Kimberly Ord

July 6, 2008

What was the Journey to Ellis Island Like?

Course objective 2 lists the basic stages of the immigrant narrative.  “Children of the Sea” recounts the desperate journey of Haitian refugees.  However, most of the selections that we have read for class have dealt with the stages of the immigrant narrative that occur after the immigrants have already arrived in the United States.  So, I decided to research what the journey to the United States was like.  Like many people, when I think of immigrants coming to America the image that immediately pops into my mind is of people getting off ships at Ellis Island in the late 1800s or early 1900s, so I decided to narrow my research to:  What was the journey to Ellis Island like? 

Ellis Island operated from 1892 to 1924.  During that time ¾ of all the people immigrating to the United States, about 12 million people were processed there.  Of the people who came, only about 2 percent were refused entry (Yans-McLaughlin 59).  However before arriving at Ellis Island, immigrants had to leave their home countries.  Usually, the first step of leaving was getting permission to do so.  The paperwork required for leaving varied widely.  For example, Russian peasants had to get documents from their landlords stating that they were not running away (Heaps 20).  On the other end of the spectrum, Italian immigrants had to get their personal records, such as birth certificates, from the local representative of the king, take them to the mayor who sent it to the provincial authorities.  The provincial authorities then sent it to the capital.  If approved, a passport was sent back to the applicant (Heaps 27). 

After getting permission to leave, the immigrants had to travel to a port city in order to board the steamship that would carry them to Ellis Island.  While doing the research, I was surprised at how organized some of the port countries were.  Germany had immigrant trains that traveled nonstop from where the main railroads entered the country to the ports (Heaps 29).  I was also surprised by the amount of responsibility the governments placed on the steamship operators.  Many countries where people departed from required the companies to be responsible for the immigrants while they waited at the ports to board the ships.  The Hamburg-American Line operated housing for 4000 people (Heaps 29).    Doctors hired by the shipping company performed the pre-boarding medical examination required by the United States.  The U.S. also required ship’s officers to record the answers to a 29 question questionnaire for each immigrant that became part of the ships manifest.  The manifests were turned over to the officials at Ellis Island to help them determine if the immigrants violated any of the laws that required them to be deported (Heaps 30-32).  On the other side of the journey, the steamship companies were responsible for the immigrants until they left Ellis Island.  What this meant was that if the ship docked late, the port was backed up and the immigrants were not processed until the following day or if the person was detained and not allowed entry, the company had to pay for the food served to the people while they waited (Heaps 58).  The steamship companies also had to pay for the return trip for people who were not admitted.  (Yans-McLaughlin 64)   

Here I was prompted to ask another question:  Why did the steamship companies take on this responsibility?  The simple answer was money.  Shipping immigrants was a lucrative business.  Most immigrants bought steerage tickets.  Steerage tickets were for areas on the ship that were basically below deck cargo holds crammed with as many bunks as they could hold.  From 1900 to 1915 the average cost of a steerage ticket was $30 and a larger ship could hold 1,500 to 2,000 (Heaps 25).  “Companies were able to meet the basic costs of the voyage from the much higher revenues of the two cabin classes, leaving the income from steerage as clear profit” (Heaps 26). 

Using the consumer price index, $30 in 1905 would be about $730 today (Measuring Worth).  And that was only for the cost of the ship ticket, not the travel to the ports and any travel after arriving in America.  Where did people who were mostly uneducated, poor peasants get the money?  Often, the entire family chipped in to send one person.   Then the family members in America would work and send money or prepaid tickets to other family members so they could come.  “From 1900 to 1910, 94 per cent of the arriving immigrants at Ellis Island stated they were going to join either friends or relatives” (Heaps 24).  “In 1901 the United States Industrial Commission found that between 40 and 65 per cent of all immigrants at that time came either on prepaid tickets or on money sent to them by relatives in the United States” (Heaps 25).  During my research, the stories of immigrants sending money back to their families in the old world reminded me of today’s stories of people from Mexico sending money back to relatives (The Golden Door).           

After the immigrants got permission to leave, travelled to the ports, bought their steerage steamship tickets, passed in initial medical test and answered the questions for the manifest, they could finally set sail.  Traveling in steerage was crowded, uncomfortable and often smelly.  Teedor Makropoulos paid $36 in 1905 for his 15 day trip from Athens to Ellis Island.

“The rooms had about 150 people in each one, sometimes more,” he recalled.  “Our bunks were upper and lower and we had no place to put our bags, so we had to hold them on the mattress like we were sleeping with them and it was not very comfortable.  We did no have springs, but instead there was some kind of metal strips which we could feel through the mattress.  It was a great big burlap bag of straw, and not very much of that either.  Besides it smelled because a lot of people had probably been seasick on it and I am sure it had never been washed…

“We had three stormy days … so we just stayed in our berths and everyone was sick, and no one came to clean up.  We did not even have any pails or cans and once in a while there would be some sawdust put on the floor…” (Heaps 39-40)

Upon reaching New York, all steerage passengers were required to be processed through Ellis Island.  First and second class passengers were only required to go to Ellis Island if they failed the on board medical exam (Yans-McLaughlin 65).  Most immigrants only spent two to three hours being processed.  They walked past doctors who would mark people with chalk who were to be detained for a closer medical examination.  The medical examiners were looking for people who were sick, had a contagious disease or were likely not to be able to take care of themselves due to a physical or mental handicap.  People who had curable illnesses, such as measles, were held on Ellis Island until they were well and then they were cleared to enter the United States.  People who had incurable diseases were deported.  People who were deemed likely to become wards of the state were also deported. (Heaps 72-78)  After the doctors, the immigrants talked to the inspectors.  The inspectors made sure the immigrants answers matched what the ships officials had written in the manifest.  Like the doctors, they were also concerned with deporting people who would most likely not be able to support themselves.  The inspectors also determined where the immigrant was trying to go after leaving Ellis Island and if they had enough money to get there.  Immigrants either had to have a prepaid ticket or they had to purchase them on Ellis Island.  Immigrants lacking the funds to complete their journey were held until money could be wired or a relative could come and claim the person.  (Heaps 79-95)  Single women and children traveling alone were always detained until a family member came for them. (Yans-McLaughlin 69)  Once the immigrant passed the inspection, they were free to enter America.

Did I answer my question?  What was the journey to Ellis Island like?  I think I did.  During my research, I was surprised by several things.  First was how anticlimactic actually being on Ellis Island was.  Most immigrants were only there for a few hours.  I was also surprised by the paternalistic attitude toward the immigrants when they reached the island.  They weren’t allowed to leave unless they could prove they had enough money to get where they were going.  They had to buy the tickets there, and then they were put on the train.  I was also surprised by how large a part the steamship companies played in getting the immigrants ready for the trip and that they were forced to pay for trip of those deported.  If I were going to do additional research on this subject, I’d like to find some more personal accounts of immigrants that came through Ellis Island.      
Works Cited

Heaps, Willard A.  The Story of Ellis Island.  New York:  The Seabury Press, 1967. 

“The Golden Door.” Destination America:  The People and Cultures that Created a Nation.  David Gruben Productions & Penguin Television.  Public Broadcasting System. 2005.

Measuring Worth Webpage.  6 July 2008. < http://www.measuringworth.com>. 

            The Six ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1774 to Present section.

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