Jacob A. Riis
Born: 01-01-1849
Jacob A. Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, journalist, and photographer, renowned for his pioneering work in documenting and improving the living conditions of the urban poor in New York City. Through his influential book "How the Other Half Lives," Riis used photography and vivid prose to expose the harsh realities of tenement life, garnering public attention and prompting significant housing reforms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Book summaries for books written by Jacob A. Riis
Quotes
Look at the tenement house. There is a story in every one of its dark rooms, a tragedy in every one of its dark corners.
The policeman is the friend and helper of all in need, the friend of the poor, the oppressed, and the weak.
The whole tenement house system is a standing menace to the public health.
The selfishness of the rich and the greed of the poor have stood in the way of the solution of the tenement problem.
Poverty is not a crime, but it is a social blunder.
The tenements are a disgrace to civilization.
The boy of the tenements is a natural savage, for all the world like a young wolf.
The tenement house has become a social evil of the first magnitude.
The tenement house is a hotbed of crime, disease, and death.
The people that live in them are human beings, with all their possibilities of growth, of nobility, and of degradation.
The tenement is the most important factor in the problem of the city’s poor.
The tenement house is the home of the homeless.