GALLERY – Jacob A. Riis Museum

Sortebrødregade 3. The house in Ribe where Jacob A. Riis spent his childhood.

Jacob A. Riis grew up in the first house to the right. The Stender Collection, Museum of South West Jutland.

The young Jacob A. Riis scratched his signature on a window in Ribe.

Memorial plaque, Skolegade 1, Ribe. The inscription reads: In this house in 1849 Journalist and philanthropist Jacob A. Riis was born. Died in Barre Massachusetts, USA 1914 Faithfull son of his native town Named ‘America’s most useful citizen’ by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Elisabeth Riis (1853–1905) and Jacob A. Riis. After many years of unrequited love, Riis succeeded in having Elisabeth’s yes. He and Elisabeth got married and founded a family in the USA.

From his window Jacob A. Riis could glimpse the villa where Elisabeth lived.

Portrait of Jacob A. Riis, David Garber Photos, Broadway.

The house in Ribe where Jacob A. Riis spent his childhood.

‘For Riis’ words and photos – when placed in their proper context – provide the public historian with an extraordinary opportunity to delve into the complex questions of assimilation, labor exploitation, cultural diversity, social control, and middle-class fear that lie at the heart of the American immigration experience.’

Edward T. O’Donnell, Pictures vs. Words? Public History, Tolerance and the Challenge of Jacob Riis. Pg.8, The Public Historian, Vol 26, No 3 (Summer 2004).

The first edition of How the Other Half Lives was released in 1890.

‘They call that house the ‘Dirty Spoon’. It caught fire six times last winter, but could not burn. The dirt was so thick on the walls it smothered the fire.’

Jacob A. Riis

‘A long while after we took Mulberry Bend by the throat. More recently still Bone Alley and Kerosene Row were wiped out. In the place of these came parks and play-grounds, and with the sunlight came decency.’

Jacob A. Riis

‘We photographed it by flashlight on just such a visit. In a room not thirteen feet either way slept twelve men and women, two or three in bunks set in a sort of alcove, the rest on the floor.’

Jacob A. Riis

From the book “How the other half lives’.

Approx. 1890. Rear Tenement in Roosevelt Street.

‘Not a single vacant room was found there. The problem of the children becomes, in these swarms, to the last degree perplexing. It is not unusual to find half a hundred in a single tenement. I have counted as a many as one hundred and thirty-six in two adjoining houses in Crosby Street.’

Jacob A. Riis

‘We banished the swine that rooted in our streets, and cut forty thousand windows through to dark bed-rooms to let in the light, in a single year.’

Jacob A. Riis

‘Slept in that cellar four years’, approx. 1890.

Approx. 1890: Street Arabs, barelegged; Mulberry Street.

‘The worst of the rear tenements, which the Tenement House Committee of 1894 called ‘infant slaughter houses,’ on the showing that they killed one in five of all the babies born in them, were destroyed.’

Jacob A. Riis

‘… the truest charity begins in the home.’

Jacob A. Riis

Sortebrødregade 3. The house in Ribe where Jacob A. Riis spent his childhood.

Jacob A. Riis, New York, approx 1890.

Jacob A. Riis grew up in the first house to the right. The Stender Collection, Museum of South West Jutland.

The young Jacob A. Riis scratched his signature on a window in Ribe.

Memorial plaque, Skolegade 1, Ribe. The inscription reads: In this house in 1849 Journalist and philanthropist Jacob A. Riis was born. Died in Barre Massachusetts, USA 1914 Faithfull son of his native town Named ‘America’s most useful citizen’ by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Elisabeth Riis (1853–1905) and Jacob A. Riis. After many years of unrequited love, Riis succeeded in having Elisabeth’s yes. He and Elisabeth got married and founded a family in the USA.

From his window Jacob A. Riis could glimpse the villa where Elisabeth lived.

Portrait of Jacob A. Riis, David Garber Photos, Broadway.

The house in Ribe where Jacob A. Riis spent his childhood.

The first edition of How the Other Half Lives was released in 1890.

Gotham Court.

Two boys.

From the book “How the other half lives’.

Approx. 1890. Rear Tenement in Roosevelt Street.

‘Slept in that cellar four years’, approx. 1890.

Approx. 1890: Street Arabs, barelegged; Mulberry Street.

Dens of Death, Mulberry Bend.

Bohemian cigarmakers at work in tenement.

‘Bandits’ Roost’ 59½ Mulberry Street.

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