History of Ellis Island. give me
Overview, Chronology & Core History
Ellis Island: Island of Hope, Island of Tears
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | May 11, 2020
This article uses the phrase “Island of Hope, Island of Tears” to explore both the promise and pain associated with Ellis Island immigration.
How the Immigrants Who Came to Ellis Island in 1907 Compare to Arrivals Today
| Erin Blakemore | HISTORY | April 19, 2019
This article compares economic outcomes for immigrants who arrived during Ellis Island’s peak years with later immigrant generations.
Ellis Island: A New Place for New Beginnings
| Library of Congress | Library of Congress Blogs | January 8, 2019
This article uses historic newspapers to explain how Ellis Island opened in 1892 and became a national symbol of immigrant arrival.
Ellis Island National Monument
| National Park Foundation | National Park Foundation | n.d.
This overview introduces Ellis Island as a national monument and summarizes its role as the main federal immigration station for millions of arrivals.
Museum, Restoration & Preservation
The Ellis Island Museum Is Revitalizing the Story of American Immigration
| Sarah Kuta | Smithsonian Magazine | April 9, 2024
This article describes the museum’s major renovation project and how it aims to preserve and reinterpret Ellis Island’s immigration history for future visitors.
Liberty Arrives in NYC
| Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | The Torch | 2024
This article explains the arrival of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, providing important context for Ellis Island’s symbolic location nearby.
Ellis Island Restoration at 33
| Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | The Torch | September 5, 2023
This article reviews the massive restoration of the Main Immigration Building and the Great Hall, one of the largest historic preservation projects in U.S. history.
Unforgotten: Ellis Island
| Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | The Torch | September 5, 2023
This article revisits Ellis Island’s abandonment after 1954 and its transformation into a restored public memory site.
New Unforgotten Series Installment Focuses on Ellis Island
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | August 1, 2022
This article introduces a series focused on the forgotten and inaccessible parts of Ellis Island, especially the hospital and dormitory areas.
Ellis Island Museum Hails the Essential American Story of Immigration
| Mark Moran | Psychiatric News | 2018
This article discusses Ellis Island museum exhibits and how they tell broader stories of migration, identity, and arrival.
Grand
| Brendan Gill | The New Yorker | April 9, 1990
This article discusses the restoration of Ellis Island’s Main Building and the architectural care involved in bringing the site back to public life.
The Future of Ellis
| Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | n.d.
This page explains current plans to preserve Ellis Island’s history while expanding access, interpretation, and visitor engagement.
THE TORCH
| Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | The Torch | n.d.
This foundation blog archive includes articles on Ellis Island restoration, immigrant memory, museum interpretation, and preservation work.
Immigration Processing, Inspection & Administration
A Stay at Ellis Island Hospital Could Determine Whether an Immigrant Had a Chance to Start a New Life in America
| Sarah Kuta | Smithsonian Magazine | February 19, 2026
This article explores the Ellis Island hospital system, where medical exams, contagious disease wards, and treatment decisions shaped whether immigrants could enter the United States.
Immigration Act of 1891–Origins of the Ellis Island Experience
| National Archives | NARAtions | July 30, 2010
This article explains how the Immigration Act of 1891 created federal immigration control and made Ellis Island possible.
Ellis Island: Its Organization and Some of Its Work
| National Archives | National Archives | 2024
This National Archives feature uses federal records from 1909 to 1911 to explain how Ellis Island was organized and how officials administered inspections.
Ellis Island Part of Statue of Liberty National Monument
| National Park Service | National Park Service | March 6, 2026
The National Park Service overview introduces Ellis Island as the federal immigration station that processed more than 12 million immigrants during its peak period.
Hospital, Medicine & Public Health
Doctor
| National Park Service | National Park Service | August 14, 2024
This page explains the role of U.S. Public Health Service doctors in line inspections, disease detection, hospital care, and immigrant medical review.
How Many Buildings Are There
| Save Ellis Island | Save Ellis Island | 2017
This article explains the scale of the Ellis Island hospital complex, including its 29 buildings and role in immigrant medical care.
Nurse
| National Park Service | National Park Service | August 19, 2015
This page describes the nurses who cared for immigrants in the general hospital and contagious disease wards at Ellis Island.
This Jigsaw Puzzle Was Given to Ellis Island Immigrants to Test Intelligence
| Kat Eschner | Smithsonian Magazine | May 12, 2017
This article examines the controversial intelligence tests used at Ellis Island and what they reveal about early twentieth-century ideas about ability, language, and exclusion.
Ellis Island’s Forgotten Hospital
| Save Ellis Island | Save Ellis Island | 2007
This article focuses on the abandoned hospital complex and its significance as part of Ellis Island’s medical and public health history.
Save Ellis Island
| Save Ellis Island | Save Ellis Island | n.d.
This nonprofit overview explains efforts to stabilize, preserve, interpret, and restore the historic Ellis Island hospital complex.
About Save Ellis Island
| Save Ellis Island | Save Ellis Island | n.d.
This page describes the organization’s mission to preserve the south-side hospital buildings and expand public access through tours and education.
Visiting Ellis Island
| Save Ellis Island | Save Ellis Island | n.d.
This visitor page explains how the main museum and hard hat tours together reveal Ellis Island’s immigration, hospital, and preservation history.
Photography Tours
| Save Ellis Island | Save Ellis Island | n.d.
This page describes photography access to the abandoned hospital complex, where immigrants were once treated for infectious diseases before admission.
Podcasts
| Save Ellis Island | Save Ellis Island | n.d.
This page features audio discussions about Ellis Island’s hospital buildings, public health history, New Jersey ownership, and preservation work.
Our Current Exhibit
| Save Ellis Island | Save Ellis Island | n.d.
This page presents interpretive exhibits that connect Ellis Island’s abandoned hospital spaces to immigrant experience and preservation.
Ellis Island Abandoned Hospital
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | n.d.
This archive focuses on the abandoned hospital complex, one of the most historically important but least visible parts of Ellis Island.
Detention, Deportation, Exclusion & Asian Immigration
The Chinese Poetry Left at Angel Island, the “Ellis Island of the West”
| Ying Diao | Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage | April 20, 2021
This article compares Angel Island with Ellis Island and helps explain how immigration inspection differed sharply for Asian immigrants on the West Coast.
Ellis Island Closes
| HISTORY Editors | HISTORY | November 12, 2009
This article marks the closing of Ellis Island on November 12, 1954, after more than six decades of immigration, detention, and administrative use.
Ellis Island on the West Coast
| National Archives | Pieces of History | August 23, 2010
This article compares Ellis Island with Angel Island and explains how immigration inspection varied by race, region, and exclusion law.
Closing the Golden Door: Asian Migration and the Hidden History of Exclusion at Ellis Island
| National Archives | National Archives | 2022
This event page highlights scholarship showing how Ellis Island also enforced Asian exclusion and immigration restriction.
Immigration and Deportation at Ellis Island
| PBS American Experience | PBS | n.d.
This article explains Ellis Island’s less-celebrated role as a site of detention and deportation, especially for political radicals and excluded immigrants.
Post-Peak Immigration Years
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This page explains how Ellis Island’s role changed after restrictive immigration laws reduced arrivals and increased detention and deportation work.
Inspector
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This page explains the work of immigrant inspectors who questioned arrivals, checked documents, and helped decide whether newcomers could enter.
Interpreter
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This page explains how interpreters helped Ellis Island officials communicate with immigrants speaking many different languages.
Aid Worker
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This page describes the social workers and aid organizations that helped detained immigrants, families, and vulnerable arrivals at Ellis Island.
Ellis Island’s Board of Special Inquiry: Case Study
| National Archives | National Archives | 2016
This lesson uses federal records to explain how the Board of Special Inquiry reviewed detained immigrants and decided cases involving exclusion or deportation.
How Ellis Island Changed Before It Closed
| Lily Rothman | TIME | November 12, 2014
This article explains how Ellis Island shifted from immigrant gateway to detention and deportation center before it closed in 1954.
A Century of Immigration, 1820-1924
| Library of Congress | From Haven to Home | n.d.
This exhibit page explains large-scale immigration before and during Ellis Island’s peak years, including Jewish migration from Eastern Europe.
Russian Beginnings
| Library of Congress | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History | n.d.
This article discusses migration from the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe, including groups who arrived through Ellis Island.
Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service
| National Archives | National Archives | n.d.
This archival guide describes federal immigration agency records that help researchers understand the administrative context of Ellis Island.
Immigrant Stories, Oral Histories & Notable People
American Royalty - Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball and the Evolution of Celebrity Culture
| Hana Greif | Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | 2026
This article uses celebrity immigration histories to connect Ellis Island family research with twentieth-century American culture.
Immigrant Oral Histories for Your Classroom
| National Park Service | National Park Service | April 10, 2025
This classroom resource uses excerpts from the Ellis Island Oral History Collection to present firsthand immigrant memories of arrival, inspection, fear, hope, and family separation.
Oral Histories
| National Park Service | National Park Service | April 10, 2025
This page highlights the role of recorded immigrant testimony in preserving the personal side of Ellis Island history.
Meet the First and Last Immigrants Who Passed Through Ellis Island
| Dave Roos | HISTORY | November 12, 2024
This article compares the stories of Annie Moore, the first immigrant processed at Ellis Island, and Arne Peterssen, the last person processed before closure.
The First Immigrants Arrive at Ellis Island
| HISTORY Editors | HISTORY | December 21, 2023
This “This Day in History” entry summarizes the January 1, 1892 opening of Ellis Island and Annie Moore’s role as the first processed immigrant.
The Real Story of Annie Moore, Ellis Island’s First Immigrant
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | March 29, 2023
This article tells the story of Annie Moore, the Irish teenager who became the first immigrant processed at Ellis Island on January 1, 1892.
Notable Immigrants A--F
| National Park Service | National Park Service | October 19, 2021
This profile collection highlights famous Ellis Island immigrants whose later lives shaped American science, film, labor, politics, and culture.
Notable Immigrants G--L
| National Park Service | National Park Service | October 19, 2021
This National Park Service page profiles notable immigrants including Kahlil Gibran, Emma Goldman, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, and Bela Lugosi.
Notable Immigrants M--Z
| National Park Service | National Park Service | October 19, 2021
This profile collection follows Ellis Island immigrants and detainees who became artists, entertainers, political figures, scientists, and public personalities.
Remembering Annie Moore, Ellis Island’s First Immigrant
| Christopher Klein | HISTORY | December 28, 2016
This article profiles Annie Moore and explains how she became a symbolic figure in Ellis Island and Irish American immigration history.
Stories
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This page gathers family stories that show Ellis Island through individual immigrant experiences rather than only institutional history.
Hayter Family
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This family story follows Walter Hayter and relatives whose immigration experience included illness and recovery in Ellis Island’s hospital.
Kudrna Family
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This immigrant family story shows how Ellis Island records and memories can reconstruct ordinary arrival experiences.
Mirelowitz Family
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This family profile uses an immigrant story to show how Ellis Island connected European departure, inspection, and American settlement.
Stollmayer Family
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This family story illustrates the personal and emotional dimensions of immigration through Ellis Island.
Jue Family
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This story expands Ellis Island history by showing how Chinese and Asian immigrant experiences intersected with federal inspection and exclusion systems.
Thomas Family
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This family profile presents Ellis Island as a gateway shaped by family separation, reunification, and migration choices.
Sicurella Family
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This family story connects Ellis Island to Italian immigration and the challenges of starting life in the United States.
Perdikis Family
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This story uses one family’s migration to show how Ellis Island shaped Greek and Mediterranean immigrant experiences.
The Foods That Passed Through Ellis Island
| Amanda Bensen | Smithsonian Magazine | January 6, 2010
This article uses food memories and recipes to explore the cultures immigrants brought through Ellis Island.
People
| National Park Service | National Park Service | January 29, 2018
This page introduces the workers and immigrants of Ellis Island, including inspectors, interpreters, nurses, doctors, aid workers, and notable arrivals.
Today in History - January 1
| Library of Congress | Library of Congress | n.d.
This page commemorates Annie Moore’s arrival on January 1, 1892, and places Ellis Island in the broader symbolism of immigration and the Statue of Liberty.
Records, Genealogy, Archives & Research Guides
Image Gallery - Ellis Island and Immigration, circa 1880-1920
| Library of Congress | Library of Congress Research Guides | December 18, 2024
This image guide provides historic photographs of Ellis Island, immigrant arrivals, inspection scenes, and related immigration imagery.
Collection Research
| National Park Service | National Park Service | March 22, 2024
This page describes the museum collection, archives, artifacts, archaeological materials, and research access related to Ellis Island and Liberty Island history.
The Creation and Destruction of Ellis Island Immigration Manifests, Part 1
| Marian L. Smith | National Archives | July 20, 2023
This National Archives article traces the creation, use, and preservation of passenger manifests connected to Ellis Island and federal immigration records.
The Creation and Destruction of Ellis Island Immigration Manifests, Part 2
| Marian L. Smith | National Archives | July 20, 2023
This second part explains how original passenger lists were microfilmed and why the destruction of paper manifests became controversial.
Collections
| National Park Service | National Park Service | January 24, 2023
This page introduces the museum and library collections preserving Ellis Island artifacts, archives, photographs, documents, and research materials.
Archives and Special Collections
| National Park Service | National Park Service | January 27, 2022
This page outlines the archival and special collections that support research into Ellis Island, immigration history, and the Statue of Liberty National Monument.
Immigrant Records at the National Archives
| National Archives | National Archives | 2019
This research guide explains federal immigration records, including passenger arrival records important for Ellis Island family research.
Scope of Collections
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 10, 2018
This page explains what kinds of Ellis Island materials are preserved, including immigration station artifacts, hospital records, restoration materials, and historic objects.
Collection Research and Donations
| National Park Service | National Park Service | February 26, 2015
This page explains how researchers and donors can contribute to or access collections related to Ellis Island and its immigration history.
Passenger Search
| Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | n.d.
This resource explains how the Ellis Island and related arrival records database helps families research immigrant ancestors.
Ellis Island: Topics in Chronicling America
| Library of Congress | Library of Congress Research Guides | n.d.
This guide points researchers to historic newspaper coverage of Ellis Island’s opening, fire, peak immigration, and public debates.
Image Gallery: Ellis Island and Immigration
| Library of Congress | Library of Congress Research Guides | n.d.
This research guide helps users locate historic visual materials related to Ellis Island, immigrant arrivals, ships, inspection, and New York Harbor.
Myths, Names & Public Memory
Did Last Names Really Get Changed at Ellis Island?
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | September 28, 2023
This article explains why the popular story that Ellis Island officials routinely changed immigrants’ names is mostly a myth.
Did Ellis Island Officials Really Change the Names of Immigrants?
| Danny Lewis | Smithsonian Magazine | December 28, 2016
This article debunks the common myth that Ellis Island inspectors routinely changed immigrant surnames during processing.
Ellis Island Isn’t to Blame for Your Family’s Name Change
| Laura Clark | Smithsonian Magazine | January 8, 2015
This article explains how immigrant name changes usually happened before arrival, after settlement, or through personal choice rather than at Ellis Island desks.
Wall of Honor History
| Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | The Torch | February 28, 2023
This article explains the history of the American Immigrant Wall of Honor and its connection to Ellis Island memory and family heritage.
Site of Memory: Ellis Island and the Politics of Public History
| Joachim Baur | Exponauten | 2007
This scholarly essay examines Ellis Island as a memory site and analyzes how the museum interprets immigration and multicultural identity.
The History of Ellis Island
| Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation | n.d.
This foundation page provides a broad interpretive overview of Ellis Island as a gateway, symbol, museum, and family history destination.
Buildings, Places & Physical Island History
Surprising Alternate Uses of NYC’s Ellis Island
| Nicole Saraniero | Untapped New York | March 18, 2025
This article looks beyond Ellis Island’s immigration fame to explain its earlier and later uses, including tavern, fort, detention center, military site, and abandoned landmark.
Colonial and Early American New York
| National Park Service | National Park Service | March 12, 2025
This National Park Service page explains Ellis Island’s colonial ownership, harbor defense role, and Fort Gibson period before its conversion to immigration use.
Peer Inside the Abandoned Baggage and Dormitory Building on Ellis Island
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | August 24, 2022
This article explores the Baggage and Dormitory Building, where detained immigrants could wait for hearings, medical clearance, or family assistance.
The Centuries-Long Squabble Over Who Owns Ellis Island
| Kat Eschner | Smithsonian Magazine | May 26, 2017
This article explains the long legal dispute between New York and New Jersey over Ellis Island’s ownership and boundaries.
Places
| National Park Service | National Park Service | December 7, 2016
This page organizes Ellis Island’s physical history into major periods, from Oyster Island to the restored landmark of the present.
Oyster Island
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This page explains the pre-colonial and early historical background of Ellis Island when it was associated with oyster beds and harbor use.
Images, Video, Exhibits & Teaching Resources
Ellis Island and American Immigration History
| M. Tirone-Goehring | Bard Digital Commons | 2024
This academic teaching resource uses Ellis Island archives and testimony to explore immigration history and museum interpretation.
This Is Ellis Island Symposium Follows the Immigrant Experience
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | June 13, 2022
This article describes a public program examining Ellis Island’s historical meaning through preservation, art, memory, and immigrant stories.
Ellis Island: A Primary Source History of an Immigrant’s Arrival in America
| John H. Hough Jr. | Internet Archive | 2018
This book uses primary sources to introduce Ellis Island’s role in immigrant journeys, inspection, exclusion, and memory.
20 Ellis Island Immigration Photos That Capture the Hope and Diversity of New Arrivals
| HISTORY Editors | HISTORY | November 2, 2018
This photo essay uses historic images, including portraits by Augustus Sherman, to show the diversity of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island.
Immigrants at Ellis Island
This video resource explains what immigrants experienced during inspection and processing at Ellis Island.
Ellis Island
| Library of Congress | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History | n.d.
This classroom article explains Ellis Island through the Italian immigrant experience and the scale of arrivals during the station’s operating years.
Immigration to the United States, 1851 to 1900
| Library of Congress | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | n.d.
This article explains the broader nineteenth-century immigration context that led to the opening of Ellis Island in 1892.
Ellis Island Expedition Series
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This student video series introduces immigration, steamship travel, federal inspection, and the historical significance of Ellis Island.
Ellis Island - Untapped New York
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | n.d.
This topic archive collects articles about Ellis Island’s abandoned buildings, immigration history, alternate uses, tours, and preservation.
Unforgotten Ellis Island
| Untapped New York | Untapped New York | n.d.
This tag archive gathers articles on the Unforgotten Ellis Island project and the hidden spaces of the immigration station.
Monthly History Chronologies
This Month in History- April
| National Park Service | National Park Service | December 26, 2023
This monthly chronology includes key April events related to Ellis Island, including pirate executions, Annie Moore’s birth, and early immigration administration.
This Month in History- January
| National Park Service | National Park Service | December 13, 2018
This monthly chronology includes January events tied to Samuel Ellis, Annie Moore, Isaac Asimov, and immigration administration.
This Month in History- October
| National Park Service | National Park Service | December 13, 2018
This chronology includes Ellis Island’s National Register listing, Coast Guard use, and immigrant arrivals such as Charlie Chaplin and Bela Lugosi.
This Month in History- November
| National Park Service | National Park Service | December 13, 2018
This page includes Samuel Ellis’s purchase of the island, the final ferry trip after closure, and notable immigrant arrivals.
This Month in History- December
| National Park Service | National Park Service | December 13, 2018
This chronology includes the opening of the Main Building in 1900, Emma Goldman’s deportation, and notable immigrant birthdays.
This Month in History- July
| National Park Service | National Park Service | July 15, 2020
This monthly chronology includes events tied to early island ownership, wartime detention, sabotage fears, and immigrant biographies.
This Month in History- February
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This page lists February events connected to typhus, medical inspection, Charles Atlas, wartime internment, and Ellis Island policy.
This Month in History- March
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This chronology includes Ellis Island hospital opening, the Immigration Act of 1891, Department of Labor transfer, and famous immigrant arrivals.
This Month in History- May
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This chronology includes the Emergency Quota Act, Johnson-Reed Act, Ellis Island’s inclusion in the Statue of Liberty National Monument, and notable immigrant birthdays.
This Month in History- September
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
This page includes events such as the 1990 museum opening, Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe’s detention, and famous Ellis Island immigrant arrivals.
Broader Immigration Context & Comparative Sites
Cowboys and Immigrants
| Smithsonian Magazine | Smithsonian Magazine | 2009
This article places Ellis Island’s 1892 opening alongside other myths of American identity, including the frontier and immigration.
