Correspondence, speeches, lectures, articles, appointment books, financial records, radio scripts, family papers, genealogical material, deeds, indentures, clippings, scrapbooks, printed matter, and other papers relating chiefly to Riis's work as a journalist documenting the plight of urban slum dwellers in New York, N.Y., culminating in his book, How the Other Half Lives (1890). Includes his reports for the Council of Confederated Good Government Clubs and the Small Parks Committee, New York, N.Y. Family correspondents include his wives, Elisabeth D. Nielson Riis and Mary Phillips Riis; his daughter, Kate Riis; his sons, John Riis and Roger William Riis; his grandson, J. Riis Owre; and his granddaughter, Martha Riis Moore. Other correspondents include Felix Adler, Andrew Carnegie, Josephine Shaw Lowell, Theodore Roosevelt, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens.