The story
On January 1, 1892 the United States opened a federal immigration station on Ellis Island in New York Harbor, replacing the older state-run Castle Garden. The first person processed was Annie Moore, a 15-year-old from County Cork, Ireland. Over the next 62 years about 12 million immigrants passed through it, with the busiest year, 1907, bringing more than a million arrivals to the United States. Ellis Island was the most famous gateway of a movement that carried about 50 million Europeans overseas between 1815 and 1914, most to the United States, but also to Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Australia.
Several forces pushed and pulled. Population in Europe had grown rapidly, and the Great Irish Famine (1845 to 1852) drove a million or more Irish to emigrate. Later waves came from Germany and Scandinavia, and after 1880 mostly from Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire, including many Jews fleeing pogroms. Railways brought migrants to ports, and steamships, which cut the crossing from weeks to about a week, made it cheaper and safer. Letters and 'prepaid tickets' sent by earlier migrants pulled relatives after them. In the destination countries, farms, mines, steel mills and railroads wanted labor, and land was cheap.
Arrivals at Ellis Island faced medical and legal inspection, and about 2 percent were turned away, mostly for illness or on legal grounds. The enormous inflow fed a political reaction. The US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, and later laws including the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and the 1924 Immigration Act sharply restricted European arrivals, particularly from southern and eastern Europe. Ellis Island closed in 1954 and is now a museum. The migration reshaped the Atlantic world, supplying American industry, building cities and creating the diverse societies of the Americas.
Why it mattered
- Industrial cities in the United States grew on immigrant labor, and by 1910 immigrants and their children were a majority in many large cities.
- Immigrant communities, such as Irish, Italian, Jewish and German Americans, shaped American politics, religion and culture.
- Political reaction led to the 1921 and 1924 US quota laws that ended the era of open European immigration.
- Remittances and return migration affected the economies and politics of the sending countries.
Sources
- Fact Sheet: Ellis Island National Park Service
- Ellis Island Overview and History Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation
- Why Your Family Name Was Not Changed at Ellis Island New York Public Library
- Ellis Island: Topics in Chronicling America Library of Congress
Community notes
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