Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

Born in Ribe, Denmark, in 1849, he immigrated to the United States as a young man and struggled through years of poverty before finding work as a reporter in New York. Those early experiences shaped his lifelong interest in the lives of poor and working-class immigrants.

He became widely known for How the Other Half Lives (1890), a book that combined reporting with photographs to reveal overcrowded and unsafe conditions in the city’s tenements. His work is often remembered as an important early example of social documentary journalism and photography, aimed not just at informing readers but at pushing for change.

Beyond writing and photographing, he was active in public reform efforts, especially around housing and urban conditions in New York. Today he is remembered as a major voice in progressive-era reform and as a writer whose work helped many readers see city poverty in a new way.