Born in Ribe, Denmark, Jacob Riis was the third of the 15 children (one of whom, an orphaned niece, was fostered) of Niels Edward Riis, a schoolteacher and writer for the local Ribe newspaper, and Carolina Riis ("née" Bendsine Lundholm), a homemaker. Among the 15, only Jacob, one sister, and the foster sister survived into the twentieth century. Riis was influenced by his father, whose school Riis delighted in disrupting. His father persuaded him to read (and improve his English via) Charles Dickens's magazine "All the Year Round" and the novels of James Fenimore Cooper.