{"product_id":"the-other-half-the-life-of-jacob-riis-and-the-world-off-immigrant-america","title":"The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America","description":"xvi, 329 pp. 55 photographs. Drawing on previously unexamined diaries and letters, The Other Half marvelously re-creates the moving story of Jacob Riis, the legendary Progressive reformer and muckraking photographer. Born in 1849 in rural Denmark, Riis immigrated to America in 1870 following a devastating romantic breakup. Penniless and starving, Riis stumbled into journalism, eventually becoming a charismatic police reporter for the New York Tribune, where he befriended Theodore Roosevelt and witnessed firsthand the appalling tenement conditions of late nineteenth-century New York. His resulting exposé, How the Other Half Lives, was the first major American muckraking book. It brought Americans in touch with their lost humanity, establishing a precedent for Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Jane Addams, and Upton Sinclair. Described by Roosevelt as \"the ideal American,\" Riis died in 1914, mourned by millions, a celebrated hero. Tom Buk-Swienty's long-awaited biography, a superb evocation of the muckraking era, is a compelling work, designed with 55 haunting images from Riis's own photographic oeuvre.","brand":"W.W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40690005082182,"sku":"2337226","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1232\/9510\/products\/2337226.jpg?v=1694216986","url":"https:\/\/ym-demo.myshopify.com\/products\/the-other-half-the-life-of-jacob-riis-and-the-world-off-immigrant-america","provider":"Yesterday's Muse","version":"1.0","type":"link"}