9. Jacob Riis’ Original Notebooks

Fortunately for historians and us, Riis kept impeccable care of his notebooks, in contrast to the photographs. The exhibition showcases a few originals. One is a pocket diary from 1875, seen in the first part of the exhibition. Shown is Riis’ final entry, after four years of writing in several journals, covering the early years of his immigration to the United States. Riis was just 21 when he crossed the Atlantic in 1871, hoping to make a life for himself, establishing a career to convince his love, Elisabeth, to marry him. As the exhibition describes, the journals “recount a period of struggle and painful self-doubt.”

In the exhibition, his journal is open to the last few pages, where he expresses hope that Elisabeth will now say yes to his offer in marriage: “In God’s name I wish and hope most tenderly that the answer will be favorable. I would then work like – Oh, hard, hard, as ever before to earn competency and go and claim her. If not, I think that in dead earnest I shall go to South America next year. I am tired of this country if I cannot reach my only aim and object of so many long years.”

Elisabeth did say yes and Riis stayed in New York City for the rest of his life.