Editing Jacob Riis (section)

===Books===
An eighteen-page article by Riis, ''[[How the Other Half Lives]]'', appeared in the Christmas 1889 edition of ''Scribner's Magazine''. It included nineteen of his photographs rendered as line drawings. Its publication brought an invitation to expand the material into an entire book.<ref name="alland29" /> Riis, who favored [[Henry George]]'s [[Georgism|'single tax' system]] and absorbed George's theories and analysis, used that opportunity to attack landlords "with Georgian fervor".<ref>Riis, Jacob A. "The Unemployed: a Problem". (In Peters, John P., ''Labor and Capital'', a chapter on "Socialism and the Single Tax", pp. 425–31. New York, 1902. 12°. Questions of the day, no. 98.)</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Burrows | first = Edwin | title = Gotham : a history of New York City to 1898 | url = https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195140491 | url-access = registration | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = New York | year = 1999 | isbn = 0195140494 | page = [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195140491/page/1183 1183]}}</ref>

Riis had already been thinking of writing a book and began writing it during nights. (Days were for reporting for the ''[[New York Sun]]'', evenings for public speaking.) ''How the Other Half Lives'', subtitled "Studies Among the Tenements of New York", was published in 1890. The book reused the eighteen line drawings that had appeared in the ''Scribner's'' article and also seventeen reproductions using the [[halftone]] method,<ref name="alland30">Alland, p. 30.</ref> and thus "[representing] the first extensive use of halftone photographic reproductions in a book".<ref>[[Martin Parr]] and [[Gerry Badger]], ''The Photobook: A History'' vol.&nbsp;1 (London: Phaidon, 2004; {{ISBN|978-0-7148-4285-1}}), 53.</ref> (The magazine ''Sun and Shade'' had done the same for a year or so beginning 1888.<ref name="alland30" />)

''How the Other Half Lives'' sold well and was much quoted. Reviews were generally good, although some reviewers criticized it for oversimplifying and exaggerating.<ref name="alland30" /> Riis attributed the success to a popular interest in social amelioration stimulated by [[William Booth]]'s ''[[In Darkest England and the Way Out]]'', and also to [[Ward McAllister]]'s ''Society as I Have Found It'', a portrait of the moneyed class.<ref>Alland, pp. 30–31 (although Alland misattributes ''In Darkest England'' to [[Charles Booth (philanthropist)|Charles Booth]]).</ref> The book encouraged imitations such as ''Darkness and Daylight; or, Lights and Shadows of New York Life'' (1892), which somehow appropriated Riis's own photographs.<ref name="alland31">Alland, p. 31.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Campbell|first1=Helen|title=Darkness and Daylight| year=1897 |url=https://archive.org/stream/darknessdaylight00campuoft#page/n15/mode/2up|page=xii| publisher=Hartford, Conn. Hartford Pub. Co }}</ref>

''Children of the Poor'' (1892) was a sequel in which Riis wrote of particular children that he had encountered.<ref name="alland31" />

''The Making of an American''<ref>{{cite news|title=Jacob A. Riis|newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 19, 1903}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Riis |first1=Jacob A. |title=The Making of an American: An Autobiography |journal=The Outlook |date=March 2, 1901 |volume=67 |issue=9 |pages=496–510 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2989333&view=1up&seq=508}}</ref> (1901), an autobiography, follows Riis's early life in Denmark and his struggles as an immigrant in the United States. The book also describes how Riis became a reporter and how his work in immigrant enclaves kindled his desire for social reforms. Riis organized his autobiography chronologically, but each chapter illustrates a broader theme that America is a land of opportunity for those who are bold enough to take chances on their future. The autobiography is mostly straightforward, but Riis is not sure if his past should be told as a "love story", "if I am, to tell the truth ... I don't see how it can be helped."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Riis|first1=Jacob|title=The Making of an American|date=1970|publisher=MacMillan|location=London|page=2|edition=Revised}}</ref> Although much of it is biographical, Riis also lays out his opinions about how immigrants like himself can succeed in the United States. Chapter 7 is distinct because Riis's wife, Elizabeth, describes her life in Denmark before she married Riis.

Whereas ''How the Other Half Lives'', and some of Riis's other books received praise from critics, he received a mixed reception for his autobiography. A ''New York Times'' reviewer dismissed it as a vanity project written for "close and intimate friends". He admired Riis's "dogged pluck" and "indomitable optimism", but dismissed an "almost colossal egotism—made up of equal parts of vanity and conceit" as a major characteristic of the author. The reviewer anticipated the book would be "eagerly read by that large majority who have a craving and perennial interest in the personal and emotional incidents" within Riis's life.<ref>{{cite news|title=Mr. Riis's Autobiography|newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 7, 1901}}</ref> Riis anticipated such a critique, "I have never been able to satisfactorily explain the great run 'How The Other Half Lives' had ... like Topsy, it grew."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Riis|title=The Making of an American|page=199}}</ref> Other newspapers, such as the ''New York Tribune'', published kinder reviews.<ref>{{cite news|title=Jacob A. Riis, The Story of His Americanization|work=New York Tribune|date=January 31, 1902}}</ref> Two years later, another reviewer reported that Riis's story was widely reprinted and dubbed him as one of the "best-known authors and ... one of the most popular lecturers in the United States."<ref>{{cite news|title=Jacob A. Riis|work=The New York Times|date=December 19, 1903}}</ref>

The value of Riis's autobiography lies in the description of his origins as a social reformer. His early experiences in Ribe gave Riis a yardstick with which to measure tenement dwellers' quality of life. The account of the development of his powers of observation through his experiences as a poor immigrant lent authenticity to his news articles and larger works. Its themes of self-sufficiency, perseverance, and material success are prime examples of an archetype that successful Europeans like Riis used to demonstrate the exceptional opportunities that seem to exist only in the United States. In spite of its triumphalist outlook, ''The Making of an American'' remains useful as a source for students of immigration history and sociology who want to learn more about the author of ''How The Other Half Lives'' and the social reform movement that he helped to define.