How Did Jacob Riis Move To The City In The Late 1800s

Throughout the mid 1800s to the late 1800S, millions of immigrants flooded into the United States hoping for a new life. Most of them faced a difficult journey by ship to enter “The Land of Opportunities”. Many of the immigrants moved to the city in search for jobs because machines were replacing farm laborers in the rural parts of the country. Along with the immigrants, thousands of other families moved to the city. This rapid increase of city dwellers led to new inventions and technologies. Skyscrapers, elevators, mass transit or public transportation, and forms of mass culture such as amusement parks, department stores, newspapers, and state and national parks. Along with these new innovations and technology, the swift expansion of city population also brought poor housing and working conditions. City residents were living poor and unhealthy lives. However, thanks to muckrakers such as Jacob Riis, the public were able to see how many city residents were living. His exposure of the terrible conditions people in the city lived in sparked many others to work for change in the city. Before Jacob Riis took picture and

After various jobs such as ironworker, farmer, bricklayer, salesman, in 1873, Riis became a police reporter. He worked in an impoverished slum and crime ridden neighborhoods. Previously he has worked as a news reporter for a different newspaper and after receiving the job as a police reporter, he changed his style of writing to a more melodramatic style, becoming one of the earliest reformist journalist of the time. He used the stories of the slum dwellers to write an article for people to visual what life was like to live in a tenement neighborhood. He also took many pictures of the slums so public was able to actually see how poor the housing conditions were in tenement houses. His photographs were often present in newspaper and magazines