Medical Inspections

• First and Second Class Inspections– Medical inspector boarded the ship to check for life-threatening

diseases– First and Second class passengers were let go and free to start life in

America– Steerage passengers boarded a boat that went to Ellis Island

• Arriving At Ellis Island– Assigned a number that was pinned on their clothes– Interpreters shouted numbers to create groups of 30 for processing

• Medical Inspections– Wanted to weed out immigrants who would need public assistance– Observers watched immigrants walking up set of stairs into Great Hall

• Looking for limps or disabilities– exam took 45 minutes per immigrant

• looking for mental or medical defects

Quotes 4-8

Legal Inspections• The Registry Hall (200 feet long, 100 feet wide)

– Final Inspection– Could hold up to 5,000 people– Iron railings to keep immigrants in order– Inspectors asked questions to immigrants, judging truth

• The Final Inspection– Immigrants were asked 32 questions about their reason for entering the U.S.– What is your name? Married? Do you have money? Relatives?– This is the place where immigrants’ last names were often changed.

• Ellis Island was not a fun place for immigrants– “Why should I fear the fires of hell? I have been through Ellis Island.”– Some fathers were asked to return to Europe while their family was allowed to

stay• Only 20 percent of immigrants were detained, 2 percent were sent home

Quotes 9-13

Ethnic Enclaves• Crowded street in Italian neighborhood in NYC• Leaving Ellis Island

– Visit money exchange office and plan final destination– 2/3 of immigrants went to NYC

• Ethnic Enclaves– Most immigrants settled in Urban centers

• Boston, NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia– Many immigrants moved in with family already living in U.S.

• Created sense of community (Chinatown, Little Italy)• Common food, language

– newspapers in native language– grocery with familiar foods– businesses that catered to native traditions

Living Conditions• City Tenement Buildings

– Five cents a spot lodging– Cities were not ready to house a growing population

• Sewage often backed up• Streets were dirty

– Tenement houses were crowed apartment buildings• 1,231 people living in 120 rooms• 2-3 people per bed

• Perils of Tenement Living– Two rooms, toilets were the yard, stove for heat and not bathtub– Fires, disease, death were common in immigrant tenement communities– 60% of immigrant babies died before their first birthday

• Rural Living Conditions– If immigrants had money they traveled west or south

• Italians established vineyards in California• Polish immigrants moved to the Midwest

– b/c they moved to the country, living conditions were cleaner, but money was tighter

Working Conditions• Young Girl working in a textile factory• Immigrant Workforce

– Majority of immigrants worked in industrial jobs– Desperate for work and willing to accept almost any kind of job

• Cheap labor– Unskilled or semiskilled laborers

• Company could teach them what they needed to know• They did not need previous knowledge to work a job

• Working Conditions– $16 a week would be sufficient to achieve a minimum standard of living– Immigrants made between $1.25 and $4 a WEEK!

• 10 cents per hour• Children made half that• 108 hour work week

– Factories were dirty and dusty• Improved Standard of living

– Even though they were poor, they still made more than they would have in Europe

Americans’ Treatment• Cartoon shows the shadow of immigrant origins

looming over five wealthy Americans who are “greeting” a newly arrived immigrant

• American Nativism– Americans believed immigrants posted a threat to them– Prejudices based on race/ethnicity

• “The immigrants are an invasion of venomous reptiles... long-haired, wild-eyed, bad-smelling, atheistic, reckless foreign wretches, who never did a day’s work in their lives.”

– Immigrants take jobs away from “real” Americans– Wanted number of immigrants entering U.S. restricted