A day Ellis Island became a portal to history
It was a balmy spring Wednesday, with a southwest breeze blowing across New York Harbor. In doors, the Great Hall on Ellis Island was bustling.
Masses of newly arrived immigrants queued up in long lines that stretched the length of the cavernous hall.
It seemed to be an ordinary day in an era of mass immigration, but officials processing the mostly European hoard had no way of knowing it would, in fact, be memorable.
One hundred years ago yesterday -- April 17, 1907 --11,747 American newcomers passed though the Great Hall at Ellis Island. It was the busiest single day in the 62-year history of the nation's portal, which admitted 17 million immigrants during its service...
Ellis Island's record-breaking day occurred in what would long stand as the busiest year for American immigration, 1907, when almost 1.3 million newcomers arrived at America's shores. More than 1 million of those immigrants arrived through Ellis Island, which closed in 1954.
It would remain the record year for U.S. immigration until 1990 and 1991, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and civil war in El Salvador produced larger waves of 1.5 million and 1.8 million immigrant arrivals, respectively.
Read entire article at Newark Star-Ledger
Masses of newly arrived immigrants queued up in long lines that stretched the length of the cavernous hall.
It seemed to be an ordinary day in an era of mass immigration, but officials processing the mostly European hoard had no way of knowing it would, in fact, be memorable.
One hundred years ago yesterday -- April 17, 1907 --11,747 American newcomers passed though the Great Hall at Ellis Island. It was the busiest single day in the 62-year history of the nation's portal, which admitted 17 million immigrants during its service...
Ellis Island's record-breaking day occurred in what would long stand as the busiest year for American immigration, 1907, when almost 1.3 million newcomers arrived at America's shores. More than 1 million of those immigrants arrived through Ellis Island, which closed in 1954.
It would remain the record year for U.S. immigration until 1990 and 1991, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and civil war in El Salvador produced larger waves of 1.5 million and 1.8 million immigrant arrivals, respectively.