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Exposing Hidden Worlds: How Jacob Riis' Photos Became Tools for Social Reform

Exposing Hidden Worlds: How Jacob Riis' Photos Became Tools for Social Reform book cover
Chapter One INTO THE SLUMS Late on a fall night in 1887 journalist Jacob Riis headed out into the slums on the Lower East Side of New York City Riis knew these dark streets and crowded buildings well For 10 years he had roamed the city looking for stories to write for the New York Tribune newspaper He mostly wrote about police news which included reporting on crimes fires and public health and safety Riis wrote that he had covered all the news that means trouble to some one 1 Many of the people Riis saw and wrote about were immigrants From 1881 to 1890 more than 5 million immigrants came to the United States Many were poor and uneducated and they struggled to find decent jobs Large numbers came through the port of New York and then stayed there By 1890 about 40 percent of the city’s population had been born in another country Riis too was an immigrant He was born and raised in Denmark After coming to the United States he had experienced bouts of poverty and knew what it was like to be homeless As a reporter he was determined to show other Americans what life was like in the slums of the country’s largest city Riis hoped that his reporting would lead the public and government officials to work together to improve living conditions for the people who were crowded together in run-down dirty apartment buildings called tenements