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American Passage: The History of Ellis Island By Vincent J. Cannato Publisher: Harper Number Of Pages: 496 Publication Date: 2009-06-01 ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0060742739 ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780060742737 Product Description: For most of New York's early history,EllisIsland had been an obscure little islandthat barely held itself above high tide. Today the small island standsalongside Plymouth Rock in our nation's founding mythology as the place wheremany of our ancestors first touched American soil. Ellis Island's heyday—from1892 to 1924—coincided with one of the greatest mass movements of individualsthe world has ever seen, with some twelve million immigrants inspected at its gates. In AmericanPassage, Vincent J. Cannato masterfully illuminates the story of EllisIsland from the days when it hosted pirate hangings witnessed by thousands ofNew Yorkers in the nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century whenmassive migrations sparked fierce debate and hopeful new immigrantsoften encountered corruption, harsh conditions, and political scheming. American Passage captures atime and a place unparalleled in American immigration and history, and articulates the dramatic andbittersweet accounts of the immigrants,officials, interpreters, and social reformers who all play an important role inEllis Island's chronicle. Cannato traces the politics, prejudices, andideologies that surrounded the great immigration debate, to the shift fromimmigration to detention of aliens during World War II and the Cold War, allthe way to the rebirth of the island as a national monument. Long after EllisIsland ceased to be the nation's preeminent immigrant inspection station, thedebates that once swirled around it are still relevant to Americans a centurylater. In this sweeping, oftenheart-wrenching epic, Cannato reveals that the history of EllisIsland is ultimately the story of what it means to be an American.Pages of American Passage :
