Ellis Island

For the island in Australia, see Ellis Island (Queensland).

Ellis Island
Ellis Island Immigration Museum
Location	Jersey City New York City
Area	32 acres
Built	1900
Architect	Edward Lippincott Tilton William Alciphron Boring
Architectural style(s)	Renaissance Revival
Governing body	National Park Service
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Official name	Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island
Designated	October 15, 1966
Reference no.	66000058
U.S. National Monument
Official name	Statue of Liberty National Monument
Designated	added October 15, 1965
Ellis Island in New York Harbor

Ellis Island is an island in the Upper New York Bay owned by the United States and operated under the juridisction of the National Park Service that was from 1892 to 1954 a United States Immigration Station. The island and buildings on it are part of Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island, a United States historic district that includes the national monument and an immigration memorial and museum.

Geography and Access

Ellis Island is located in the Upper New York Bay east of Liberty State Park and north of Liberty Island in Jersey City, New Jersey. According to the United States Census Bureau the island has an official land area of 129,619 square meters, or 32 acres, of which more than 83 percent was created through landfill. The original portion of the island is 21,458 square meters (3.3 acres) is bounded landfilled sections. Similiar to Liberty Island, the those acres are an exclave of New York State located in State of New Jersey. The island is jointly administered by the two states.

Public access is permitted only by ferry from either Communipaw Terminal in the park or from Castle Clinton in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, which also provide service to The Statue of Liberty. There is a bridge that connects Ellis Island with Liberty State Park built for materials and personnel during restoration projects. Proposals made in 1995 use it or replace it with a new bridge for pedestrians were opposed by the City of New York and the private ferry operator at that time, the Circle Line. Since September 11, 2001, the district is guarded by around-the-clock patrols of the United States Park Police Marine Patrol Unit.

Immigration Museum

The Main Building that has become the Immigration Museum was opened in 1900 having replaced the wooden structure built in 1892 to house the immigration station. Architects Edward Lippincott Tilton and William Alciphron Boring received a gold medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition for the building's design. The architecture competition was the second under the Tarsney Act which had permitted private architects rather than government architects in the Office of the Supervising Architect to design federal buildings.

Main Building which now houses the Immigration Museum

Great hall where immigrants were processed

After closure of the station in November 1954, the buildings fell into disrepair and were all but abandoned. Attempts at redevelopment of the site were unsuccessful until its landmark status was established. On October 15, 1965, Ellis Island was proclaimed a part of Statue of Liberty National Monument and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.

Boston based architecture firm Finegold Alexander + Associates Inc, together with the New York architectural firm Beyer Blinder Belle, designed the restoration and adaptive use of the Beaux-Arts Main Building, one of the most symbolically important structures in American history. A construction budget of $150 million was required for this significant restoration. This money was raised by a grassroots campaign organized by the political fundraiser Wyatt A. Stewart. The building was opened on September 10, 1990.

As part of the National Park Service's Centennial Initiative, the south side of the island will be the target of a project to restore the 28 buildings that have not yet been rehabilitated.

The "Wall of Honor" outside of the main building contains a partial list of immigrants processed on the island. Inclusion on the list made possible with a donation to support the facility. In 2008, the Museum's Library was officially named The Bob Hope Memorial Library in honor of one the station's most famous immigrants.

The Ellis Island Medal of Honor is awarded annually at ceremonies on the island.

Ownership

Originally called Little Oyster Island, Ellis Island acquired its name from Samuel Ellis, a colonial New Yorker, possibly from Wales.

TO BE SOLD
It was to be sold by Samuel Ellis, no. 1, Greenwich Street, at the north river near the Jewish Market, That pleasant situated Island called Oyster Island, lying in New Bay, near Powle's Hook, together with all its improvements which are considerable; also, two lots of ground, one at the lower end of Queen street, joining Luke's wharf, the other in Greenwich street, between Petition and Dey streets, and a parcel of spars for masts, yards, brooms, bowsprits, & c. and a parcel of timber fit for pumps and buildings of docks; and a few barrels of excellent shad and herrings, and others of an inferior quality fit for shipping; and a few thousand of red herring of his own curing, that he will warrant to keep good in carrying to any part of the world, and a quantity of twine which he sell very low, which is the best sort of twine, for tyke nets. Also a large Pleasure Sleigh, almost new.

— Samuel Ellis advertising in London New York-Packet, 1778

The island become United States property in 1800. From 1808 until 1814 it was a Federal arsenal. At the end of the War of 1812, Fort Gibson was built on Ellis Island and remained a military post for nearly 80 years.

Immigration Station

See also: Immigration to the United States

Film by Edison Studios showing immigrants disembarking from the steam ferryboat William Myers on July 9, 1903.

The federal immigration station opened on January 1, 1892 and was closed on November 12, 1954, with 12 million immigrants processed there by the US Bureau of Immigration. After 1924 when the National Origins Act was passed, the only immigrants to pass through there were displaced persons or war refugees. Today, over 100 million Americans - 1/3 of the population - can trace their ancestry to the immigrants who first arrived in America through the island before dispersing to points all over the country. In the 35 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.. It is estimated that around 10.5 million departed to points across the United States from Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal across a narrow strait from the island. 1907 was the peak year for immigration at Ellis Island with 1,004,756 immigrants processed. The all-time daily high also occurred this year on April 17 which saw a total of 11,747 immigrants arrive. Writer Louis Adamic came to America from Slovenia in southeastern Europe in 1913. Adamic described the night 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". The facility was so large that the dining room could seat 1,000 people.

Ellis Island in 1905

Generally those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. Arrivals were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money they carried with them. Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. However more than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities. Some unskilled workers 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. Ellis Island was sometimes known as "The Island of Tears" or "Heartbreak Island" because of those 2% who were not admitted after the long transatlantic voyage. During World War I, the German sabotage of the Black Tom Wharf ammunition depot damaged buildings on Ellis Island. The repairs included the current barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Main Hall. During the war, Ellis Island was used to intern German merchant mariners and enemy aliens as well as a processing center for returning sick and wounded U.S. soldiers. Ellis Island still managed to process tens of thousands of immigrants a year during this time, but much fewer than the hundreds of thousands a year who arrived before the war. After the war immigration rapidly returned to earlier levels.

Radicals awaiting deportation, 1920

Detention and deportation center

Mass processing of immigrants at Ellis Island ended in 1924 after the Immigration Act of 1924 greatly restricted immigration and allowed processing at overseas embassies. After this time Ellis Island became primarily a detention and deportation processing center.

During and immediately following World War II, Ellis Island served as Coast Guard training base and as an internment camp for enemy aliens - American civilians or immigrants detained for fear of spying, sabotage, etc. Some 7,000 Germans, Italians and Japanese would be detained at Ellis Island.

The Internal Security Act of 1950 barred members of Communist or Fascist organizations from immigrating to the U.S. Ellis Island saw detention peak at 1,500 but by 1952, after changes to immigration law and policies, only 30 detainees were present.

Staff

Immigrants being processed, 1904

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

1. 1890–1893 Colonel John B. Weber (Republican)
2. 1893–1897 Dr. Joseph H. Senner (Democrat)
3. 1897–1902 Thomas Fitchie (Republican)
4. 1902–1905 William Williams (Republican)
5. 1905–1909 Robert Watchorn (Republican)
6. 1909–1913 William Williams (Republican) 2nd Term
7. 1914–1919 Dr. Frederic C. Howe (Democrat)
8. 1920–1921 Frederick A. Wallis (Democrat)
9. 1921–1923 Robert E. Tod (Republican)
10. 1923–1926 Henry C. Curran (Republican)
11. 1926–1931 Benjamin M. Day (Republican)
12. 1931–1934 Edward Corsi (Republican)
13. 1934–1940 Rudolph Reimer (Democrat)
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 E. Murray (assistant commissioner), Dr. George W. Stoner (chief surgeon), Augustus Frederick Sherman (chief clerk), Dr. Victor Heiser (surgeon), Thomas W. Salmon (surgeon), Howard Knox (surgeon), Antonio Frabasilis (interpreter), Peter Mikolainis (interpreter), Maud Mosher (matron), Fiorello H. La Guardia (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 Catholic), Rev. Gaspare Moretto (Italian Catholic), Alma E. Mathews (Methodist), Rev. Georg Doring (German Lutheran), Rev. Joseph L'Etauche (Polish Catholic), Rev. Reuben Breed (Episcopal), Michael Lodsin (Baptist), Brigadier Thomas Johnson (Salvation Army), Ludmila K. Foxlee (YWCA), Athena Marmaroff (Woman's Christian Temperance Union), Alexander Harkavy (HIAS), Cecilia Greenstone and Cecilia Razovsky (National Council of Jewish Women).

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

Scenes at the Immigration Depot and a nearby dock on Ellis Island.

Records

Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, 1902

A myth persists that government officials on Ellis Island compelled immigrants to take new names against their wishes. In fact, no historical records bear this out. Federal immigration inspectors were under strict bureaucratic supervision and were more interested in preventing inadmissible aliens from entering the country (which they were held accountable for) rather than assisting them in trivial personal matters such as altering their names. In addition, the inspectors used the passenger lists given to them by the steamship companies to process each foreigner. These were the sole immigration records for entering the country and were prepared not by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration but by steamship companies such as the Cunard Line, the White Star Line (which owned the Titanic), the North German Lloyd Line, the Hamburg-Amerika Line, the Italian Steam Navigation Company, the Red Star Line, the Holland America Line, the Austro-American Line, and so forth. The Americanization of many immigrant families' surnames was for the most part adopted by the family after the immigration process, or by the second or third generation of the family after some assimilation into American culture. However many last names were altered slightly due to the disparity between English and other languages in the pronunciation of certain letters of the alphabet.

Medical inspections

Dormitory room for detained immigrants

File:AnnieMoore.jpg

Statue of Annie Moore on Ellis Island.

The United States Public Health Service operated an extensive medical service at the immigrant station called U.S. Marine Hospital Number 43; it was more widely known as the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital. It was the largest marine hospital in the nation. The station was staffed by uniformed military surgeons. They are best known for the role they played during line inspection, in which they employed unusual techniques such as the use of the buttonhook to examine aliens for signs of eye diseases (particularly, trachoma) and the use of a chalk mark code. 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' behavior would be studied for difficulties in getting up the staircase. Some only entered the country by surreptitiously wiping the chalk marks off or by turning their clothes inside out.

• B – Back
• C - Conjunctivitis
• CT – Trachoma
• E – Eyes
• F – Face
• FT – Feet
• G – Goiter
• H – Heart
• K – Hernia
• L – Lameness
• N – Neck
• P – Physical and Lungs
• PG – Pregnancy
• S – Senility
• SC – Scalp (Favus)
• SI – Special Inquiry
• X – Suspected Mental defect
• X (circled) – Definite signs of Mental defect

Notable immigrants

Further information: List of notable Ellis Island immigrants

The first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island was Annie Moore, a 15-year-old girl from Cork, Ireland, on January 1, 1892. 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 gold piece. The last person to pass through Ellis Island was a Norwegian merchant seaman by the name of Arne Peterssen in 1954.

Federal jurisdiction and state sovereignty dispute

The island is situated on the New Jersey side of the Upper New York Bay. According to the United States Census Bureau, the island, which was largely artificially created through landfill, 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 portion. For New York State tax purposes it is assessed as Manhattan Block 1, Lot 201. Since 1998, it also has a tax number assigned by the state of New Jersey.

Liberty Island and Ellis Island's location on the New Jersey side of the state line in New York Harbor led to several disputes

The circumstances which led to an exclave of New York being located within New Jersey began in the colonial era after the British takeover of New Netherland in 1664. An unusual clause colonial land grant outlined the territory the propriators of New Jersey would receive as "westward of Long Island, and Manhitas Island and bounded on the east part by the main sea, and part by Hudson's river", rather than at the river's midpoint, as was common in other colonial charters.

When the Province of New Jersey was separated from the Province of New York in 1674 it was argued that Staten Island belonged to the former. Then governor Edmund Andros directed that all islands in the bay that could be circumnavigated within 24 hours were part of New York. Soon thereafter, Captain Christopher Billopp sailed around it within the allotted time. The border came to be understood as being along the shore of the of Hudson River, the Upper New York Bay, the Kill van Kull, and Arthur Kill.

The corporation of City of New York claimed the right to regulate trade on the all the waters. This was contested a in Gibbons v. Ogden which decided that interstate commerce be regulated to the federal government, which influenced competition in the newly-developing steam ferry service in New York Harbor.

In 1830 New Jersey planned to bring suit to clarify the border, but the case was never heard. and the matter was resolved with a compact between the states ratified by US Congress in 1834 which set the boundary line between them as the middle of the Hudson River and New York Harbor. This was later confirmed by the US Supreme Court in a 1908 case which also expounded on the compact.

The federal government, which had bought the island in 1800, began expanding the island by landfill, to accommodate the immigration station opened in 1892. 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 original island. The state eventually filed suit to establish its jurisdiction, leading New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to remark dramatically 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 (effectively, more than 80% of the island's present land). This caused several immediate confusions: some buildings, for instance, fell into the territory of both states. New Jersey and New York soon agreed to share jurisdiction to the island. It remains wholly a Federal property, however, and these legal decisions do not result in either state taking any fiscal or physical responsibility for the maintenance, preservation, or improvement of any of the historic properties.

In the arts

Ellis Island attracted the imagination of filmmakers as long ago as the silent era. Early films featuring the station include Traffic in Souls (1913); The Yellow Passport (1916), starring Clara Kimbell Young; My Boy (1921), starring Jackie Coogan; Frank Capra's The Strong Man (1926), starring Harry Langdon; We Americans (1928), starring John Boles; Ellis Island (1936), starring Donald Cook; Gateway (1938), starring Don Ameche; and Exile Express (1939), which starred Anna Sten.

The island was a scene used in the 2005 feature film romantic comedy, Hitch, starring Will Smith, in which his and Eva Mendes' characters 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 encircled X.

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

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

The 2006 Italian movie The Golden Door, (directed by Emanuele Crialese) takes place largely at Ellis Island.

A documentary on the hospital at Ellis Island was created by Lorie Conway.

Ellis Island: The Dream of America is a work for actors and orchestra with projected images by American composer Peter Boyer, composed in 2001-02,

See also

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• Annie Moore
• Geography of New York Harbor
• Hoffman Island
• Kissing Post
• Liberty Island
• List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
• List of Registered Historic Places in Hudson County, New Jersey
• National Register of Historic Places listings in New York County, New York
• Save Ellis Island
• Statue of Liberty
• Angel Island, California

References

• Ellis Island: Blocks 9019 thru 9023, Block Group 9, Census Tract 47, Hudson County, NJ; and Block 1000, Block Group 1, Census Tract 1, New York County, NY; United States Census Bureau.
• Report of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization under joint resolution of Senate and House of January 29, 1892, submitted by Mr. Stump. Ordered to be printed July 28, 1892. By United States Congress, House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization.
• Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied, 1982 report;
• Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, Inc (1946). Immigration (Documentary). Internet Archive. Event occurs at 10:22. Retrieved 2009-01-20. Archive film contains scenes of Ellis Island and New York City in the early 20th century.
• Guggenheim, Charles (director) (1989). Island of Hope - Island of Tears (Documentary). National Park Service. Event occurs at 28:24. Retrieved 2009-01-20. From 1892–1954, Ellis Island was the port of entry for millions of European immigrants. Fascinating archival footage tells the moving story of families with dreams of opportunity, leaving their homes with what they could carry.

Further reading

• Baur, J. Commemorating Immigration in the Immigrant Society. Narratives of Transformation at Ellis Island and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, in: König, M./Ohliger, R. (ed.), Enlarging European Memory. Migration Movements in Historical Perspective, 2006, 137-146.
• Baur, J. Ellis Island, Inc.: The Making of an American Site of Memory, in: Grabbe, H. J./Schindler, S. (ed.), The Merits of Memory. Concepts, Contexts, Debates, 2008, 185-196.
• Coan, P. M. Ellis Island Interviews: In Their Own Words, 1998.
• Conway, L. Forgotten Ellis Island, 2007.
• Corsi, E. In the Shadow of Liberty: The Chronicle of Ellis Island, 1935.
• Fairchild, A. Science at the Borders, 2004.
• Moreno, B., Images of America:Children of Ellis Island, 2005.
• Moreno, B., Images of America:Ellis Island, 2003.
• Moreno, B., Images of America:Ellis Island's Famous Immigrants, 2008.
• Moreno, B. Encyclopedia of Ellis Island, 2004. Google Books Research updated and revised edition, August 2010
• Novotny, A. Strangers at the Door, 1971.
• Pitkin, T.M. Keepers of the Gate, 1975.

External links

• Ellis Island home page
• Ellis Island Visitor information
• Ellis Island Historical Timeline
• Ellis Island timeline
• Ellis Island Immigration Museum
• Free Search of Ellis Island Database - Port of New York Arrivals 1892–1924
• Supreme Court opinion in New Jersey v. New York (1998)
• National Park Service map showing portions of the island belonging to New York and New Jersey
• American Memory from the Library of Congress
• The Myth of Ellis Island Name Changes