Immigrants’ First Pictures Reveal What It Means To Be American (Historical Kindness)

We often forget that each one of the immigrants who entered this country between 1892 and 1954 was a unique person with their own cultural identity.

These people came to the United States filled with the hope of a better life, and the mingling of their cultures eventually wove the fabric of American identity.

But it’s easy to quantify these people into lists of numbers, names, and nations. It’s far more difficult, however, to reach back into the past and reveal the faces behind those facts and figures.

This is the image that we associate with Ellis Island today.

While the Immigrant Wall of Honor is an incredibly important monument, there’s something distant and isolating about seeing thousands of names etched into shiny stone walls.

But the images that Sherman captured over the course of his career show the true faces of immigration.

From 1892 to 1954, Ellis Island saw over four million immigrants pass through to begin a new life in a new continent. Every single one of them brought not only a suitcase of possessions, but a heart filled with hope and a dream of a better life. Along with registering with the government and adopting American names and lifestyles, many immigrants were required to take photographs to document their arrival. Luckily, some of these photographs have survived.

The following photographs were taken by Augustus Sherman, a registry clerk who worked for over 25 years at Ellis Island. These photographs show what is likely each of these immigrants first or second day in America and showcase just how diverse these people were.

Norwegian Woman

Slovakian Women

Danish Man

Albanian Soldier

By confining these people to textbooks, we lose touch with the fact that a wave of diversity rolled in every time a new ship docked at Ellis Island.

Italian Woman

Algerian Man

Romanian Piper

Russian Cossacks

Sherman photographed the last glimpses of who these people were before they started over in America.

Women From Guadeloupe

Russian Man

More Pipers

German Stowaway

Romanian Woman

Children From Lapland

Ukrainian Woman

Finnish Children

Kids From The Netherlands

German Man

These images show a Mixture of pain, confusion, and triumph that’s unique to those who adopt new identities.

Woman From The West Indies

Dutch Women

Boy From India

If you traced lines between Ellis Island and each nation that was represented by the immigrants who arrived there decades ago, you could easily cover an entire map.

Slovakian Mother And Child

Shepherd From Romania

Soldier From Greece

Finnish Woman

And even after so many years, this country is still emblematic of hope and opportunity. America rests in the hearts and minds of people around the world who dream of leading better lives.

While Ellis Island’s heyday seems like something from a bygone era, the reality is that people from nations around the world see America as a symbol of freedom to this day. We should all be proud of this legacy, and it’s important that we keep it alive for as long as we can.

Via: New York Public Library Vn.com & wimp.com

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