Main Immigration Building at Ellis Island

VISITING ELLIS ISLAND

Ellis Island became part of Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, though it did not open until 1976. It is a 28-acre island—most of it man-made—but only the Main Immigration Building is open to the general public without restrictions. Inside is the Smithsonian-size Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, which if it isn’t the largest museum in the world dedicated to the history of immigration, it’s right up there at the top. The only other area of the island open to visitors is the dilapidated Hospital Complex on the south side, though this can only be seen on the Ranger-guided Hard Hat Tour. Tickets are required and can be purchased on the Statue Cruises website, the National Park Service authorized concessionaire that provides ferry service to Liberty and Ellis islands.

There are two things to remember about the Immigration Museum. First off, if you want to see and read everything, it will take you two full days, that’s how big it is. If you have limited time, I suggest heading to the Second Floor to see the Registry Room, then browse through the Peak Immigration Years and Through America’s Gate museum rooms. These exhibits deal with the actual years that Ellis Island was in business. Plan to spend from one to two hours on the Second Floor, and the more time the better.

Exhibit in the Peopling of America Museum Gallery on the First Floor

Also leave time for a visit to the more intimate Third Floor exhibits. Most of these take no more than 15 minutes to see. Silent Voices is a collection of photos and actual items—old beds, typewriters, musical instruments—that were found in the Main Immigration Building before it was restored. If you like old stuff, this is the coolest exhibit in the museum. Next door is Restoring a Landmark, which covers the 1984-90 restoration of the building. This only takes a few minutes of your time. Treasures From Home, also not to be missed, is a collection of items donated by immigrant families.

Old piano and other equipment on display in the Silent Voices exhibition gallery

Treasures From Home exhibit at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration

Secondly, at least when I visited during the summer, sections of the museum are so cold that you could stack corpses in them. I heard one guy say as he exited the building, “I didn’t know how cold it was in there until I came outside.” If you plan of visiting Ellis Island in the summer, I suggest packing a sweatshirt or light jacket in your bag or backpack. During the winter I assume you’ll already be dressed appropriately.

See the following web pages for details on Ellis Island activities:

American Immigrant Wall of Honor

Dining and Souvenirs

Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration

Fort Gibson

Hard Hat Tour of Hospital Complex

Museum Guided Tour

ELLIS ISLAND HISTORY

After the American Revolution and up through the mid-1800s, there really wasn’t any process or regulation to immigration into the United States. An immigrant simply entered the country and was on his way to becoming an American. The first state intervention into immigration was geared mainly to help newly arrived immigrants find a place to live, a job, and to avoid getting conned out of their possessions by local crooks. There weren’t any legal aspects involved, other than keeping those seriously ill from entering the country. It wasn’t until 1875 that the first federal immigration law was passed that banned convicts, prostitutes, and coolies (Chinese contract laborers). A few years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned Chinese immigration altogether. In the following years, federal immigration laws were passed that banned undesirables such as the insane, polygamists, paupers, anarchists, and those suffering from incurable diseases, but not any particular ethnic group.

It wasn’t until 1921 that a quota system to limit immigration was put in place, a practice that remained law until 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration and Naturalization Act, a bill that began under the Kennedy administration. Previously, northern Europeans made up the bulk of the yearly immigration quota, while countries with ethnic groups deemed undesirable were allotted a very small number of immigrants in the quota system. With the rise of Civil Rights in America, Kennedy felt this system was no longer tolerable. The bill passed by Johnson opened the doors to a wave of immigrants from Third World countries. It was originally geared to help immigrants currently in the country to bring over their immediate family members, but the hidden consequences were that new family members also had family members, ad infinitum, so immigration was once again on the rise. Today the backlog is so great that those attempting to legally enter the country must wait years to be approved.

Up until 1890, immigration was handled by individual states. In 1854, New York City converted Castle Clinton—an old fort built in 1806 that was now called Castle Garden and being used as a theater—into the state’s immigration center in order to deal with a new wave of immigrants. While in operation, two-thirds of all immigrants entering the United States passed through Castle Garden. The building remained open until April 1890, at which time the Federal government took over immigration and began construction on a new facility on Ellis Island. It took two years for the project to be completed, and during this time the nearby Barge Office served as the immigration office.

Ellis Island opened on January 1, 1892, but the Main Immigration Building that stands today—and any other building on the island—is not the original. All of the original buildings were made of wood, and the entire complex caught fire and burned to the ground on June 15, 1897, taking with it all immigration records up to that time. The new immigration commissioner for the Port of New York, Thomas Fitchie, was determined to rebuild the facility out of fireproof brick and stone materials. During the new construction, immigration services were moved back to the Barge Office. Ellis Island reopened on December 17, 1900.

During the peak immigration years that lasted until 1924, seventy percent of all immigrants passed through Ellis Island, a total that amounted to 12 million people. As large as the Main Immigration Building is, it wasn’t big enough. It was built to accommodate a half million immigrants a year, but hundreds of thousands more passed through the doors. Expansion of the island by landfill and the construction of new buildings continued through the 1930s, but by then immigration was at an all-time low.

The beginning of the end for Ellis Island came when the 1924 National Origins Act was passed. This allowed potential immigrants to have their paperwork processed and health and other inspections done in their home countries, thus making a facility like Ellis Island less important. By the 1930s, most of the immigrants on the island were either criminals or terminally ill who were waiting to be deported, or those who somehow lost their papers on the way to America. When the facility finally closed in 1954, on any given day there averaged only 250 people on the island.

After Ellis Island closed, the buildings were abandoned and gradually deteriorated. Though the island was added to Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, it wasn’t until 1976 that the National Park Service began conducting guided tours of the aging Main Immigration Building. The park closed eight years later when a restoration project began. The goal was to restore the Main Immigration Building to its 1918-1924 appearance when the most immigrants came through Ellis Island. This was a massive undertaking that included the removal of asbestos and the replacement of rusted support structures, rotted walls, and the entire roof. The project was competed in 1990. It is the largest historical restoration in the history of the United States.

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