From the time Ellis Island opened in 1892, to 1954 when it closed, more than 12 million immigrants from all over the globe—many of them children—passed through its doors. Almost 40 percent of Americans can trace at least one of their ancestors to Ellis Island. As child migration surges along the southwest border, a look back at some of the children that embarked on a long voyage across the ocean in the hope of becoming Americans.
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An Italian family on board a ferry from the docks to Ellis Island, 1905.
Courtesy of The New York Public Library/Lewis W Hine
A woman, a boy, and a girl at a chain link fence.
Courtesy of The New York Public Library/Lewis W Hine
Italian child finds her first penny, 1926.
Courtesy of the New York Public Library/Augustus Sherman
Lapland children, possibly from Sweden, date unknown.
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Very young immigrants to Ellis Island are being taught by a teacher able to speak several languages, circa 1943.
Courtesy of the National Park Service, Statue of Liberty NM, and Ellis Island
Jewish family from England posing for the camera, unknown date.
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Children playing in a wagon on a rooftop playground at Ellis Island Immigration Centre, circa 1943.
Courtesy of the National Park Service, Statue of Liberty NM, and Ellis Island
Johanna Dykhof with her 11 children. The wooden building behind them is a structure known as the Barracks Building that slept approximately 700 people, unknown date.
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An immigrant family looking across New York Harbor at the Statue of Liberty, circa 1930.
Courtesy of the National Park Service, Statue of Liberty NM, and Ellis Island
Woman with Russian baby weighing 55 lbs, unknown date.
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A photograph of a young immigrant boy holding a box, circa 1880.
Courtesy of the National Park Service, Statue of Liberty NM, and Ellis Island
Helen Bastedo and 13-year-old Osman Louis, a Belgian stowaway, 1921.