Where was the first stop in the US for most immigrants in the early 1900s?

Between 1892 and 1954, more than twelve million immigrants passed through the U.S. immigration portal at Ellis Island, enshrining it as an icon of America's welcome. That story is well known. But Ellis was also a place of detainment and deportation, an often-heartbreaking counterpoint to the joy and relief of coming to America.

Arrival and Departure
In 1991, Historic Preservation magazine published photographs of the severely dilapidated buildings of the Ellis Island complex, overseen by the National Park Service. The accompanying text began:

"The New World's 'Golden Door' was, for some, a place of protracted anguish. While the immigration service efficiently channeled millions through Ellis Island's Main Building, countless others awaited their fates in the hospital and infectious disease wards on the south side of the island. Some recuperated sufficiently to enter America, but others were returned to their homelands."

The Golden Door
Many thousands of immigrants came to know Ellis Island as "detained petitioners to the New World." These determined individuals had crossed oceans, under the burden of fear and persecution, famine and numbing poverty, to make a new life in America. For some, the story ended happily; for others, in prolonged uncertainty about which way the "Golden Door" would swing.

Quick, Fateful Exams
New arrivals were processed quickly. In the Registry Room, Public Health Service doctors looked to see if any of them wheezed, coughed, shuffled or limped. Children were asked their names to make sure they weren't deaf or dumb. Toddlers were taken from their mothers' arms and made to walk. As the line moved forward, doctors had only a few seconds to check each immigrant for sixty symptoms of disease. Of primary concern were cholera, favus (scalp and nail fungus), tuberculosis, insanity, epilepsy, and mental impairments. The disease most feared was trachoma, a highly contagious eye infection that could lead to blindness and death.

Hospital Wards
Once registered, immigrants were free to enter the New World and start their new lives. But if they were sick, they spent days, weeks, months even, in a warren of rooms. Some, like the tuberculosis ward, were open to the sea, where a gentle New York harbor breeze cleansed their lungs, improving their chances. Other rooms were solitary, forlorn places where the illness itself decided when to leave or stay. Most patients in the hospital or Contagious Disease Ward recovered, but some were not so lucky. More than 120,000 immigrants were sent back to their countries of origin, and during the island's half-century of operation more than 3,500 immigrants died there.

Detainees
Ellis Island waylaid certain arrivals, including those likely to become public charges, such as unescorted women and children. Women could not leave Ellis Island with a man not related to them. Other detainees included stowaways, alien seamen, anarchists, Bolsheviks, criminals and those judged to be "immoral." Approximately 20 percent of immigrants inspected at Ellis Island were temporarily detained, half for health reasons and half for legal reasons.

Isolationism
When America entered World War I in April 1917, anti-immigration sentiment peaked. People in favor of restricting immigration judged the newcomers racially inferior, and warned of the danger of allowing a "melting pot" made up of an impoverished, criminal, radical and diseased horde.

"Heretics and Malignants"
The exclusion of foreign radicals from America was nothing new. In 1682, the Puritan minister Cotton Mather of the Massachusetts Bay Colony expressed his nativism in a letter:

"To Ye Aged and Beloved, Mr. John Higginson, There be now at sea a ship called Welcome, which has on board one hundred or more of the heretics and malignants called Quakers, with W. Penn... at the head of them. The General Court has accordingly given secret orders to Master Malachi Huscott, of the brig Porpoise, to waylay the said Welcome slyly as near the Cape of Cod as may be, and make captive the said Penn and his ungodly crew, so that the Lord may be glorified and not mocked on the soil of this new country with the heathen worship of these people. Much spoil can be made by selling the whole lot to Barbados, where slaves fetch good prices in rum and sugar, and we shall not only do the Lord great service by punishing the wicked, but we shall make great good for His Minister and people, Yours in the bowels of Christ, Cotton Mather."

Most of the immigrants who came to America through Ellis Island were from eastern and southern Europe. In many cases, they came to escape the poverty and religious intolerance that existed in small towns in countries such as Italy, Poland, and Russia.

They began their journey to America on foot, horseback, or train. Many trekked hundreds of miles across Europe to get to a seaport. When they arrived at the coast, they boarded a steamship.

The trip across the Atlantic Ocean lasted one to two weeks. The ships divided passengers by wealth and class. First- and second-class passengers stayed in staterooms and cabins. But most people were in third class, called "steerage." Steerage was a large, open space at the bottom of the ship.

As many as 3,000 people crowded the ships. They often came from different countries, spoke different languages, and belonged to different religions.

Where did a lot of immigrants live once they came to the United States?

Where did most immigrants in the early 1900's settle?

What was the first stop for immigrants?

Where did most immigrants to the United States by 1900 originate?