Ellis Island

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For the island of Australia, See Ellis Island, Queensland.
Ellis Island National Monument
LocationNew Jersey & New York, USA
Nearest cityJersey City, NJ
Area58.38 acres (0.24 km²) (includes Statue of Liberty NM)
EstablishedOctober 15, 1965 (as a monument)
Visitors3,618,053 (includes Statue of Liberty NM) (in 2004)
Governing bodyNational Park Service

Ellis Island,at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor, was at one time the main immigration port for immigrants entering the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Ellis Island is within the boundaries of Jersey City, New Jersey, but is within both the states of New Jersey and New York. It is wholly in the possession of the Federal government as a part of Statue of Liberty National Monument, and is under the jurisdiction of the Call of Hühner US National Park Service. According to the United States Census Bureau, the island, which was largely artificially created through the landfill process, has an official land area of 129,619 square meters, or 32 acres, more than 83 percent of which lies in the city of Jersey City. The natural portion of the island, lying in New York City, is 21,458 square meters (5.3 acres), and is completely surrounded by the artificially created New Jersey portion. The Ellis Island Immigrant Station was designed by architects Edward Lippincott Tilton and William Boring. They received a gold medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition for the buildings' design.

History

File:Ellisisland.jpg
Ellis Island from the Circle Line ferry.

Ellis Island takes its name from Samuel Ellis, a colonial New Yorker from Wales who owned the island during the late 1700s and kept a tavern, serving sailors and local fishermen. Samuel Ellis was a local farmer and merchant. [1]

The federal immigration station opened on January 1, 1892 and was closed in November 1954, but not before processing 12 million immigrants (estimates range up to 20 million). In the 40 years before Ellis Island opened, over 8 million immigrants had been processed locally by New York State officials at Castle Garden Immigration Depot in Manhattan. Many who were allowed entry settled in New York and northern New Jersey for at least their first few years in America. During this time period, Angel Island (between Alcatraz and the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco Bay) was opened on the West Coast, processing mostly Chinese immigrants.

Entrance to the museum. Ellis Island was the first stop for most immigrants from Europe.

Ellis Island was one of 30 processing stations opened by the federal government. It was the major processing station for third class/steerage immigrants entering the United States in 1892; it processed 70% of all immigrants at the time. Wealthy immigrants that traveled first class and second class would get automatic entry into the United States. First they had to pass a six second physical examination. Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. Next they were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money they carried with them. Generally those immigrants who were approved spent from three to five hours at Ellis Island. However more than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities. Some unskilled workers and immigrants were rejected outright because they were considered "likely to become a public charge." About 2 percent were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as chronic contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity [1].

Writer Louis Adamic came to America from Slovenia in southeastern Europe in 1913. Adamic described the night he spent on Ellis Island. He and many other immigrants slept on bunk beds in a huge hall. Lacking a warm blanket, the young man "shivered, sleepless, all night, listening to snores" and dreams "in perhaps a dozen different languages".

After 1924, with demands for further immigration restrictions, "The Quota Laws" would be passed and they would have a major impact on immigration. After they were passed Ellis Island was used only sporadically for immigration. It would be mostly used for detainees and refugees. Italians were detained, Japanese were interned, but the major group to be detained were German Americans during World War II falsely accused of being Nazis. The United States would begin processing immigrants in the embassies and consulates of the emigrant country.

As with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service, Ellis Island, along with Statue of Liberty, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.

Today Ellis Island houses a museum reachable by ferry from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey and from the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City. The Statue of Liberty, sometimes thought to be on Ellis Island because of its symbolism as a welcome to immigrants, is actually on nearby Liberty Island, which is about 1/2 mile to the South.

Ellis island was also known as "The Isle of Tears" or "Heartbreak island."[2] Some immigrants were sent back to their countries and did not become U.S. citizens after a long travel to Ellis Island.

The following is a list of the station's commissioners.

  • 1. 1890-1893 Colonel John B. Weber,
  • 2. 1893-1897 Dr. Joseph H. Senner,
  • 3. 1897-1902 Thomas Fitchie,
  • 4. 1902-1905 William C. Williams,
  • 5. 1905-1909 Robert Watchorn,
  • 6. 1909-1913 Williams C. Williams,
  • 7. 1914-1919 Dr. Frederic C. Howe,
  • 8. 1920-1921 Frederick A. Wallis,
  • 9. 1921-1923 Robert E. Tod,
  • 10. 1923-1926 Henry C. Curran,
  • 11. 1926-1931 Benjamin M. Day,
  • 12. 1931-1934 Edward Corsi,
  • 13. 1934-1940 Rudolph Reimer,
  • 14. 1940-1942 Byron H. Uhl,
  • 15. 1942-1949 W. Frank Watkins,
  • 16. 1949-1954 Edward J. Shaughnessy,

Other notable officials at Ellis Island included Edward F. McSweeney (assistant commissioner), Joseph Murray (assistant commissioner), Dr. George Stoner (chief surgeon), Augustus Frederick Sherman (chief clerk), Dr. Victor Heiser (surgeon), Thomas W. Salmon (surgeon), Howard Knox (surgeon), Peter Mikolainis (interpreter), Maud Mosher (matron), Fiorello H. LaGuardia (interpreter), and Philip Cowen (immigrant inspector).

Prominent amongst the missionaries and immigrant aid workers were Rev. Michael J. Henry and Rev. Anthony J. Grogan (Irish Catholics), Rev. Gaspare Moretto (Italian Catholic), Alma E. Mathews (Methodist), Rev. Georg Doring (German Lutheran), Rev. Reuben Breed (Episcopalian), Michael Lodsin (Baptist), Brigadier Thomas Johnson (Salvation Army), Ludmila K. Foxlee (YWCA), Athena Marmaroff (Women's Christian Temperance Union), Alexander Harkavy (HIAS), Cecilia Greenstone and Cecilia Razovsky (National Council of Jewish Women).

Noted entertainers that performed for detained immigrants and US servicemen at the island included Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Enrico Caruso, Lucrezia Borgia, Rudy Vallee, Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope, and Lionel Hampton and his orchestra.

Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, 1902

Immigration

Ellis Island would see a new immigrant entering the United States. Old immigrants that came prior to 1890 were mostly from northern and western Europe. However, the immigrants entering the United States after 1890 were from the Eastern and Southern parts of Europe. The newer immigrants were not accepted as easily for cultural reasons as well as physical reasons (some were not as white as the old immigrants; white peoples were seen as superior).

Many immigrants were tested for mental problems, physical problems and other illnesses. Those who were wealthy did not have to take these exams.

More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954. Over 50% of Americans can trace at least one relative that entered the United States through Ellis Island.

Jurisdiction

On October 15, 1965, Ellis Island was proclaimed a part of Statue of Liberty National Monument and is managed by the National Park Service. The island is on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. During the colonial period, however, New York had taken possession, and New Jersey had acquiesced in that action. In a compact between the two states, approved by U.S. Congress in 1834, New Jersey therefore agreed that New York would continue to have exclusive jurisdiction over the island.

Thereafter, however, the federal government expanded the island by landfill, so that it could accommodate the immigration station that opened in 1892 (and closed in November 1954). Landfilling continued until 1934. Nine-tenths of the current area is artificial island that did not exist at the time of the interstate compact.

New Jersey contended that the new extensions were part of New Jersey, since they were not part of the previous cession. New Jersey eventually filed suit to establish its jurisdiction, leading New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani famously to remark that his father, an Italian who immigrated through Ellis Island, never intended to go to New Jersey.

The dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in 1998 that New Jersey had jurisdiction over all portions of the island created after the original compact was approved. This caused several immediate problems: some buildings, for instance, fell into the territory of both states. New Jersey and New York soon agreed to share claims to the island. It remains wholly a Federal property, however, and none of this legal maneuvering has resulted in either state taking any fiscal or physical responsibility for the maintenance, preservation, or improvement of any of the historic properties that make the island so significant in the first place..

Inspection Symbols

Overview before restoration

The symbols below were chalked on the clothing of potentially sick immigrants following the six-second medical examination. The doctors would look at them as they climbed the stairs from the baggage area up to the Great Hall. Immigrants' behaviour would be studied for difficulties in getting up the staircase in any way. Some only entered the country by surreptitiously wiping them off or by turning their clothes inside out.[3]

Special Inquiry

Later all those marked "SI" would meet with a board of special inquiry inspectors in an hearing room. Three of the most difficult questions for immigrants were:

  1. For single women "Who sent for you?" If she answered "my fiance" she usually stayed at Ellis Island until the man arrived. Sometimes officials required that the marriage ceremony be performed on Ellis Island.
  2. "Do you have a job waiting?"
  3. "Who paid your passage?"

These last two questions were especially difficult for poor immigrants because many had signed labor contracts in the old country agreeing to work for exploitative wages in return for a ticket. The problem was that this practice was illegal in the United States.

Legacy

Ellis Island is also known as a place where people changed their names; however, this is largely legend. It is said that if the immigration officer could not spell the original name, they would come up with an approximation, or something shorter or simpler, such as "Ellen Pollock" for "Helena Polonowycz". This is said to have been especially common when the newcomer couldn't read and write English. However, immigrants' identities were backed by their travel documents and ship lists, and they were often assisted by immigration societies of fellow countrymen. Very few cases of name changes can be traced to immigration processing while "Americanization" of ethnic names was a common occurrence as immigrants blended into everyday existence among friends and coworkers in their new country. Still, such events were not unheard of; author Herman Raucher has stated that his grandfather, an Austrian Jew who spoke no English, had his name, which was difficult to pronounce for English speakers, changed at Ellis Island to "Raucher," the German word for "smoker."

Other

The interior of the hall at Ellis Islands museum.

The main building now houses a museum in addition to being a historic site. It is legally in New York state, while the southern part of the island, which holds the unrestored infirmary and hospital buildings, was given back to New Jersey in the court settlement.

There is a bridge between Ellis Island with Liberty State Park in Jersey City. It was built during the restoration of the island and heavy trucks went across it. In 1995 proposals were made to open it to pedestrians or to build a new bridge for pedestrians. They were defeated by two vested interests: the City of New York and the private operator of the only boat service to the island, the Circle Line. The supposedly inadequate bridge is still in use but closed to the public.[4]

There is a "Wall of Honor" outside of the main building. There is a myth that it lists all of the immigrants processed there. It is actually a wall giving people the opportunity to make a donation to honor any immigrant into the United States. As of 2006, the wall lists 700,000 names spanning 400 years of immigration.

Trivia

The first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island was Annie Moore, a 15 year old girl from Co. Cork, Ireland. She and her two brothers were coming to America to meet their parents, who had moved to New York two years prior. She received a greeting from officials and a $10.00 gold piece. [2]

The last person to pass through Ellis Island was a Norwegian merchant seaman by the name of Arne Peterssen in 1954. After 1924 when the National Origins Act was passed, the only immigrants to pass through there were displaced persons or war refugees.[3]

Noted Ellis Island immigrants

Selected Ellis Island immigrants attaining some measure of success in America include Bob Hope, Irving Berlin, Knute Rockne, Ben Shahn, Arshile Gorky, Pola Negri, Anna Q. Nilsson, Claudette Colbert, Chef Boyardee (Ettore Boiardi), Erich von Stroheim, Felix Frankfurter, Father Flanagan, Joseph Stella, Arthur Tracy, Jule Styne, Pauline Newman, Irene Bordoni, Charles Atlas, Isaac Asimov, the Trapp Family Singers, Ezio Pinza, Ludwig Bemelmans, John Kluge, Hubert Fauntleroy Julian, Anzia Yezierska, Douglas Fraser, James Reston and Max Factor.



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In film

The island was a scene used in Hitch, a motion picture starring Will Smith. He and Eva Mendes take a jet ski to the island and explore the building.

The IMAX 3D movie, Across the Sea of Time, about the New York immigrant experience, incorporates both modern footage and historical photographs of Ellis Island.

Ellis Island as a port of entry to the United States of America is described in detail in Mottel the Cantor's Son by Sholom Aleichem. It is also the place where Don Corleone was held as an immigrant boy in The Godfather Part II, where he was marked with an X.

In the film X-Men, a UN summit held on the island is targeted by Magneto, who attempts to artificially change all the delegates present.

The opening scene of Brother From Another Planet takes place on Ellis Island.

References

  1. ^ National Park Service: Ellis Island, retrieved January 12, 2006.
  2. ^ Davis, Kenneth (2003), Don't Know Much About American History, HarperTrophy, ISBN 0064408361 ("Isle of Tears" or "Heartbreak Island," p. 123)
  3. ^ http://www.geocities.com/musetti.geo/chalk.htm
  4. ^ Setha Low, Dana Taplin, Suzanne Sheld (2005), Rethinking Urban Parks, University of Texas Press; chapter 4.

See also

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ellis Island.

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