The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America

A century ago, Jacob A. Riis was a household name to most newspaper-reading Americans. Riis, a Danish immigrant who had risen from abject poverty to achieve the "American Dream," became the leading social critic, investigative reporter, and "muckraking" photo-journalist of the day. His powerful 1890 exposé of New York City's slum life entitled How the Other Half Lives propelled Riis to instant notoriety and even captured the attention of Theodore Roosevelt, who was then an up-and-coming New York City politician. Indeed, the two became life-long friends and partners in the Progressive-era campaign to reform urban poverty. Author and journalist Tom Buk-Swienty provides a much needed and updated biography of this once well-known crusading "social" photographer. A fellow Dane, the author currently resides in Ribe, the small Danish city in which Riis himself was born and grew to manhood. Fittingly, Buk-Swienty begins his biography in this quaint medieval town, exploring how its timeless village life and mores shaped the man Riis was later to become. In this setting, too, he examines the principal reason why Riis immigrated to America: to escape a failed romance with the woman of his dreams. In the US, Riis struggled to earn a living. He worked a variety of odd jobs, lived in homeless shelters, and even reached a point of near starvation. Buk-Swienty highlights how this precarious existence led Riis to a lifetime of social activism on behalf of his fellow poor and marginalized immigrants in late nineteenth-century New York City. The turning-point in Riis's life came in 1870, when he landed a job as a low-paid journalist at one of the city's daily newspapers. Riis went on to earn a name for himself (and a handsome salary) as a police reporter for the New York Tribune. He even married the woman who had spurned his earlier romantic overtures! Nevertheless, Riis spent much of his free time exploring the new medium of photography and how it could be used for the "social uplift" of the million or so immigrants who crowded New York City's dilapidated and over-crowded tenements. Armed with the newly developed "flash" unit, Riis was able to penetrate the darkest corners of New York City's wretched slums, especially that of Mulberry Street, and thus chronicle the lives of the urban poor. In the late 1880s, Riis began his famous "magic lantern" slide shows to horrified middle-class audiences, who in turn demanded sweeping urban renewal from complacent politicians. Beginning in 1890, moreover, Riis wrote a series of books, replete with powerful photographs, depicting "how the other half" of America lives. These created a decades-long "fire storm" of urban renewal and reform across America. This notoriety also transformed the crusading photo-journalist into an instant celebrity. Nevertheless, Riis never lost sight of his ultimate "American Dream": the dramatic improvement in the daily lives, working conditions, and living standards of America's urban poor. In

I first read the book in Danish. A cousin in Denmark sent it to me for my birthday. I enjoyed the book so much that I bought a copy in English to circulate among friends. Although I knew of Jakob Riis, I didn't know much about him. Now I do. His life had many unusual twists and turns. His marriage was so surprising. Read the book and you'll see why. Riis is an excellent example of how one person can make a difference in the lives of many. As he lay dying, his last days were covered by the nations press. It's curious how a person, so well known a century ago, is now unknown to most Americans. At the end of the book we find out that much of what is in the book was almost lost. Fate played a big part in Riis's life. Read the book!

Regardless of whether you have read "How the Other Half Lives," this biography of its author, reformer and muckraker Jacob Riis, will be an enjoyable and informative excursion into the past. The details of Riis' early life in Ribe, Denmark and his obsession with and eventual marriage to Elisabeth Giortz are engrossing. At age 21, Riis migrated to America where his struggle to survive in the streets of New York City motivated his lifelong efforts at reforming that city's tenement slums and helping those who lived in them. The Riis photographs that are included in the book capture the plight of the tenement dweller but are also works of art. Riis is the father of photojournalism, and the photographs are a wonderful record of his work. I particularly enjoyed the chapter that described Riis searching through the slums at midnight for photography subjects and using primitive flash equipment to get candid shots of the tenement dwellers. Tom Buk-Swienty, the author, apparently wrote this book in Danish. Some translations are an awkward chore to read. This translation by Annette Buk-Swienty is a wonderfully crafted English rendering. I highly recommend this biography of Jacob Riis.