Ellis Island Closes

This Month in History

Ellis Island Closes November 12, 1954

Ellis Island, the gateway to America, shuts its doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants since opening in 1892.

Today, tens of millions of Americans can trace their roots through Ellis Island, located in New York Harbor off the New Jersey coast and named for merchant Samuel Ellis, who owned the land in the 1770s.

Immigrants to the United States on the deck of the S.S. Patricia on December 10, 1906.

HISTORY CENTER

Ellis Island is a historical site that opened in 1892 as an immigration station, a purpose it served for more than 60 years until it closed in 1954. Located at the mouth of Hudson River between New York and New Jersey, Ellis Island saw millions of newly arrived immigrants pass through its doors. In fact, it has been estimated that close to 40 percent of all current U.S. citizens can trace at least one of their ancestors to Ellis Island.

On January 2, 1892, 15-year-old Annie Moore, from Ireland, became the first person to pass through the newly opened Ellis Island, which President Benjamin Harrison designated as America’s first federal immigration center in 1890. Be-

fore that time, the processing of immigrants had been handled by individual states. Not all immigrants who sailed 40 percent of all current U.S. citizens can trace at least one of their ancestors to Ellis Island. into New York had to go through Ellis Island. First- and second-class passengers submitted to a brief shipboard inspection and then disembarked at the piers in New York or New Jersey, where they passed through customs. People in third class, though, were transported to Ellis Island, where they underwent medical and legal inspections to ensure they didn’t have a contagious disease or some condition that would make them a burden to the government. Only two percent of all

Ellis Island seen from New York Harbor, 1903.

immigrants were denied entrance into the U.S.

Immigration to Ellis Island peaked between 1892 and 1924, during which time the 3.3-acre island was enlarged with landfill (by the 1930s it reached its current 27.5-acre size) and additional buildings were constructed to handle the massive influx of immigrants. During the busiest year of operation, 1907, over 1 million people were processed at Ellis Island. With America’s entrance into World War I, immigration declined, and Ellis Island was used as a detention center for suspected enemies. Following the war, Congress passed quota laws and the Immigration Act of 1924, which sharply reduced the number of newcomers allowed into the country and also enabled immigrants to be processed at U.S. consulates abroad. After 1924, Ellis Island switched from a processing center to serving other purposes, such as a detention and deportation center, a hospital for wounded soldiers during World War II and a Coast Guard training center. In November 1954, the last detainee, a Norwegian merchant seaman, was released and Ellis Island officially closed. Beginning in 1984, Ellis Island underwent a $160 million renovation, the largest historic restoration project in U.S. history. In September 1990, the Ellis Island Immigration Museum opened to the public and today is visited by almost 2 million people each year.

When Ellis Island opened, a great change was taking place in U.S. immigration. Fewer arrivals were coming from northern and western Europe—Germany, Ireland, Britain and the Scandinavian countries—as more and more immigrants poured in from southern and eastern Europe. Among this new generation were Jews escaping from political and economic oppression in czarist Russia and eastern Europe and Italians escaping poverty in their country. There were also Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Serbs, Slovaks and Greeks, along with non-Europeans from Syria, Turkey and Armenia. The reasons they left their homes in the Old World included war, drought, famine and religious persecution, and all had hopes for greater opportunity in the New World. After an arduous sea voyage, immigrants arriving at Ellis Island were tagged with information from their ship’s registry; they then waited on long lines for medical and legal inspections to determine if they were fit for entry into the United States.

New arrivals line up to have their papers examined.

Children display their gifts at Ellis Island.

From 1900 to 1914—the peak years of Ellis Island’s operation—an average of 1,900 people passed through the immigration station every day. Most successfully passed through in a matter of hours, but others could be detained for days or weeks. Many immigrants remained in New York, while others traveled by barge to railroad stations in Hoboken or Jersey City, New Jersey, on their way to destinations across the country.

Passage of the Immigrant Quota Act of 1921 and the National Origins Act of 1924, which limited the number and nationality of immigrants allowed into the United States, effectively ended the era of mass immigration into New York. At this point, the smaller number of immigrants began to be processed on their arriving ships, with Ellis Island serving primarily as a temporary detainment center. From 1925 to the closing of Ellis Island in 1954, only 2.3 million immigrants passed through the New York City port–which was still more than half of all those entering the United States. Ellis Island opened to the public in 1976. Today, visitors can tour the Ellis Island Museum of Immigration in the restored Main Arrivals Hall and trace their ancestors through millions of immigrant arrival records made available to the public in 2001. In this way, Ellis Island remains a central destination for millions of Americans seeking a glimpse into the history of their country, and in many cases, into their own family’s story. The First Arrival was on January 1, 1892, teenager Annie Moore from County Cork, Ireland, became the first person admitted to the new immigration station on Ellis Island. On that opening day, she received a greeting from officials and a $10.00 gold piece. Annie traveled to New York with her two younger brothers on steerage aboard the S.S. Nevada, which left Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, on December 20, 1891 and arrived in New York on the evening of December 31. After being processed, the children were reunited with their parents, who were already living in New York. Doctors checked those passing through Ellis Island for more than 60 diseases and disabilities that might disqualify them from entry into the United States. Those suspected of being afflicted with a having a disease or disability were marked with chalk and de-

The dinning room for detained immigrants at Ellis Island.

HISTORY CENTER

Immigrant children being examined by a city health officer upon arrival in 1911.

A large group of immigrants with baggage lined up at tellers' windows for money exchange in 1907.

Members of the Health Department carefully examine an immigrant mother and child.

tained for closer examination. All immigrants were checked closely for trachoma, a contagious eye condition that caused more detainments and deportations than any other ailment. To check for trachoma, the examiner used a buttonhook to turn each immigrant’s eyelids inside out, a procedure remembered by many Ellis Island arrivals as particularly painful and terrifying.

Food was plentiful at Ellis Island, despite various opin- ions as to its quality. A typical meal served in the dining hall might include beef stew, potatoes, bread and herring (a very cheap fish); or baked beans and stewed prunes. Immigrants were introduced to new foods, such as bananas, sandwiches and ice cream, as well as unfamiliar preparations. To meet the special dietary requirements of Jewish immigrants, a kosher kitchen was built in 1911. In addition to the free meals served, independent concessions sold packaged food that immigrants often bought to eat while they waited or to take with them when they left the island. Many famous figures passed through Ellis Island, some leaving their original names behind on their entry into the U.S. Israel Beilin–better known as composer Irving Berlin–arrived in 1893; Angelo Siciliano, who arrived in 1903, later achieved fame as the bodybuilder Charles Atlas. Lily Chaucoin arrived from France to New York in 1911 and found Hollywood stardom as Claudette Colbert. Some were already famous when they arrived, such as Carl Jung or Sigmund Freud (both 1909), while some, like Charles Chaplin (1912) would make their name in the New World.

Fiorello La Guardia, the future mayor of New York City, worked as an interpreter for the Immigration Service at Ellis Island from 1907 to 1910, while he was completing law school at New York University. Born in New York in 1882 to immigrants of Italian and Jewish ancestry, La Guardia lived for a time in Hungary and worked at the American consulates in Budapest and other cities. From his experience at Ellis Island, La Guardia came to believe that many of the deportations for so-called mental illness were unjustified, often due to communication problems or to the ignorance of doctors doing the inspections.

After the Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that the state of New Jersey, not New York, had authority over the majority of the 27.5 acres that make up Ellis Island, one of the most vocal New York boosters, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, famously remarked of the court’s decision: “They’re still not going to convince me that my grandfather, when he was sitting in Italy, thinking of coming to the United States, and on the shores getting ready to get on that ship in Genoa, was saying to himself, ‘I’m coming to New Jersey.’ He knew where he was coming to. He was coming to the streets of New York.”

A woman and her three children undergoing examinations by Edwin Levick at Ellis Island in 1907.

He knew where he was coming to. He was coming to the streets of New York.”

An immigrant family on the dock at Ellis Island after having just passed the rigid examination for entry into the country, looking hopefully at New York's skyline while awaiting the government ferry on August 13, 1925.