Jacob Riis

“Yet even from Hell's Kitchen had I not long before been driven forth with my camera by a band of angry women, who pelted me with brickbats and stones on my retreat, shouting at me never to come back.... The children know generally what they want and they go for it by the shortest cut. I found that out, whether I had flowers to give or pictures to take. . . Their determination to be "took" the moment the camera hove into sight, in the most striking pose they could hastily devise, was always the most formidable bar to success I met." That is an excerpt from Riis’ book Children of the Poor. Jacob Riis was a journalist and photographer in the late 1800’s. Many considered him to be a bit of a muckraker. His goal was to take photographs to back up his writing and allow other Americans to see what was really going on in the country. Riis used words and images to reach the souls of middle class Americans and saved the lives of countless fellow immigrants.
Jacob Riis was born in Ri...