Jacob Riis was a Danish immigrant who was horrified to discover that opportunity in the USA was pretty much a myth. Everything he’d heard about America back in Europe seemed to be false.
Coming to New York in 1870 with $40 and the clothes on his back, Jacob lived with thousands of Polish, Italian, Irish and other immigrants living in brutal poverty. After years in lousy jobs, he finally landed a job as a journalist, focusing social reform. He spent evenings teaching himself how to use a camera and eventually became one of the most profound photojournalists his time.
He set about documenting the good, bad, and ugly of lower-class life in New York City, showing a side of America that the world had never seen before. This honestly earned him the praise of then-President Teddy Roosevelt.
His book How the Other Half Lives – an 1890 treatise of social criticism – was so impactful that it not only changed the perspectives of many middle and upper-class peeps, but it actually inspired President Roosevelt to reform city housing policies.
In the book, Riis says that “every man’s experience ought to be worth something to the community from which he drew it, no matter what that experience may be, so long as it was gleaned along the line of some decent, honest work.”
Did you like this piece? If so, you might also be interested in reading about Dorothy Day.
