Ellis Island History: Your First Day as an Immigrant in 1907

Ellis Island history, told as if you were there: your first day as an immigrant in 1907, the record year, from the steerage deck to the ferry for New York. On April 17, 1907, about 11,747 people were examined at Ellis Island in a single day. In this documentary you follow one of them through every step of the immigration inspection: the ship's manifest written in Europe, the stairs, the chalk marks, the eye exam, the 22 questions, and the real reason about 1 in 100 were refused. Real archive photographs and film from the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library and the National Archives; every number is sourced below. Chapters 0:00 Intro: the busiest day 0:56 The banner year 2:08 The list that followed you 3:32 Down in steerage 4:44 Not everyone went to the island 5:46 Up the stairs 6:54 The chalk 8:01 The eye exam 8:58 The questions, and your name 10:15 Held back, and the real danger 12:07 The Kissing Post 13:21 What came after Photos and film (public domain or no known restrictions): Library of Congress (Detroit Publishing Co., Underwood & Underwood, Bain News Service, Edwin Levick; films by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. and American Mutoscope & Biograph), New York Public Library (Augustus Sherman's Ellis Island portraits, Lewis Hine), Brooklyn Museum (Lewis Hine), National Archives, Popular Science Monthly (1912, 1913). The full list of every photograph and film is in the pinned comment. Sources: National Park Service, Ellis Island Historic Resource Study (Unrau, 1984); Reports of the Immigration Commission (Dillingham Commission, 1911); Immigration Act of February 20, 1907; Annual Reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration (1913, 1914); U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services History Office; National Archives; Edward A. Steiner, On the Trail of the Immigrant (1906); Stephen Graham, With Poor Immigrants to America (1914); Frederic J. Haskin (1913) and Frank Martocci, as quoted by the NPS; E. H. Mullan, Public Health Reports (1917); Ellis Island Oral History Project (NPS). Thumbnail: An Albanian woman at Ellis Island, about 1905 · Augustus F. Sherman, New York Public Library, public domain — restored and colorized, background simplified (colour and background are an illustration). Two moments that no photograph recorded (a steamship ticket office writing the manifest, and a chalk mark on a coat) are shown as AI-generated illustrations, not archive photographs. Music: YouTube Audio Library Land of My Fathers — The 126ers This is Not Effortless — True Cuckoo Final Soliloquy — Asher Fulero #EllisIsland #ImmigrationHistory #History