biography
| name: |
Riis, Jacob (August)
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1849–1914)
|
| biography:
| Journalist and social critic, born in Ribe, SW Denmark. The son of a journalist, he emigrated to New York City in 1870 and worked as a police reporter on the New York Tribune (1873) and the New York Evening Sun (1888–99). His horrifying description of immigrant poverty in New York City in 1890, How the Other Half Lives, was the first use of photographic evidence in social reportage. An enthusiastic champion of the reforms of Theodore Roosevelt, he wrote a study of him, and was active in the movement for small parks and playgrounds, in tenement housing, and school reform. |
|
|
