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Jacob Riis
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Jacob August Riis was born on May 3rd, 1849 in Ribe Denmark, and died on May 26th, 1914 in Barre Massachusetts at the age of 65. He was of Danish descent. He was a journalist, photographer, and social reformer. President Theodore Roosevelt gave him and several others the nickname of muckraker which means undercover reporter. Riis was a police reporter for several New York newspapers. Riis came to America at the age of 21 in 1870.
He is most famous for his book called “How the Other Half Lives”. In the book he describes about how poor immigrates and their children lived their daily lives in terrible living and working conditions in New York City in the early 1900‘s. All of the immigrates lived and worked in tenements. The purpose of the book was to let everyone else see how poor the conditions of the immigrates were like. Immigrants had all kind of jobs from making sweaters, knee-pants, cloaks, cigars, jackets, shirts, and doing sewing. All of the jobs were cheap labor. Most of the employees were provided the necessary equipment for their work but others weren’t. sometimes girls were required to buy their apron and other items for them to do their job (Riis XX, 5). Not all the fathers were able to support their families by their selves with their salary alone, as the mothers the were forced to help them and even sometimes their children helped as well. For example men, women, and children work together seven days a week in these cheerless tenements to make a livin...
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