Ragtime

by

E. L. Doctorow

Jacob Riis Character Analysis

Jacob Riis is a historical character who crosses paths with Mameh, Tateh, and Little Girl. He also arranges an interview with Stanford White prior to White’s murder. Riis, an American immigrant from Belgium, is a newspaper reporter and a political activist who calls for improved sanitation and living conditions for the poor immigrants who live in the slums and tenements of American cities like New York.

Jacob Riis Quotes in Ragtime

The Ragtime quotes below are all either spoken by Jacob Riis or refer to Jacob Riis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The American Dream Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

At this time in history Jacob Riis, a tireless newspaper reporter and reformer, wrote about the need of housing for the poor. They lived too many to a room. There was no sanitation. The streets reeked of shit. Children died of mild colds or slight rashes. Children died on beds made from two kitchen chairs pushed together. They died on floors. Many people believed that filth and starvation and disease were what the immigrant got for his moral degeneracy. But Riis believed in airshafts. Air shafts, light and air, would bring health. He went around climbing dark stairs and knocking on doors and taking flash photos of indigent families in their dwellings. […] After he left, the family, not daring to move, remained in the position in which they had been photographed. They waited for life to change. They waited for their transformation.

Related Characters: Tateh (Baron Ashkenazy), Little Girl, Jacob Riis, Mameh
Page Number: 16-17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

[Morgan] heard from a native guide of the wisdom given to the great Osiris that there is a sacred tribe of heroes, a colony from the gods who are regularly born in every age to assist mankind. The idea stunned him. The more he thought about it the more palpably he felt it. It was upon his return to America that he began to think about Henry Ford. He had no illusions that Ford was a gentleman. He recognized him for a shrewd provincial, as uneducated as a piece of wood. But he thought he saw in Ford’s use of men a reincarnation of pharaohism. Not only that: he had studied photographs of the automobile manufacturer and had seen an extraordinary resemblance to Seti I, the father of the great Ramses and the best-preserved mummy to have been unearthed from the necropolis of Thebes in the Valley of the Kings.

Related Characters: Harry Houdini, John Pierpont Morgan , Henry Ford, Jacob Riis
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
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Jacob Riis Quotes in Ragtime

The Ragtime quotes below are all either spoken by Jacob Riis or refer to Jacob Riis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The American Dream Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

At this time in history Jacob Riis, a tireless newspaper reporter and reformer, wrote about the need of housing for the poor. They lived too many to a room. There was no sanitation. The streets reeked of shit. Children died of mild colds or slight rashes. Children died on beds made from two kitchen chairs pushed together. They died on floors. Many people believed that filth and starvation and disease were what the immigrant got for his moral degeneracy. But Riis believed in airshafts. Air shafts, light and air, would bring health. He went around climbing dark stairs and knocking on doors and taking flash photos of indigent families in their dwellings. […] After he left, the family, not daring to move, remained in the position in which they had been photographed. They waited for life to change. They waited for their transformation.

Related Characters: Tateh (Baron Ashkenazy), Little Girl, Jacob Riis, Mameh
Page Number: 16-17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

[Morgan] heard from a native guide of the wisdom given to the great Osiris that there is a sacred tribe of heroes, a colony from the gods who are regularly born in every age to assist mankind. The idea stunned him. The more he thought about it the more palpably he felt it. It was upon his return to America that he began to think about Henry Ford. He had no illusions that Ford was a gentleman. He recognized him for a shrewd provincial, as uneducated as a piece of wood. But he thought he saw in Ford’s use of men a reincarnation of pharaohism. Not only that: he had studied photographs of the automobile manufacturer and had seen an extraordinary resemblance to Seti I, the father of the great Ramses and the best-preserved mummy to have been unearthed from the necropolis of Thebes in the Valley of the Kings.

Related Characters: Harry Houdini, John Pierpont Morgan , Henry Ford, Jacob Riis
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis: