Tell Me A Story

Recently, I was able to travel to New York City to visit museums in Manhattan to research how immigration history is being presented at other museums.  I was interested in three in particular: the Ellis Island Immigration Museum (http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm), the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (http://www.tenement.org/), and the Museum of Chinese in America (http://www.mocanyc.org/).  Each of these museums focuses on a different element of immigration history and approaches the subject in very unique ways.  They are also vastly different in their focus and scope, from the Museum of Chinese in America, whose mandate it is to present the history of one particular ethnic group, to the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, which seeks to share the story of Ellis Island and the millions of immigrants of all backgrounds who came through its gates.

The Ellis Island Immigration Museum is housed in the main building on Ellis Island.  This was the most active immigrant processing station in the United States, from its opening in 1892 to when it was abandoned in 1954.  During this period, it welcomed and processed over 12 million immigrants.  In 1965, the site was incorporated into the Statue of Liberty Monument and made a National Parks Service site; however, it was only in 1986, with the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, that work at the main building on Ellis Island began and restored it to its appearance in the years 1918-1924.  The Ellis Island Immigration Museum officially opened in the main building in 1990.

As in many other museums housed in historical buildings, part of the enjoyment of being there is the experience of walking the same steps and being within the same walls that held so much history.  Ellis Island is a grand experience, from the expansive Baggage Room on the ground floor to the soaring ceilings in the Registry Room on the third.

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