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Encyclopedia of American Immigration, 2nd Edition

Ellis Island

by Steven G. Kellman

Identification: Immigrant reception center in New York Harbor

Date: Opened on January 1, 1892; closed on November 12, 1954

Significance: The first official immigration station and long the busiest in the United States, Ellis Island was the entry point for more than 12 million newcomers. By the early twenty-first century, more than 40 percent of the people living in the United States could trace their ancestry to immigrants who were processed through Ellis Island.

Ellis Island was once the site of the nation’s busiest immigrant processing center. Called Kioshk, or Gull Island, by the Indians, the island was renamed Oyster Island when the Dutch acquired the property in the 1630s. During the British colonial period, it went by the names Dyre’s Island, Bucking Island, Anderson’s Island, and Gibbet Island. Manhattan merchant Samuel Ellis held title to the land during the American Revolution, and his heirs sold what became known as Ellis Island to New York State in 1808. Later that same year, the property was acquired by the federal government. Originally 3.3 acres, the island was expanded to 27.5 acres mostly by landfill from ballast removed from ships. Though the federal government maintains control over the island, a long-standing dispute between New Jersey and New York was finally resolved in 1998, when the two states agreed to share jurisdiction.

Before 1890, when the federal government assumed responsibility for immigration control and designated Ellis Island as the first federal immigrant processing station, individual states were responsible for processing immigrants. Until that year, Castle Garden, located in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, served as the immigration absorption center for New York. Between 1855 and 1890, more than 8 million immigrants, mostly from northern and western Europe, passed through Castle Garden.

European immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, 1908.

AmImm2e_p0315_1.jpg

Photo by Lewis Hine, via Wikimedia Commons. [Public domain.]

On January 1, 1892, Annie Moore, a fifteen-year-old from Ireland, became the first immigrant registered at Ellis Island, which was larger and more isolated than the cramped Castle Garden. By the time the facility ceased operations, on November 12, 1954, it had processed more than 12 million immigrants from a wide range of origins, including southern and eastern Europe. During 1907, its peak year, 1,004,756 immigrants passed through the island. The highest volume recorded for any single day was 11,747, on April 17, 1907.

Although the United States also maintained immigration stations in Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Galveston, San Francisco, and elsewhere, Ellis Island was by far the busiest. During a period of unprecedented dislocation, it was a barometer of the massive immigration from Europe that was transforming American culture.

Arrival and Inspection

The majestic Statue of Liberty was the first inspiring sight that greeted most ship passengers arriving in New York Harbor at the conclusion of a long voyage across the Atlantic. Half a mile north, however, most immigrants were soon forced to disembark at Ellis Island, which for some was the only piece of American soil on which they were able to set foot. Would-be immigrants were screened on Ellis Island, and during the course of the immigration station’s existence, approximately 2 percent of passengers were denied admission into the United States. Since it was assumed that passengers arriving in first- and second-class accommodations had sufficient resources to avoid becoming public charges, they were provided the courtesy of a brief shipboard inspection. However, those with medical or legal problems were forced, along with third-class and steerage passengers, to get off at Ellis Island and submit to a series of mental and physical tests designed to screen out undesirables.

Inspectors were particularly vigilant about preventing the spread of tuberculosis. Those who were determined to be seriously ill or insane or who possessed criminal records were deemed unworthy to enter the United States. For those who had endured at least a month at sea within the miserable confines of steerage only to be forced to return from whence they came, the famous immigration station earned its popular nicknames “Island of Tears” and “Heartbreak Island.” During the island’s history, thirty-five hundred immigrants died in its hospital facilities.

Agents of the United States Public Health Service and the Bureau of Immigration carried out inspections, which took place in the Registry Room (also known as the Great Hall) and usually lasted three to five hours. The total time required to process a new arrival was usually one to three days. Dormitories and dining halls were built to accommodate the newcomers during their stay on Ellis Island. Legend has it that, either deliberately or through misunderstanding, Ellis Island officials Americanized many foreign names. However, hundreds of translators were on hand to facilitate communication, and officials simply copied information from the questionnaires that passengers had filled out themselves during embarkation.

Last Years of Ellis Island

During World War I, the volume of immigration to the United States decreased, and Ellis Island was used to intern suspected enemy aliens. The restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 reduced traffic through the processing center to a trickle. During World War II, seven thousand German, Italian, and Japanese nationals, classified as enemy aliens, were detained on Ellis Island, which was also used as a training base for the US Coast Guard. In 1954, a Norwegian sailor named Arne Peterssen became the last immigrant processed through the immigration station, and the island ceased its operations.

Preserving Ellis Island

Between 1982 and 1990, funds were raised and restoration began on the main buildings of Ellis Island, including the opening of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, which has brought the public to the island to learn more about their ancestors’ experiences. In a further effort to preserve the significance of Ellis Island’s place in the United States’ immigration history, the American Family Immigration History Center opened within the museum in 2001. Visitors can access millions of archived records and primary documents. In late 2014, the organization Save Ellis Island began offering the first guided tours of the unrestored south side of the island, including the large hospital that contains a laboratory and morgue. As part of the tour, renowned French artist J. R. created an exhibit consisting of several archival photos pasted throughout the buildings.

Further Reading

1 

Bayor, Ronald H. Encountering Ellis Island: How European Immigrants Entered America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2014. Print.

2 

Brownstone, David M., Irene M. Franck, and Douglass L. Brownstone. Island of Hope, Island of Tears: The Story of Those Who Entered the New World Through Ellis Island—In Their Own Words. New York: Rawson, 1979. Print.

3 

Cabaniss, Emily R., and Abigail E. Cameron. “’Unassimilable and Undesirable’: News Elites’ Discursive Construction of the American Immigrant During the Ellis Island Years.” Discourse & Society. 28, iss. 6 (2017): 614-34.

4 

Cannato, Vincent J. American Passage: The History of Ellis Island. New York: Harper, 2009. Print.

5 

Conway, Lorie. Forgotten Ellis Island: The Extraordinary Story of America’s Immigrant Hospital. New York: Smithsonian, 2007. Print.

6 

Fleegler, Robert L. Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2013. Print.

7 

Moreno, Barry. Encyclopedia of Ellis Island. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004. Print.

8 

Novotny, Ann. Strangers at the Door: Ellis Island, Castle Garden, and the Great Migration to America. Riverside: Chatham, 1971. Print.

9 

Pitkin, Thomas M. Keepers of the Gate: A History of Ellis Island. New York: New York UP, 1975. Print.

10 

Ryzik, Melena. “Shadows Return to Ellis Island.” New York Times, September 24, 2014, www.wbai.org/articles.php?article=2288.

11 

Szejnert, Malgorzata. Ellis Island: A People’s History. Royal Oak, MI: Scribe Publishing, 2020.

12 

Yans-McLaughlin, Virginia, and Marjorie Lightman. Ellis Island and the Peopling of America: The Official Guide. New York: New, 1997. Print.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Kellman, Steven G. "Ellis Island." Encyclopedia of American Immigration, 2nd Edition, edited by Michael Shally-Jensen, Salem Press, 2021. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=AmImm2e_0173.
APA 7th
Kellman, S. G. (2021). Ellis Island. In M. Shally-Jensen (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American Immigration, 2nd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Kellman, Steven G. "Ellis Island." Edited by Michael Shally-Jensen. Encyclopedia of American Immigration, 2nd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2021. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.