Background of Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis lived in Denmark during his childhood. In 1870, at age 21, he decided to immigrate to America in hopes of living the 'American Dream'. Riis was unable to find a steady job which resulted in him being poor and unemployed. He tried many jobs just to make a little money. These jobs included: carpenter, iron worker, brick-layer, farmhand, and salesman. Having all of these jobs allowed him to see and experience the worst aspects of American urbanism that inspired him to improve living conditions for the city's lower class. Eventually he landed a job as a police reporter for The New York Tribune which covered some of the districts with the most crime. He got a lot of fame from "exposed sanitary conditions, family life, the fate of women and children, treatment of dead victims and other areas of civil neglect." This also lead him to a relationship with the police commissioner. Theodore Roosevelt called Riis "the best American I ever knew" and "the most useful citizen in New York." Roosevelt also said "the great gift of making others see what he saw and feel what he felt" was how Riis made the readers feel and react to what he wrote and the pictures he took.
Riis was not only a photojournalist, he was a "influential muckraker or investigative journalist, who promoted social reform by calling public attention to the dismal living conditions of the poor." "Jacob Riis, whose late 19th century writings and photographs chronicled the harsh reality of life in New York slums." Riis was a social reformer and a progressive, documenting the living and working conditions of the poor throughout photography, books, and articles. Riis knew what it was like to be homeless, starve, be poor, and thats what inspired him to live a life of legacy that affected the life of the immigrants of the 19th century and encouraged middle class and upperclass to take an active role in defining and shaping their communities.
Riis was not only a photojournalist, he was a "influential muckraker or investigative journalist, who promoted social reform by calling public attention to the dismal living conditions of the poor." "Jacob Riis, whose late 19th century writings and photographs chronicled the harsh reality of life in New York slums." Riis was a social reformer and a progressive, documenting the living and working conditions of the poor throughout photography, books, and articles. Riis knew what it was like to be homeless, starve, be poor, and thats what inspired him to live a life of legacy that affected the life of the immigrants of the 19th century and encouraged middle class and upperclass to take an active role in defining and shaping their communities.
Muckraker: Authors and investigative journalists who agitated for social change in America by exposing the misconduct of the powerful and documenting the living and working conditions of the poor.
Progressive: a group, person, or idea, favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas
Social Reformer: these people concentrated on exposing the evils of corporate greed, combating fear of immigrants, and urging Americans to think hard about what democracy meant.
Progressive: a group, person, or idea, favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas
Social Reformer: these people concentrated on exposing the evils of corporate greed, combating fear of immigrants, and urging Americans to think hard about what democracy meant.
Citations:
- Byers, Paula K. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Raffles-Schelling. Vol. 13. Detroit; Gale, 1998. Print
- Perry, Elisabeth Israels, and Karen Manners. Smith. The Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A Student Companion. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.