Riis, Jacob

Jacob Riis (1849—1914) was a crusading journalist who brought New York City's overcrowded, decrepit slums to the consciousness and conscience of middle-class America. Best known for his photograph-filled 1890 book, How the Other Half Lives, Riis spurred housing, school, and neighborhood reforms in cities throughout the United States.

Riis was born in Ribe, Denmark, a schoolmaster's son. His modestly comfortable childhood and its rural village were roots of his later advocacy of urban housing reform, as was his Christian faith and sense of morality. Riis's fondness for stories, particularly those by Charles Dickens, motivated him to learn English, but he disliked school and pursued carpentry. Crushed by romantic rejection and angling for adventure, Riis left for the United States in 1870.

Work in short-term carpentry, construction, and mining jobs and then as a traveling salesman was sporadic, and Riis experienced days of hunger and homelessness. One cold night, Riis and his adopted dog turned to a police station for shelter. For years, New York City police stations had served as shelters of last resort for homeless men and women, providing planks of wood for sleeping on the station's cellar floor at night. That night, Riis's locket was stolen, and a disbelieving officer beat Riis's protective dog to death. Riis attributed his drive to improve the lives of the poor and restore respect for life in the slums to this incident.

By 1873, Riis turned to newspaper work, moving through jobs at a Long Island City weekly, a [Page 672]Manhattan news agency, and finally as editor for the South Brooklyn News. He eventually bought the News and, doing every job himself, turned it into a profitable independent paper featuring righteous editorials against deadbeat grocery customers and neighborhood boarding houses. Finally successful, Riis married his beloved Elisabeth, sold the paper, and in 1877 joined the New York Tribune.