What was the result of Jacob Riis work?
Result of Jacob Riis' work. NYC passed building codes to promote health and safety. Result of Ida B. Wells' work. NAACP (National Assocation of Colored People) helped pass anti-lynching legislation. Result of Frank Norris' work. Railroad monopolies in northwest were broken up after the ruling in Northern Securities v. US (1904).
What did Jacob Riis accomplish?
Riis was amongst the firsts to adopt and use the flashlight technology in his photography. Thus, he is also known as the father of photography. Using his photographic and journalistic talents, he exposed the crime and corruption, inefficiency of police men, problems of water supply and so on of the city.
Why was Jacob Riis was important to the Progressive Movement?
- The slums of New York. Jacob Riis documented the slums of New York, what he deemed the world of the “other half,” teeming with immigrants, disease, and abuse.
- Midnight rounds. ...
- Home and work. ...
- The Progressive Era. ...
- Go deeper. ...
What impact did Jacob Riis have?
Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark, became a journalist in New York City in the late 19th century and devoted himself to documenting the plight of working people and the very poor. His work, especially in his landmark 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, had an enormous impact on American society.
What was the problem with Jacob Riis?
Riis was also criticized for his depiction of African Americans. He was said to portray them as falsely happy with their lives in the "slums" of New York City. This criticism didn't come until much later after Riis had died. His writing was overlooked because his photography was so revolutionary in his early books.
What impact did Jacob Riis have on the progressive movement?
Harrowing images of tenements and alleyways where New York's immigrant communities lived, combined with his evocative storytelling, were intended to engage and inform his audience and exhort them to act. Riis helped set in motion an activist legacy linking photojournalism with reform.
What was Jacob Riis criticized for?
While Riis did not record the names of the people he photographed, he organized his book into ethnic sections, categorizing the images according to the racial and ethnic stereotypes of his age. In this regard, Riis has been criticized for both his bias and reducing those photographed to nameless victims.
Was How the Other Half Lives successful?
The book was successful. Soon after its publication, The New York Times lauded its content, calling it a "powerful book". The praise for How the Other Half Lives continued in many other newspapers all across the country.
What did Jacob Riis accomplish?
Riis was among the first in the United States to conceive of photographic images as instruments for social change; he was also among the first to use flash powder to photograph interior views, and his book How the Other Half Lives was one of the earliest to employ halftone reproduction successfully.
What was the impact of Riis work on reform movements?
Riis helped raise support for small public parks and thought that every public school should have a playground. He believed in the right of boys and girls to play as part of healthy early child development, and as an outlet for energies that could instead be turned to lives of vice or crime.
How did Jacob Riis change the world?
How did Jacob Riis influence others? His book, How the Other Half Lives (1890), stimulated the first significant New York legislation to curb poor conditions in tenement housing. It was also an important predecessor to muckraking journalism, which took shape in the United States after 1900.
What was the purpose of Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives?
How the Other Half Lives was a pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting the squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for future muckraking journalism by exposing the slums to New York City's upper and middle class.
What was the impact of Riis work on reform movements?
Riis helped raise support for small public parks and thought that every public school should have a playground. He believed in the right of boys and girls to play as part of healthy early child development, and as an outlet for energies that could instead be turned to lives of vice or crime.
What impact did Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives have on the nation?
How did Jacob Riis influence others? His book, How the Other Half Lives (1890), stimulated the first significant New York legislation to curb poor conditions in tenement housing. It was also an important predecessor to muckraking journalism, which took shape in the United States after 1900.
What was the purpose of Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives?
How the Other Half Lives was a pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting the squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for future muckraking journalism by exposing the slums to New York City's upper and middle class.
What was the social impact of Jacob Riis's book How the Other Half Lives quizlet?
What was the social impact of Jacob Riis's book How the Other Half Lives? Laws were passed to improve conditions for the poor.
What did Jacob Riis want to do?
Though his father had hoped that Jacob would have a literary career, Jacob wanted to be a carpenter. When he was 16, he became fond of Elisabeth Gjørtz, the 12-year-old adopted daughter of the owner of the company for which he worked as an apprentice carpenter. The father disapproved of the boy's blundering attentions, and Riis was forced to travel to Copenhagen to complete his carpentry apprenticeship. Riis returned to Ribe in 1868 at age 19. Discouraged by poor job availability in the region and Gjørtz's disfavor of his marriage proposal, Riis decided to emigrate to the United States.
Who was Jacob Riis?
Jacob August Riis ( / riːs /; May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, " muckraking " journalist and social documentary photographer. He contributed significantly to the cause of urban reform in America at the turn of the twentieth century.
What did Riis write about?
Riis was able to write about both the rich and impoverished immigrant communities. He did his job well and was promoted to editor of a weekly newspaper, the News. However, this newspaper, the periodical of a political group, soon became bankrupt. Simultaneously, Riis got a letter from home which related that both his older brothers, an aunt, and Elisabeth Gjørtz's fiancé had died. Riis wrote to Elisabeth to propose, and with $75 of his savings and promissory notes, he bought the News company.
Why was Riis criticized?
Riis was also criticized for his depiction of African Americans. He was said to portray them as falsely happy with their lives in the "slums" of New York City. This criticism didn't come until much later after Riis had died. His writing was overlooked because his photography was so revolutionary in his early books.
How much did Riis pay for his camera?
Nagle suggested that Riis should become self-sufficient, so in January 1888 Riis paid $25 for a 4×5 box camera, plate holders, a tripod and equipment for developing and printing. He took the equipment to the potter's field cemetery on Hart Island to practice, making two exposures.
Why did immigrants like Riis live in cramped conditions?
Libertarian economist Thomas Sowell (2001) argues that immigrants during Riis's time were typically willing to live in cramped, unpleasant circumstances as a deliberate short-term strategy that allowed them to save more than half their earnings to help family members come to America, with every intention of relocating to more comfortable lodgings eventually. Many tenement renters physically resisted the well-intentioned relocation efforts of reformers like Riis, states Sowell, because other lodgings were too costly to allow for the high rate of savings possible in the tenements. Moreover, according to Sowell, Riis's own personal experiences were the rule rather than the exception during his era: like most immigrants and low-income persons, he lived in the tenements only temporarily before gradually earning more income and relocating to different lodgings.
Where was Jacob Riis born?
Early life. Born in Ribe, Denmark, Jacob Riis was the third of the 15 children (one of whom, an orphaned niece, was fostered) of Niels Edward Riis, a schoolteacher and writer for the local Ribe newspaper, and Carolina Riis ( née Bendsine Lundholm), a homemaker. Among the 15, only Jacob, one sister, and the foster sister survived into ...
Who Was Jacob Riis?
Jacob Riis immigrated to the United States in 1870. After a series of odd jobs, he became a police reporter, a job he enhanced with his natural photographic skills. Led by his interest in New York City's tenement life and the harsh conditions people living there endured, he used his camera as a tool to bring about change. With his 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, Riis put those living conditions on display in a package that wasn't to be ignored, and his career as a social reformer was launched.
What did Riis carry with him?
All he carried with him was $40 and a locket containing a hair from a girl he loved. Upon his arrival in New York City, Riis struggled his way through various jobs — ironworker, farmer, bricklayer, salesman — all jobs that gave him an up-close look at the less prosperous side of the American urban environment.
What was the book of Riis about?
In 1890, Riis’ book of social criticism, How the Other Half Lives, was published and perusing its pages proved to be an eye-opening experience for the reader. The book presented statistics about New York’s poverty ...
Who does Riis blame for the conditions of the other half?
Who does Riis blame for the conditions of the other half? Chapter 1 1. Riis blames the greed of the landlords for the condition of the tenements.
What social impact did Jacob Riis have if any impact on America at all?
In Riis’s case, he made the public and powerful people more aware of the harsh conditions in which poor people in the cities lived. The attention that this brought helped to cause the Progressives to reform the way things were done in American cities.
Why did Jacob Riis take photographs?
While working as a police reporter for the New York Tribune, he did a series of exposés on slum conditions on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which led him to view photography as a way of communicating the need for slum reform to the public.
Was Jacob Riis successful?
It was because of men like Jacob Riis that this is so. He was also successful in getting playgrounds for children. And he helped establish centers for education and fun for older people. … Theodore Roosevelt, who later became president of the United States, called Riis the most useful citizen in New York City.
Who was Jacob Riis and what was his goal?
Riis’ goal was to bring to light the conditions of the poor living in the tenements and slums of New York City.
How did Jacob Riis learn photography?
Photographs. Riis was moved by what he saw in the neighborhood, and he taught himself basic photography and started taking a camera with him when he hit the streets at night.
Was Jacob Riis a immigrant?
Riis (1849–1914) was born in Ribe, Denmark. He immigrated to America at age twenty with hopes of one day marrying his teenage love, Elisabeth Nielsen .
What was Jacob Riis' job?
Riis eventually landed a reporting job in a neighborhood paper in 1873. He found his calling as a police reporter for the New York Tribune and Evening Sun, a role he mastered over a 23 year career. In this role he developed a deep, intimate knowledge of the workings of New York’s worst tenements, where block after block of apartments housed the millions of working-poor immigrants. Cramming in a room just 10 or 11 feet each way might be a whole family or a dozen men and women, paying ‘5 cents a spot’ – a spot on the floor to sleep.
Who is Jacob Riis?
Jacob A. Riis (1849-1914) Reporter, photographer, author, lecturer and social reformer. The most influential Danish – American of all time. Pioneer of photojournalism. Described as ‘America’s most useful citizen’ by President Theodore Roosevelt. One of the most influential journalists and social reformers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ...
What did Riis want to do?
Arguing that it is the environment that makes the person and anyone can become a good citizen given the chance, Riis wished to force reforms on New York’s police-operated poorhouses, building codes, child labor and city services.
What was the Riis hallmark?
Riis’ hallmark was exposing crime, death, child labor, homelessness, horrid living and working conditions and injustice in the slums of New York.
What does Riis mean by "I am no good at all as a photographer"?
Rather, he used photography as a means to an end ; to tell a story and, ultimately, spur people into action.
Where did Jacob Riis grow up?
Growing up in a small Medieval town in Denmark. Ribe in Denmark is known as Scandinavia’s oldest, and some say most charming, town. Jacob A. Riis was born here in 1849 and raised in a small two story house on Sortebrødregade (Black Friar Street). The house has been converted into the museum about his life and legacy.
What is the story of the Making of an American?
Riis recounted his own remarkable life story in The Making of An American (1901), his second national best-seller. It told his tale as a poor and homeless immigrant from Denmark; the love story with his wife; the hard-working reporter making a name for himself and making a difference; to becoming well-known, respected and a close friend of the President of the United States. Today, this is still a timeless story of becoming an American.
What did Jacob Riis do?
Unable to find a steady job, he worked as a farmhand, ironworker, brick-layer, carpenter, and salesman, and experienced the worst aspects of American urbanism--crime, sickness, squalor--in the low-rent tenements and lodging houses that would eventually inspire the young Danish immigrant to dedicate himself to improving living conditions for the city’s lower-class.
Why did Riis teach himself photography?
So, to help his readers truly understand the dehumanizing dangers of the immigrant neighborhoods he knew all too well , Riis taught himself photography and began taking a camera with him on his nightly rounds.
Who was the police commissioner of the New York Tribune?
Eventually, Riis became a police reporter for The New York Tribune, covering some of the city's most crime-ridden districts, a job that would would lead to fame and a friendship with police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, who called Riis "the best American I ever knew.".
Who is Jimmy Stamp?
Jimmy Stamp is a writer/researcher and recovering architect who writes for Smithsonian.com as a contributing writer for design.
Overview
Biography
Born in 1849 in Ribe, Denmark, Jacob Riis was the third of the 15 children (one of whom, an orphaned niece, was fostered) of Niels Edward Riis, a schoolteacher and writer for the local Ribe newspaper, and Carolina Riis (née Bendsine Lundholm), a homemaker. Among the 15, only Jacob, one sister, and the foster sister survived into the twentieth century. Riis was influenced by his …
Social attitudes
Riis's concern for the poor and destitute often caused people to assume he disliked the rich. However, Riis showed no sign of discomfort among the affluent, often asking them for their support. Although seldom involved with party politics, Riis was sufficiently disgusted by the corruption of Tammany Hall to change from being an endorser of the Democratic Party to endorse the Repu…
Criticism
Riis's sincerity for social reform has seldom been questioned, but critics have questioned his right to interfere with the lives and choices of others. His audience comprised middle-class reformers, and critics say that he had no love for the traditional lifestyles of the people he portrayed. Stange (1989) argues that Riis "recoiled from workers and working-class culture" and appealed primarily to the anxieties and fears of his middle-class audience. Swienty (2008) says, "Riis was quite imp…
Memorials
• Jacob Riis Park, located on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens; part of the Gateway National Recreation Area of New York City and New Jersey.
• Jacob Riis Triangle, in Richmond Hill, Queens
• Jacob Riis Playground, at Babbage and 116 Streets, 85 Ave, Queens
Writings
• How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1890.
• The Children of the Poor. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1892.
• Nibsy's Christmas. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1893.
Notes
1. ^ Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 570. ISBN 9780415252256.
2. ^ Pascal, pp. 10–11; Ware, p. 2.
3. ^ Ware, p. 5.
4. ^ Pascal, p. 12.
External links
• Works by Jacob Riis at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Jacob Riis at Internet Archive
• Works by Jacob Riis at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Jacob Riis photographs from the Museum of the City of New York
Who Was Jacob Riis?
Early Years
- Jacob August Riis was born on May 3, 1849, in Ribe, Denmark, and immigrated to the United States in 1870 on a steamship. All he carried with him was $40 and a locket containing a hair from a girl he loved. Upon his arrival in New York City, Riis struggled his way through various jobs — ironworker, farmer, bricklayer, salesman — all jobs that gave him an up-close look at the less pro…
'How The Other Half Lives'
- Riis’ unflinching photos appeared in books, newspapers and magazines, and before long they were used as tools for social reform. In 1890, Riis’ book of social criticism, How the Other Half Lives, was published and perusing its pages proved to be an eye-opening experience for the reader. The book presented statistics about New York’s poverty and contained drawings of the p…
Photographs
- Riis was moved by what he saw in the neighborhood, and he taught himself basic photography and started taking a camera with him when he hit the streets at night. In a stroke of good timing, flash photography had only recently been invented, and Riis became a pioneer in its use, employing the new technique to capture stark indoor and outdoor night scenes. The images he …
Impact on Society
- How the Other Half Lives was an instant success and had an immediate impact. Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, intent on improving life in New York, famously said to Riis, “I have read your book, and I have come to help.” Together Riis and Roosevelt walked around New York, with Riis showing the future president the deplorable conditions in wh...