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Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 - March 26, 1914), a Danish-American muckraker journalist and slum and school reformer, was born in Ribe, Denmark.

He came to America in 1870 and wrote for the New York Evening Sun newspaper. As a pioneer investigative journalist, he went undercover working at a meat packing factory. He was one of the first Americans to use flashlight powder, allowing his documentation of New York slums to penetrate the dark of night. His book How the Other Half Lives (ISBN 0140436790), pioneering photojournalism, and friendship with Theodore Roosevelt (then New York Police Board of Commissioners head) led to positive changes for New York tenement dwellers. He also wrote several other books, including Children of the Poor and an autobiography, The Making of an American.

Jacob Riis worked to improve the lives of the urban poor. A native of Denmark, Riis had boarded a steamship bound for American in 1870 at the age of 21 and settled in New York City. There he personally experienced the dreadful conditions in which many new Americans lived. Riis held various jobs before he landed a position as a police reporter in 1873. Riis honed his writing skills while covering New York's East Side, a tenement slum bursting with immigrant families.

Jacob Riis Park on the Rockaway Peninsula, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, is named for him.

External links

• Complete online edition of How the Other Half Lives
• Photograph of the Riis home in Richmond Hill, NY
• What Do The World and People Deserve? Len Bernstein on Life and Work of Jacob Riis
• "The Other Half": The Social Reform Photography of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine
• Works by Jacob A. Riis at Project Gutenberg

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