Document sur l'histoire Ellis Island

This document « Ellis Island - History » is an extract of a website page from the official site : www.ellisisland.org

[org means that the website comes from an official organisation we do not have any information about the date and the author.

The document is composed of seven paragraphs. But we can say that there are three differents parts.

The topic is about ellis island history as the title says.

It's about the immigration from 1892 to 1954 (the 19th & 20th century) in the USA.

The first part is about the history of Ellis Island : why was ellis island created ?

Before Ellis Island opened in 1892. The number of the immigrants arriving in the USA had become extremely important. From 1855 to 1890 ( 35 years) castle garden situated in the battery district served as nex york cities immigration point.

At that time every state was in charge of immigration.

Since the number of immigrants continued to expand, there were more and more problems in Castle Garden.

It was full, there was corruption, incompetence and problems of security.

So the federal governements took control of immigration.

Ellis Island become the now federal immigration center.

It is located in Manhattan. Ellis Island opened it's doors in 1892, which started a new era for immigration.

At that time many immigrants came from Europe because of political economic opression. In other words they run away from their homecountry to restart their lives.

They also left europe because of famine / drought and religious

Many thought they could get a better life : to make fortune and have new opportunities in the new world.

The second part of the document deals with the arrival of immigrants (It starts paragraph 4) in NYC, Ellis Island.

The passengers who arrived in NYC did not have the same treatment.

It depended on if they were first or second class passengers or third class passengers called too « steerage passengers » (paragraph n°5 = line 1)

Passengers with a first or a second tickets were examined on board

The authorties considered that first ans second class passengers werre richer than the third class passengers, so there was no risk to « become a burden »

Still, in case of sickness or legal problems immigrants were sent to Ellis Island for inspection.

Third class passengers travelled in very bad conditions (paragraph n°5) : « crowded and unsanitary conditions ». They didn't have beds like 1st and 2nd class passengers. They just had a « bunks ».

Because they were poor they didn't have enough money to got a first andsecond class ticket. Consequently the federal governement thought there were more risks to have medical or legal problems.

If everything was alright, they just spent a few hours. But if they were

...