US History Research Project: Immigration and Ellis Island.

    While the times may change some things stay the same, just as Immigration is a prevalent issue today it was an emerging topic 100 plus years ago. While now it seems like most immigrants come from Mexico back in the late 1800's and early 1900's people were coming from all over the world, Big masses of Irish, German, Chinese, and many more places around the world flooded to the US to chase what they considered the American dream. The American dream many sought was a stable job, a roof over their head, and a better life for their future generations and as History.com stated close to 40% of current U.S. citizens family's started at Ellis Island.  It was a time of hope, despair, and many changes not just for the immigrants but for the whole Country.

    Ellis Island opened up in 1892 officially as what we know the famous island for; being the immigrants first stop on their journey to the US. Previously the island had been used to hang criminals on as History.com told me. The first immigrants to come through Ellis Island were a group of children a young 15 year old girl named Annie Moore and her two younger brothers, once they arrived they were taken in, asked where they were headed, cleared all the tests,  and met their parents who had already been living in the US and had been waiting on the other side so they could take them to their new life. This kick-started a rapid migration of people to the U.S. that has never been duplicated or will be ever again.

    Ellis Island ran as an immigration center for over 60 years, later it become a detention center during the first and second world war and eventually closed down to become a tourist attraction; as well as the fact that the U.S. immigration policy has drastically changed since the late 1800's and early 1900's. The Island did serve it's purpose though and eventually went from one island to adding 2 more on to help with the large number of immigrants arriving, in 1907 alone over 1 million immigrants arrived and passed through Ellis Island. Not all hopefuls that arrived to the Island passed though and some ended up being held in dentition centers on the island until they could send them back on a ferry to wherever they had come from. One such case I found was in the Chicago Day Book from 1913 the former dictator/president of Venezuela tried to make it to the US so he could amass a fleet of ships to take Venezuela back under his control, luckily the US found out before he arrived and detained him before any harm could be done but he did manage to first strip himself naked at the Island and refused to comply with the official searching for weapons. He was promptly sent back to Europe pretty soon after.          

    Today for Immigrants the process is a long and hard one as they must get put on a waiting list that in some cases can take up to 8 years or more and then they have to take the citizenship test and hope they pass it as well. The process was a bit different back then (as history.com put it) though once making it through the Island  passing the medical exams which were refereed to as 6 second checkup's by the Island doctors and later on puzzles and memory tests to see if they were smart enough; As the U.S. put a ban on immigrants with mental disabilities and other aliments of the same nature. All Immigrants had to do at first was wait 5 years as flowhistory.org put it, originally in the early 1800's Jefferson made it 15 but eventually loosened it to 5 for all racially white immigrants through 1861-1890 this is all they had to do. 

    After 1890 though the ways of becoming a citizen got a little bit more modern in some aspects. In 1882 a tax was put on an all immigrants which required them to pay a 50 cent tax once they were cleared and good to come into to the US. The late 1800's also saw restrictions on who could come in tighten up as prostitutes, and criminals were banned from entering in 1875. It wasn't until 1907 that once again the restrictions needed to be tighter now people with physical or mental disabilities   were banned from entering along with children without adults. In 1903 an official exclusion act was passed which denied anarchists, political extremists, beggars, and epileptics entry into the country as infoplease.com put in it's immigration legislation timeline. How they planned to spot these people were hoping to be altered early like in the former president of Peru's case or their was also a brief 20ish question interview after you arrived and passed the medical exam. 

  

It wasn't all bad for the immigrants though, many cities welcomed them to stay there such as the case of the Pittsburgh Dispatch which proudly stated that Pittsburgh was one of the immigrant capitals of the world. The immigrants also helped urbanize American a lot sooner than if we hadn't had immigrants, Medicine got better, Doctors got smarter and learned about new diseases. Immigrants helped with buildings such as Skyscrapers as now with an influx of more people arriving work that might have not been the most desirable was now getting done which allowed the country to get new technology and also become the melting pot we know it as today through their being new cultures, new food, and new ideas in the country as well.    

  

An illustration of Ellis Island

A politcal cartoon of  Uncle Sam's new Thanksgiving dinner featuring immigrant groups now.

Another image of Immigrants arriving and waiting in lines.

A map of each ethnic group and where they lived in this area of Chicago.

Bibliography: 

Ellis Island starter info from History.com   
I used this for a bulk overview of my info along with an overview of Ellis Island.

History.com/ 9 unknown facts about Ellis Island  
I also used this for some fun facts to throw into the essay and also to include some more points into the essay such as the Annie Moore info. 

New York Tribune 8/28/04
I used to this source to better understand how Ellis Island became more stylistically and similar to "The Great White City"  

The Day Book Chicago Ill. 1/03/13
I used this source to talk about a funny story of an example of an Immigrant who had been detained at Ellis Island and sent back to Europe. 

Pittsburgh Dispatch. 4/17/92    
I used this source to showcase that many cities were happy about getting Immigrants such as Pittsburgh. 

Immigration and CitizenShip overview
I used this source as a big overview of Immigration and Citizenship during this time, I also got pictures from here. 
Immigration law Timeline.
I used this source to help me find what the citizenship process was like during this time since there was no Citizenship test. 

Immigration Additonal Timeline 
I used this source to also help me find what the Citizenship process was like.