Ellis Island
Ellis Island: The Island
Before becoming the famous Ellis Island, it was a small piece of land, composed of two islands, perfect for the Lenni Lenape Indians to use to find sea food. In the 1600s, the Dutch purchased the land. Over the years, several people owned the deed to those islands. Nobody was sure they wanted it because it had once been used by pirates for execution. It was once used as a fort for the War of 1812, but Fort Gibson was never attacked. However, upon building the fort, they built up the islands to make them larger. By 1890, a place for processing immigrants was desperately needed. Ellis was the perfect place.
Ellis Island: The Immigration Center
STRUCTURE OF THE ISLAND:
Ellis Island, the immigration station opened in 1892. It was so elegant; many thought it was a resort hotel. Unfortunately, the building burned on June 15th, 1897. The new Ellis opened in 1900. Throughout all this, the islands were filled in with dirt, making them big enough to allow for more rooms and adding on more than 224 acres of land. Ellis had become a series of small islands, connected by narrow walkways. Island one was used for processing immigrants, while Islands two and three housed hospitals.
IMMIGRANTS:
Ellis stayed open until 1954. Over all that time, approximately twelve million immigrants passed through the island. At the peak of immigration in 1907, almost 12,000 immigrants came each day. Many that traveled to America were from Europe, including countries such as Russia, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Denmark and Armenia. After 1917, checks for health issues, literacy and money became mandatory. Most first and second class passengers were able to be checked on the boats. It was believed that anyone who had enough money to buy a higher class ticket was least likely to cause trouble later. The third class passengers, sometimes referred to as steerage were taken to Ellis Island. Before arriving there, they were split up by people called groupers into different groups; first by boat, then into women and children, and men, and then into smaller groups of about thirty or so. Immigrants were given boarding cards that they later showed to Ellis Island officials.
Once they came to Ellis, they were inspected for any kind of illnesses. Inspectors looked at everything including their heads and eyes and were even watched for signs of limping. If anyone found anything wrong, they marked on their clothes with chalk in order to alert someone else later on. Here is a list of some of the codes they used when using the chalk.
H= Heart
L= Lameness
X= Suspected Mental Illness
EX: Examine Farther
Ct: Trachoma
Then they were checked off by inspectors from ship manifests and asked questions by officials. They had to have at least $20 and, after 1917, they had to read a passage in their own language. In all, most immigrants stayed on the island for about 3-5 hours if they passed all of their inspections.
Those that did not pass were required to stay on the island or return to their home country. Most families decided to stay together on the island and wait for their family member to be healthy again, even though some were not allowed to have visitors. A few kids were even there so long that they attended classes held on the island.
WORKERS:
In order to keep things running smoothly, there were lots of workers. Groupers (people that put immigrants into different groups based on gender, boat, ect.), doctors, inspectors, cooks, maids, dock workers, special inquiry jobs, nurses, administrators, social workers, teachers, interpreters and more. People that could be needed at any time, such as doctors and nurses, lived on the island, sometimes with their families. There were also many volunteers that came to help with or welcome the immigrants.
Ellis Island: The Museum
Eventually, immigration slowed down and Ellis Island closed its doors. In 1976, America’s Bicentennial, researchers recorded immigrant’s memories. Restoration of the island took place in the 1980s and in 1990, Ellis Island reopened as an immigrant museum and remains open to the public today.
More Facts about Ellis Island and an immigrant’s journey to becoming a citizen at that time.
Ellis Island sits in New York Bay, but is owned by both New York and New Jersey. New York owns the original land and New Jersey owns the area that was filled in for more room.
About a quarter of all Americans can trace their ancestry back to Ellis.
Irish immigrant, Annie Moore, was Ellis Island’s first immigrant. On January 1st, 1892, her 15th birthday, she arrived with her two younger brothers. She was awarded gold and a certificate, but she was more excited to finally be joining her parents in America. A statue of her still stands at Ellis.
Depending on the ship that immigrants were traveling on, the trip to America from Europe could take anywhere from five days to five weeks.
Before the 1920’s, immigrants did not need passports.
Most people were inspected in Europe before they boarded the boat and were regularly checked on the journey.
If immigrants were breathless from the walk up to Ellis Island, they were suspected of hiding an illness.
When inspectors checked immigrants’ eyes, some used metal hooks that were supposed to be used for buttoning shoes.
If immigrants claimed to already have a job waiting for them, they were more likely to be deported back to their homes because they were thought to be taking jobs away from people who were already Americans.
Inspectors usually tried to find reasons to legally turn someone away.
Women and girls who were traveling without a man were not permitted to leave the island until a male relative came to get them.
Girls had to be at least 16 if they were traveling alone, unless someone was waiting for them in America.
In 1913, there were more than 650 people working on Ellis.
Most of the workers on Ellis were immigrants themselves.
Sometimes a film crew would come to the island to shoot scenes for a movie set there.
In the 1920's, Congress set limits on the number of people that were allowed into America. This was called the quota system.
During World War II, the island housed people that were thought to be threats.
A Spanish immigrant named Rafael Guastavino tiled the ceiling of one of the rooms on Ellis in 1918. When they restored the building in the 1980’s, they only had to replace Seventeen of the 28,832. That’s only about 6%.
(Swain)
http://www.ellisisland.org
http://www.history.com