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Jacob Riis: Reporter and Reformer
Contributor(s): Pascal, Janet B. (Author)

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ISBN: 0195145275     ISBN-13: 9780195145274
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE: $34.60  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: December 2005
* Out of Print *

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Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography - Historical
- Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography - Political
Dewey: B
LCCN: 2005007757
Age Level: 12-17
Grade Level: 7-12
Series: Oxford Portraits
Physical Information: 0.6" H x 6.4" W x 9.28" L (1.03 lbs) 176 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic
- Cultural Region - Northeast U.S.
- Geographic Orientation - New York
- Locality - New York, N.Y.
Features: Bibliography, Ikids, Illustrated, Index, Table of Contents
Review Citations: Booklist 06/01/2006 pg. 94
School Library Journal 07/01/2006 pg. 122
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2006 pg. 428 - Below Average, With Minor Flaw
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Jacob Riis (1849-1914) was born in Denmark and emigrated to America at the age of 21. After several years of poverty, he found work as a police reporter, which took him into the worst of New York's ghettos and tenements. Appalled by the conditions he found there, he began to use the primitive
new flash technology to photograph the dark places that had never before been so graphically exposed. The resulting book, How the Other Half Lives, brought to life an entire reform movement. Riis was a staunch ally in the young Theodore Roosevelt's battle to reform the New York police, breaking the
brutal system of corruption and graft that had prevented the possibility of any real change in poor neighborhoods. Riis's activism involved him in such vital current controversies as hostility toward immigration, the growing gulf between rich and poor, the relative importance of heredity and
environment, the need for adequate public schools, conflicts between social reform and personal freedom, and police brutality. But at the same time, his life raises some thought-provoking moral questions, because his compassion was flawed by an underlying prejudice; his writings are marred by a
clear underlying conviction of the superiority of white Protestants, and he speaks with condescension and occasional scorn of other races and religions. He remained an active reformer all his life, founding a settlement house, writing several more books, most notably The Children of the Poor, and
maintaining a taxing schedule of lecture tours. This biography includes a picture essay of Riis' photographs as well as, 35 black-and-white illustrations, a chronology, further reading, and an index.

Oxford Portraits are informative and insightful biographies of people whose lives shaped their times and continue to influence ours. Based on the most recent scholarship, they draw heavily on primary sources, including writings by and about their subjects. Each book is illustrated with a wealth of
photographs, documents, memorabilia, framing the personality and achievements of its subject against the backdrop of history.

 
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