Seealso: Documentary Photography; History of
Photography: Nineteenth-Century Foundations; So-
cial Representation
Biography
Born in Ribe, Denmark, 3 May 1849. Apprenticed as a
carpenter, but unable to find enough work; emigrated
to the United States 4 June 1870; made attempt to
survive in New York City then wandered through Penn-
sylvania and upstate New York working as a woodcut-
ter, carpenter, farmer, furniture salesman, and miner;
returned to New York in 1873; attempted to sell books,
then took a job with the New York News Association;
on 20 May 1874, went to work as editor of theSouth
Brooklyn News; bought the paper then sold it to political
factions for large profit; 1878 became police reporter for
theNew York Tribune; hired photographers in 1887;
bought first camera in January 1888; converted photo-
graphs into lantern slides and formed lecture business;
moved fromTribuneto theNew York Sunin November
1890; apparently stopped making photographs 1898;
resigned as reporter to become writer and lecturer in
1901; left New York for Massachusetts 1913. Died on
26 May 1914 in Barre, Massachusetts.
Selected Works
‘‘Flashes from the Slums,’’New York Sun12 February 1888
‘‘How the Other Half Lives,’’Scribner’s, Christmas 1889
How the Other Lives, 1890
Children of the Poor, 1892
Nibsy’s Christmas, 1893
Out of Mulberry Street, 1898
A Ten Years War, 1900
The Battle With the Slum, 1902
Children of the Tenements, 1903
The Peril and Preservation of the Home, 1903
Is There a Santa Claus? 1904
Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen, 1904
The Old Town, 1909
Hero Tales of the Far North, 1910
Neighbors, 1914
Christmas Stories(anthology) 1923Further Reading
Allend, Alexander, Sr.Jacob A. Riis: Photographer and
Citizen. Millerton: Aperture, 1974.
Hales, Peter B.Silver Cities: The Photography of American
Urbanization, 1839–1915. Philadelphia: Temple Univer-
sity Press, 1984.
Hassner, Rune,Jacob A. Riis: Social Reporter with Camera.
Laholm, Sweden: Lucida Pocket, 1970.
Lane, James B.Jacob A. Riis and the American City. Port
Washington and London: Kennikat, 1974.
Doherty, Robert J.The Complete Photographic Work of
Jacob A. RiisNew York: Macmillan, 1981.
Ware, Louise.Jacob A. Riis: Police Reporter, Reformer,
Useful Citizen. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1938.
Riis, Jacob A.The Making of an American. University
Press of the Pacific, 2003.HERB RITTS
American
Herb Ritts was born in Los Angeles in 1952, the son
of a successful furniture storeowner, and he seemed
destined to follow into the family business. He grad-
uated in 1975 from Bard College in upstate New
York, with a degree in economics, and returned to
Los Angeles. There he worked in the family business,
selling rattan furniture and other props to movie
studios. It was during this time period, however,
that he began to photograph his friends, and he
received his first professional assignment in 1979
shooting stills for the movieChamp. Just a few
years later, Ritts was considered by many to be one
of the leading photographers and commercial/music
video directors of the late twentieth century.
Ritts began taking pictures professionally in 1980
and quickly earned a world-renowned reputation as
one of the major forces in contemporary fashion,
celebrity, and fine arts photography. Ritts himself
attributed his first success to shots of then-
unknown actor Richard Gere taken on a desert
excursion that ended with a flat tire. It was the
tender machismo captured in the photographs of
the young Gere that launched Ritts’s career as a
commercial photographer and Gere’s career in
films such asAmerican Gigolo(1980). While shoot-
ing for Andy Warhol’sInterviewmagazine in 1985,
Ritts exhibited his photographs in a gallery setting
for the first time in a three-person show titledWork-
ing in L.A.; since then, his work has been showcased
consistently in galleries around the world. FromRITTS, HERB