Jacob Riis Journalist and Social reformer
Jacob August Riis was an American news reporter, social reformist and photographer that lived in the late 1800's and early 1900's. He is most famous for his published work How the Other Half Lives, which documents the terrible tenament life that thousands of Americans endured during the Gilded Age.
Riis immigrated to the United States at the age of 21. When he arrived, he experienced first hand the tenament life. He was forced to work various odds and ends jobs due to his lowly status, but landed a job as a police reporter in New York City's Lower East Side. During his work here he discovered even more disparity in the tenament buildings than he realized even while living there. In particular the infant mortality rate of 1 in 10 was the most shocking and eye opening fact of all.
Shortly after beginning his work as a police reporter, Riis began capturing tenament life through the lens of his camera. He is known as one of the earliest photojournalist and a precursor to the muckrakers.
Muckraker:
Journalists during the early 1900's that provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the rapid industrialization of the United States and big business.
With the invention of the flash lamp, Riis was able to capture life is inside the tenaments and the degradation of life that went on in these filthy pits.
Through a series of lectures, Riis shown light on the conditions of life in the tenaments and shocked the consciences of middle class Americans who were just out of the reach of tenament life. Later in his career, he was even successful in capturing the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt.
"I have read your book, and I have come to help."
Theodore Roosevelt
Though often contradictory in his view of why things were the way they were, Riis was extremely influential in opening the eyes of Americans during this time. No one entered the tenaments that did not live there until Jacob Riis, armed with his camera, and the results were enough to make middle and upper class citizens squirm in their seats.