Ellis Island and the Peopling of America: The Official Guide

Over three million people visit Ellis Island, the "Golden Door to America," every year. Ellis Island has become an invaluable resource center on immigration and genealogy as well as a national tourist attraction, widely praised for its excellent displays and informative exhibits. Now, the best of the Ellis Island Museum is available to readers everywhere from The Ellis Island-Statue of Liberty Foundation. Fascinating primary-source documents offer an exciting overview of Ellis Island, placing it in historical context with a concise history of immigration and global migration. This comprehensive guide is a must for anyone interested in immigration in general and Ellis Island in particular.

Ellis Island: A Reader and Resource Guide includes * Entry interviews with immigrants
* Descriptions of mental and physical health evaluations
* Oral histories and memoirs of immigrants and immigration officers
* Correspondence from the 1921 Commissioner of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor
* Census information on immigrants
* Photographs and prints from the 1800s to the present
* Maps, charts, graphs, and political cartoons
* Activities and topics for writing and discussion
* A bibliography of related materials: books, videos, and CD-ROMs

This history of the place H. G. Wells once called "quietly immense" is a fine contribution to our understanding of how central immigrants have been to the American experience. Virginia Yans-McLaughlin and Marjorie Lightman, both historians, track the great historic waves of migration by which America was peopled following the first arrival of settlers from the British Isles; assemble documentary evidence of reaction to these newcomers, both hostile and sympathetic; and provide a set of study guides and questions for the use of high school students.