Jacob Riss
Police Photoreporter
Social Documentary Photographer

Hello steemians.
Happy Saturday to everyone.

Once again my weekly dedication is here and this time with a special guest.
I was studying photographers to expand my knowledge and for my new exhibition, when I saw a frame (black& white of course) that is really close in my techniques and frames. Everyone knows that I really love black & white of course and that I am a street photographer.

This frame was the reason to start my study for this photographer and his work.

Our new weekly dedication will speak for Jacob Riis ( 1849 - 1914 ) Police & Social Documentary Photographer.

Jacob Riis (1949-1914) was a Danish-American social reformer. He always wanted to change the world, and reveal the true image of life. He was the third of the 15 children of Niels Edward Riis and Carolina Riis though he was the only son and two sisters of him which survived into the twentieth century.

His main influence was his father who persuaded him to read and improve his English reading novels and magazines.

His journey starts in Denmark, where he wanted to be a carpenter. His father had hoped that Jacob would have a literary career, but this was not what Jacob did. He was 16 when he became fond of Elisabeth Gjørtz, the 12-year-old adopted daughter of the owner of the company for which he worked as an apprentice carpenter. His father forced him to complete his carpentry apprenticeship in Copenhagen and a few years later, at age 19 he returned back. His returning was not the best moment of his life. Gjørtz was not so happy with his daughter's marriage proposal, so this forced Riis to emigrate to the United States.

Many years have passed with Riis change the jobs almost every year till he finds a job with a news bureau in New York City in 1873.
With his photos, he wanted to capture the reality of nightlife but this was not easy to be done because of the medium. Those days the mediums wanted much time in order to capture light, so much more by night. And this was the main problem for Riis and his work.

Those days there was a German innovation with technical light (known as flash powder). A mixure of magnesium with potassium chlorate and some antimony sulfide for added stability. This powder was used in a pistol-like device that fired cartridges.

This helped him to capture photos by night with a faster shutter than needed.

Jacob Riis, Bandits' Roost (1890)

Recognizing the potential of the flash, Riis started to socialise with other amateur photographers the benefits of flash. By the late of 1880, Riis with his friends begun photographing the interiors and exteriors of New York slums with a flash...

Those photos are captures of an early access of flash photography.

His first thoughts on those shots were in order to use them to dramatize his lectures and books. A high known example of this uses are the photos used in "How the Other Half Lives" which helped to make this book popular. (You can find the book here)

“is dark enough, drawn from the plain public records, to send a chill to any heart.”

His revelations and writing style was that ensures a wide readership. Theodore Roosevelt, (U.S. President, 1901) responded personally to Riis: "I have read your book, and I have come to help".
This was what made Riis famous and of course the book "How the Other Half Lives" stimulated the first significant New York legislation to curb tenement house evils.
Roosevelt offered to help, so in the year 1985 he asked Riis to show him nighttime police work. During their first tour, they found that nine of ten patrolmen were missing. Riis wrote about this for the next day's newspaper. Roosevelt closed the police-managed lodging rooms which Riis was suffered during his first years in New York.

Riis's sense of justice affected Roosevelt deeply, that he became friend for life with Riis.

Jacob Riis, whom I am tempted to call the best American I ever knew, although he was already a young man when he came hither from Denmark"

The year 1901 (the year of Roosevelt became U.S. President) Riis, wrote his autobiography, The Making of an American which is the most noteworthy of his many other books.
After Roosevelt became president, he wrote a tribute to Riis. It was started like that:

Recently a man, well qualified to pass judgment, alluded to Mr. Jacob A. Riis as "the most useful citizen of New York". Those fellow citizens of Mr. Riis who best know his work will be most apt to agree with this statement. The countless evils which lurk in the dark corners of our civic institutions, which stalk abroad in the slums, and have their permanent abode in the crowded tenement houses, have met in Mr. Riis the most formidable opponent ever encountered by them in New York City.

The most important effort by Riis was his exposure of the condition of New York's water supply.

Some Things We Drink

Was the title of his five-column story written in the 21 August 1891, at the New York Evening Sun. He included 6 photographs, but they have been lost.

I took my camera and went up in the watershed photographing my evidence wherever I found it. Populous towns sewered directly into our drinking water. I went to the doctors and asked how many days a vigorous cholera bacillus may live and multiply in running water. About seven, said they. My case was made.

The story resulted in the purchase by New York City of areas around the New Croton Reservoir, and may well have saved New Yorkers from an epidemic of cholera.

Some of his books are listed below
-How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York
-The Battle with the Slum
-Out of Mulberry Street: Stories of Tenement Life in New York City