890) late at night “while the house slept.” He recalled: “It was my habit to light the lamps in all the rooms of the lower story and roam through them with my pipe, for I do most of my writing on my feet.” The book was a bestseller.
What did Jacob Riis write first book?
Jacob Riis wrote his first (and now enduringly famous) book, How the Other Half Lives (1890) late at night “while the house slept.” He recalled: “It was my habit to light the lamps in all the rooms of the lower story and roam through them with my pipe, for I do most of my writing on my feet.”
What books did Jacob Riis write about the slum?
Shelter for immigrants in a New York City tenement, photograph by Jacob Riis, 1888. Among Riis’s other books were The Children of the Poor (1892), Out of Mulberry Street (1896), The Battle with the Slum (1901), and his autobiography, The Making of an American (1901).
What did Jacob Riis write about in the slums?
Jacob Riis. While living in New York, Riis experienced poverty and became a police reporter writing about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to alleviate the bad living conditions of poor people by exposing their living conditions to the middle and upper classes.
How many diaries did Jacob Riis keep?
Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (019.00.03, 019.00.04) Between September 1871 and August 1875, Riis kept a pocket diary, first in Danish and then in English. Two of his three diaries survive; they recount a period of struggle and painful self-doubt.
What did Albert Riis do for the Chicago Tribune?
In 1888, Riis left the Tribune to work for the Evening Sun, where he began making the photographs that would be reproduced as engravings and halftones in How the Other Half Lives, his celebrated work documenting the living conditions of the poor, which was published to widespread acclaim in 1890.