Jacob Riis 1849 – 1914

Riis worked as a carpenter in Copenhagen before emigrating to the United States in 1870. When living here he lived in poverty. In 1877 Riis became a police reporter for the New York Tribune. Aware of what it was like to live in poverty, Riis was determined to use this opportunity to employ his journalistic skills to communicate this to the public. Riis was among the first photographers to use flash powder. Over the next twenty-five years Riis wrote and lectured on the problems of the poor. Riis also wrote over a dozen books including and took pictures truly capturing the slums and the life of the people in poverty