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The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America
W. W. Norton
September 2008
On Sale: August 25, 2008
448 pages
ISBN: 0393060233
EAN: 9780393060232
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
Social reformer Jacob Riis made it impossible for Americans
to look the other way; now this inspiring biography
restores his greatness. Drawing on previously unexamined diaries and letters, The
Other Half marvelously re-creates the moving story of Jacob
Riis, the legendary Progressive reformer and muckraking
photographer. Born in 1849 in rural Denmark, Riis
immigrated to America in 1870 following a devastating
romantic breakup. Penniless and starving, Riis stumbled
into journalism, eventually becoming a charismatic police
reporter for the New York Tribune, where he befriended
Theodore Roosevelt and witnessed firsthand the appalling
tenement conditions of late nineteenth-century New York.
His resulting exposé, How the Other Half Lives, was the
first major American muckraking book. It brought Americans
in touch with their lost humanity, establishing a precedent
for Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Jane Addams, and Upton
Sinclair. Described by Roosevelt as "the ideal American,"
Riis died in 1914, mourned by millions, a celebrated hero.
Tom Buk-Swienty's long-awaited biography, a superb
evocation of the muckraking era, is a compelling work,
designed with 55 haunting images from Riis's own
photographic oeuvre. 55 illustrations.
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