Jacob A. Riis

One of fourteen children, Jacob Riis spent much of his childhood and adolescence learning how to be a carpenter, before emigrating from Denmark to the United States in 1870. After some time working in Pennsylvania, he tried and failed to return to Europe to fight in the Franco-Prussian War, and soon ended up without stable lodging on the streets of Manhattan. After working a series of jobs outside the city, he finally returned in 1877 and began working as a reporter. Increasingly familiar with the Lower East Side slums near the police headquarters, Riis began writing and lecturing about the plight of the poor. He also started photographing tenement life to supplement his writings, and in 1888 he published the results of his forays into the slums with a flash camera: this work served as the basis for How the Other Half Lives. After that book’s striking success, Riis became a regular lecturer on the national circuit. He continued writing and speaking, along with agitating for specific tenement house reforms, until his death in 1914.