<p>&ldquo;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&mdash;but all that had gone before.&rdquo; &mdash;Jacob Riis, <em>The Making of an American</em></p><p>Journalist Jacob Riis wrote his autobiography, <em>The Making of an American</em>, in 1901, a personal story about his and America&rsquo;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.</p><p>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.</p>