Research Catalog

Title

Encountering Ellis Island : how European immigrants entered America / Ronald H. Bayor.

Author

Bayor, Ronald H., 1944-

Publication

Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2014]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 168 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

"America is famously known as a nation of immigrants. Millions of Europeans journeyed to the United States in the peak years of 1892-1924, and Ellis Island, New York, is where the great majority landed. Ellis Island opened in 1892 with the goal of placing immigration under the control of the federal government and systematizing the entry process. Encountering Ellis Island introduces readers to the ways in which the principal nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American portal for Europeans worked in practice, with some comparison to Angel Island, the main entry point for Asian immigrants. What happened along the journey? How did the processing of so many people work? What were the reactions of the newly arrived to the process (and threats) of inspection, delays, hospitalization, detention, and deportation? How did immigration officials attempt to protect the country from diseased or "unfit" newcomers, and how did these definitions take shape and change? What happened to people who failed screening? And how, at the journey's end, did immigrants respond to admission to their new homeland?Ronald H. Bayor, a senior scholar in immigrant and urban studies, gives voice to both immigrants and Island workers to offer perspectives on the human experience and institutional imperatives associated with the arrival experience. Drawing on firsthand accounts from, and interviews with, immigrants, doctors, inspectors, aid workers, and interpreters, Bayor paints a vivid and sometimes troubling portrait of the immigration procedure. In reality, Ellis Island had many liabilities as well as assets. Corruption was rife. Immigrants with medical issues occasionally faced a hostile staff. Some families, on the other hand, reunited in great joy and found relief at their journey's end. Encountering Ellis Island lays bare the profound and sometimes victorious story of people chasing the American Dream by leaving everything behind, facing a new language and a new culture, and starting a new American life."--Publisher information.

Series Statement

How things worked

Uniform Title

How things worked.

Subjects

• Immigrants
• United States
• Ellis Island Immigration Station (N.Y. and N.J.)
• Ellis Island Immigration Station (New York, N.Y.) History
• Emigration and immigration
• SOCIAL SCIENCE > Emigration & Immigration
• HISTORY > Social History
• Immigrants > United States > History
• Ellis Island Immigration Station (N.Y. and N.J.) History
• United States > Emigration and immigration > History
• HISTORY > United States > General
• History

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

How (and why) immigrants traveled to America -- How immigrants were processed -- How newcomers dealt with delays and coped with detainment or rejection -- How the immigration staff and others viewed their work -- How immigrants responded to entering America and changed the system.

Call Number

JV6484

ISBN

• 9781421413679
• 1421413671
• 9781421413686
• 142141368X

LCCN

2013036937

OCLC

863043790

Author

Bayor, Ronald H., 1944-

Title

Encountering Ellis Island : how European immigrants entered America / Ronald H. Bayor.

Publisher

Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2014]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

How things worked

How things worked.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Research Call Number

*R-USLHG JV6484 .B39 2014