Riis, Jacob August

Riis, Jacob August (rēs) [key], 1849–1914, Danish-American journalist and social reformer, b. Denmark. He emigrated to the United States in 1870. In 1877 he became a police reporter for the New York Tribune and later for the New York Evening Sun. His reports on slum dwellings and abuses of lower-class urban life culminated in his first book, How the Other Half Lives (1890), and earned him the friendship of Theodore Roosevelt. Riis founded a pioneer settlement house in New York (named for him in 1901). His association with the public park and playground movements was commemorated by the Jacob Riis Park on Long Island.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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