Jacob Riis in the context of "Progress and Poverty"

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⭐ Core Definition: Jacob Riis

Jacob August Riis (/riːs/ REESS; May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, "muck-raking" journalist, and social documentary photographer. He contributed significantly to the cause of urban reform in the United States of America at the turn of the twentieth century. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific writings and photography.

Riis endorsed the implementation of "model tenements" in New York with the help of humanitarian Lawrence Veiller. He was an early proponent of the newly practicable casual photography and one of the first to adopt photographic flash. While living in New York, Riis experienced poverty and became a police reporter writing about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to alleviate the poor living conditions of poor people by exposing these conditions to the middle and upper classes.

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👉 Jacob Riis in the context of Progress and Poverty

Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy is an 1879 book by social theorist and economist Henry George. It is a treatise on the questions of why poverty accompanies economic and technological progress and why economies exhibit a tendency toward cyclical boom and bust. George uses history and deductive logic to argue for a logical solution focusing on the capture of economic rent from natural resources and land titles.

Progress and Poverty, George's first book, sold several million copies, becoming one of the highest selling books of the late 1800s.It helped spark the Progressive Era and a worldwide social reform movement around an ideology now known as Georgism. Jacob Riis, for example, explicitly marks the beginning of the Progressive Era awakening as 1879 because of the date of this publication. The Princeton historian Eric F. Goldman wrote this about the influence of Progress and Poverty:

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Jacob Riis in the context of Jacob Riis Park

Jacob Riis Park, also called Jacob A. Riis Park and Riis Park, is a seaside park on the southwestern portion of the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It lies at the foot of the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, east of Fort Tilden, and west of Neponsit and Rockaway Beach. Originally run by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it later became part of the Jamaica Bay Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area, and is managed by the National Park Service (NPS). It features an extensive sand beach along the Atlantic Ocean coastline and several historic Art Deco structures.

In 1912, the city, urged on by social journalist Jacob Riis, acquired the land for a park initially called Seaside Park and later Telawana Park. In 1914, the park was renamed for Riis. During World War I, the site was used as the Rockaway Naval Air Station, one of the first naval air stations in the United States and, in 1919, the launching point for the first transatlantic flight. The Art Deco-style bathhouse was built in 1932, but much of the park's infrastructure and approaches were built between 1936 and 1937 by New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, who envisioned it as a getaway for New York City residents, like Jones Beach State Park further east on Long Island. The park was built along with the Marine Parkway Bridge and the Belt Parkway in nearby Brooklyn, which provided access to the park.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Progress and Poverty ← Jacob Riis Park
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Danish-American → Reform movement → Muckraker → Social documentary photography → Apartment building → Lawrence Veiller → Flash (photography) →