September, 1912
I believe I have fulfilled what I was needed to do. I have written various books opening the eyes of people to what the slums really are. I have reformed what was in need of reforming. Though there are still many housing and work conditions that are dreadful, America realizes her duty to care for the immigrants, her poor, her homeless, and the deprived.
Over the years, I befriended Theodore Roosevelt, and we have remained close all this time. My dear Elisabeth died in 1905, eleven years after the birth of our last child, Roger. But I found comfort in my second wife, Mary, whom I married five years ago. I used photography as a way to show New Yorkers what tenements actually were, and who actually inhabited them, and what their living conditions were really like. I believe I found what it was that I needed to do, and I did it. I have fulfilled my promise of reform from long, long ago when I was one of those immigrants living in deplorable conditions: my dog is avenged.

Jacob Riis