Jacob August Riis

Jacob August Riis , 1849-1914, Danish-American journalist, photographer, and social reformer, b. Denmark. He immigrated to the United States in 1870. In 1877 he became a police reporter for the New York Tribune and later for the New York Evening Sun. His reports on slum dwellings and the abuses of lower-class, largely immigrant life in New York City culminated in his first book, How the Other Half Lives (1890), a groundbreaking work of photojournalism, and earned him the admiration and friendship of Theodore Roosevelt . Riis founded a pioneer settlement house in New York (named for him in 1901). His association with the public park and playground movements was commemorated by the Jacob Riis Park on Long Island.

Bibliography: See his autobiography, The Making of an American (1901; new ed. with epilogue by his grandson, J. R. Owre, 1970); biography by L. Ware (1938); B. Yochelson and D. Czitrom, Rediscovering Jacob Riis (2008).

Riis, Jacob August (1849–1914), Danish‐born reformer, journalist, and author, came to New York City (1870), where his own experiences in the slums and his observations as a police reporter on New York papers led him to declare war on tenement conditions, child labor, and other abuses of lower‐class urban life. His lone fight was aided later by Theodore Roosevelt, who, as head of the city police board, as New York governor, and as U.S. President, gave him great support. Among Riis's books describing his work were How the Other Half Lives (1890), The Children of the Poor (1892), Out of Mulberry Street (1898), and The Battle with the Slum (1902). The Making of an American (1901) is an autobiography.