Visited: July 2024
Nearby city: New York City, NY
"I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold.
When I got here, I found out three things: first, the streets weren't paved with gold.
Second, they weren't paved at all. And third, I was expected to pave them."
-likely aprocryphal quote attributed to an unknown Italian immigrant
Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor, once housed the busiest immigrant processing station in the nation. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 million immigrants were processed here prior to entering the United States. Studies estimate that nearly 40% of our current population descended from immigrants who passed through inspections here.
For many immigrants, the place was an "island of hope" - symbolizing the first stop on their new life of opportunity in America. For others, it was an "island of tears" - where families were separated and/or deported.
Ellis Island has been part of the NPS since 1965. It is a unit of the Statue of Liberty National Monument.
Link to our post about the Statue of Liberty: https://paulnationalparks.blogspot.com/2025/06/statue-of-liberty-national-monument.html
You can visit Ellis Island via a ferry from either: (1) Battery Park in downtown NYC; or (2) Liberty Park in New Jersey. Make sure to get your ticket through Statue City Cruises, the ONLY authorized vendor to provide tickets to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
All ticket options to visit the Statue of Liberty include entry to the Musuem of Immigration on Ellis Island. You can pay extra to tour other areas of the island; known as the "Ellis Island Hard Hat Tour."
We opted to simply visit the Museum of Immigration. The museum is HUGE. One could spend hours and hours at the museum. It is absolutely worth a visit.
approaching Ellis Island from the east.
Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital.
In operation from 1902 to 1951, the hospital was used to treat immigrants who were ill on arrival, or to treat immigrants with conditions prohibited by immigration law (tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis, trachoma, mental illnesses, etc.) prior to their deportation.
The island's main reception center now serves as the museum.
At the time of our visit, major restoration work was being done on the outside (hence, lots of scaffolding).
The island got its name when it was purchased by a wealthy New York merchant named Samuel Ellis in 1774. After the revolution, the island became an exclave of New York State, surrounded by waters within the jurisdiction of the State of New Jersey. Decades later, the island was expanded (to nearly triple its natural size) via landfill to accommodate additional structures. The two states long disputed ownership of the expanded island. Finally, in 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court settled the dispute by ruling that the natural island was part of New York, and the additional artificial land belonged to New Jersey.
The Ellis family sold the island to the federal government in 1808. The Army constructed Fort Gibson on the island to protect New York during the War of 1812. It later served as a recruiting depot and then as an artillery battery during the Civil War.
Federal officials had long eyed the island as a place to process immigrants, as early as 1847. At that time, Castle Clinton, a small military fort on the southern tip of Manhattan Island in downtown New York City, had been used to process immigrants. However, the structure was small, did not lend itself well to processing large numbers of people, and there was little to no room to expand.
At the time, US federal immigration policies were much more relaxed but immigration laws varied between the states. In the 1876 case Chy Lung v. Freeman, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the authority to enact immigration laws rested with the federal government, and not the states. The U.S. Congress subsequently passed legislation to build an immigration processing station on Ellis Island.
The Ellis Island processing station opened on January 1, 1892. The first immigrant processed at Ellis Island was Annie Moore, a 17-year old girl from Cork County, Ireland, who was traveling with her two brothers to meet their parents who were already living in Manhattan.
NYC skyline from Ellis Island
Manhattan on the left, Brooklyn on the right
Statue of Liberty from Ellis Island
downtown Manhattan
Main building of the processing center.
Built in 1900, after the original processing center was destroyed in a fire in 1897.
registry room inside the processing center
In the 1890s, immigrants did not need a visa, passport, or other documentation to enter the country. Immigrants were subject to a medical examination. Those that passed the medical exam were then subject to a process known as the "primary" inspection. Here, U.S. immigration officials would ask immigrants a series of questions (such as name, occupation, the amount of money they were carrying - officials wanted immigrants to have about $18 - $25 in their possession, and literacy tests in their native language). If there were no issues, an immigrant would be processed within 3 to 5 hours. Those who were admitted were usually greeted by relatives or friends at the "kissing post" - a wooden column outside the registry room.
There were few guidelines for inspectors, and admissibility was largely up to the inspector's individual discretion. If rejected, appeals could be made to a three-member board of inquiry. Exceptions to deportation could be made if the immigrant had close family ties to a U.S. permanent resident or citizen. Of the 12 million immigrants processed at Ellis Island, approximately 2% were denied entry and deported.
desk used by officials during the primary inspection
When first opened in the 1890s, the majority of immigrants to the US processed at Ellis Island were Northern/Western Europeans - from the German Empire, UK, Ireland, Russia, and Finland. In the early 20th century - more and more immigrants were from Southern/Eastern Europe (Italy, Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Serbia, Greece, Turkey), including Jews, and also North Africa and the Middle East.
From 1905 to 1914, approximately one million immigrants per year arrived in the US. During peak times, over 5,000 immigrants a day would be processed at Ellis Island.
Due to urban legend and books/movies like The Godfather, a myth persists that immigration officials at Ellis Island changed or "Americanized" the last names of many immigrants, either purposely or because they could not pronounce certain names or misheard them, etc. However, these claims are not supported by substantive evidence. Officials used manifests of steamship companies, which usually served as the only record available, to identify individuals. Inspectors were required to be proficient in at least three languages, and were often assigned to process immigrants who spoke the same languages. Although some mistakes likely happened, records indicate that in many instances inspectors actually corrected immigrants' names that were misspelled on the steamship manifests.
graffiti of immigrants detained at Ellis Island, awaiting deportation
hearing room used to conduct inquiries/appeals
tools used for medical inspections
cots for immigrants who had a longer stay on the island
the museum is very extensive and has many artifacts on display
As the years passed, anti-immigrant sentiments grew among U.S. citizens, particularly during and immediately after World War I. The Immigration Act of 1924 established strict quotas, expanded the grounds for deportation (including those convicted of felonies and other "crimes of moral turpitude"), and largely moved primary inspections of prospective immigrants to U.S. embassies abroad. From that point onwards, Ellis Island only hosted immigrants that were to be detained or deported.
During World War II, Ellis Island was used as Coast Guard base and detained enemy soldiers in addition to immigrants. After the war, officials determined that upkeep of the facilities was cost prohibitive. Ellis Island closed on November 12, 1954 with the departure of its last detainee, Norwegian sea-merchant Arne Pettersen, who had been arrested for overstaying his shore leave.
The buildings were left abandoned until development/restoration work in the 1970s. The Museum of Immigration was opened in 1990.
satirical cartoon from 1893 - titled "Looking Backward" - criticizing the hypocrisy of the elite; denying entry to an immigrant while ignoring that their own ancestors were once impoverished immigrants as well.
another cartoon from 1890s depicting Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. as a cowering Puritan. Lodge had sponsored a bill requiring immigrants to pass an English literacy test at the time of entry. The cartoon posed the question "where would we be if the real Americans [Native Americans] held Lodge's view of immigration?"
President Grover Cleveland subsequently vetoed the bill.
ferry building
We had a great time at Ellis Island and learned so much.
"We must not forget that these men and women who file through the narrow gates at Ellis Island, hopeful, confused, with bundles of misconceptions as heavy as the great sacks upon their backs, these simple, rough-handed people are the ancestors of our descendents, the fathers and mothers of our children."
-political philosopher Walter Weyl (1873-1919)
For more info: https://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm
