The Making of an American, Illustrated

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When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it–but all that had gone before. –Jacob Riis, The Making of an American

Journalist Jacob Riis wrote his autobiography, The Making of an American, in 1901, a personal story about his and America’s past: his early life in Denmark, his struggles as an immigrant in the United States, and how he took advantage of the opportunities offered in America.

This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in immigrant stories, the history of the United States and New York, and social reform at the turn of the twentieth century.