Jacob August Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, muckraking journalist, and pioneer of social documentary photography. Born in Ribe, Denmark, he emigrated to the United States in 1870. He became famous for his investigative reporting on the living conditions of the urban poor in New York City, particularly in the slums of the Lower East Side. His work, most notably 'How the Other Half Lives' (1890), used photography and journalism to advocate for social reform, housing improvements, and better education for immigrants. He is considered one of the first photojournalists to use images as a tool for social change.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
Jacob A. Riis: Photographer & Citizen1993 · Aperture · book · EnglishISBN 0893815276Photographs by Riis; text by Alexander Alland, Sr.; Preface by Ansel Adams.
