Welcome to our family tree. Like most families in America, ours was built on the backs of immigrants.
As late as 1911, in a report to President William H. Taft, the United States Immigration Commission said of steerage:
“Imagine a large room, perhaps seven feet in height, extending the entire breadth of the ship and about one-third of its length…. This room is filled with a framework of iron pipes, forming a double tier of six-by-two-feet berths, with only sufficient space left to serve as aisles or passageways….”
“Such a compartment will sometimes accommodate as many as three hundred passengers and is duplicated in other parts of the ship and on other decks. The open deck space reserved for steerage passengers is usually very limited, and situated in the worst part of the ship, subject to the most violent motion, to the dirt from the stacks and the odors from the hold and galleys….”
“The only provisions for eating are frequently shelves or benches along the sides or in the passages of sleeping compartments. Dining rooms are rare and if found are often shared with berths installed along the walls. Toilets and washrooms are completely inadequate; salt water only is available.”
“The ventilation is almost always inadequate, and the air soon becomes foul. The unattended vomit of the seasick, the odors of not too clean bodies, the reek of food and the awful stench of the nearby toilet rooms make the atmosphere of the steerage such that it is a marvel that human flesh can endure it….”
“Most immigrants lie in their berths for most of the voyage, in a stupor caused by the foul air. The food often repels them…. It is almost impossible to keep personally clean. All of these conditions are naturally aggravated by the crowding.”
Ellis Island Immigration Center
Ellis Island is a historical site that opened in 1892 as an immigration station, a purpose it served for more than 60 years until it closed in 1954. Located at the mouth of Hudson River between New York and New Jersey, Ellis Island saw millions of newly arrived immigrants pass through its doors–in fact, it has been estimated that close to 40 percent of all current U.S. citizens can trace at least one of their ancestors to Ellis Island.
Castle Garden
Today known as Castle Clinton National Monument, is the major landmark within The Battery, the 25-acre waterfront park at the tip of Manhattan. From 1855 to 1890, the Castle was America’s first official immigration center, a pioneering collaboration of New York State and New York City.
Baltimore Harbor and Docks
Baltimore’s harbor was the first thing that the 1.2 million European immigrants who crossed the Atlantic saw as they disembarked at a pier near Fort McHenry.
More precisely, the new arrivals landed at a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad terminal near today’s Silo Point, the glassy apartment building at 1200 Steuart Street in Locust Point.
