The Making of an American

New York: Macmillan, 1903. Later printing. Hardcover. Fair. Octavo, 443pp., illustrated. A worn copy in fair condition, with the inner hinges cracked and corners worn, but internally clean. A singificant association copy, SIGNED by Riis on the front free endpaper and INSCRIBED to Danish-American pianist and interpreter of Scandinavian music Inga Hoegsbro Christensen (before she took her married name): "Inga Hoegsbro from her friend Jacob A Riis." Laid-in are two postcards from Riis to Hoegsbro, one dated in December 1913, and another whose date is unclear. The first postcard, with a new year's theme, reads: "A Happy New Year to you and may we both steer clear of illness in 1914. [??] was sick nearly all summer. Let us hope it was the darkness before the dawn and that all will be O. K. with the lengthening days. Sincerely yours, Jacob A. Riis." A bittersweet and foreboding note, as Riis would die that following May, just six months after this letter was mailed. Hoegsbro has added a note in ink on the postcard, which reads "Always keep from my dear old Papa Jacob Riis. A friend in need for years." The other postcard's front depicts the St. Joseph Sanitarium & Bath House in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, where Riis was staying during the end of December 1913, after feeling ill for most of the autumn. The small blank area on the front of the card is entirely covered in Riis's writing, and as it is in Danish and a rather difficult hand, we are unable to reproduce or translate it here. On the verso, next to where Riis had inked Hoegsbro's address, Hoegsbro has written: "Last card from dear Papa Jacob Riis." The book's endleaves are covered in news clippings related to Riis and a few Danish poems. On the rear endpaper is a typed document written by Christensen entitled "A Tribute to Jacob Riis. (Paid by Inga Hoegsbro-Christensen on the Occasion of the Golden Anniversary of the Founding of the Jacob Riis Settlement on Henry Street.)" Praising Riis for his help in her early career, she concludes her remarks by noting: "When I begged from time to time to be allowed to repay [Riis] for his goodness to me, his answer was always the same: Would I help some of his friends among the poor with my music? I do not need to add how happy I was to be always at his service as pianist and inscructor in his settlement work." Accompanying the book and these postcards is an inscribed copy (to one Frank Burton) of Inga Hoegsbro Christensen's autobiography, "Inga...Play." In it, she mentions Riis several dozen times, describing him as "Papa Jacob," the figure who helped her get settled in the United States, and who introduced her to the influential New Yorkers who would help her achieve fame and success as a musician and interpreter of Scandinavian music. Altogether, despite the book's regrettable condition, a fantastic association copy of Riis's memoir, which sheds great light on his identity as a Danish-American, and a friend to struggling artists of all backgrounds.