American Passage
Page 52
23 The island’s last: Hearn, 46; “The Life of Cornelius Wilhelms: One of the Braganza Pirates,” 1839, NYHS.
23 New York City: For an excellent discussion of New York’s waterfront, see Phillip Lopate, Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan (New York: Crown, 2004).
24 There are some forty: See Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller, The Other Islands of New York City: A History and Guide, 2nd ed. (Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press, 2001).
24 Many of the city’s: Lopate, Waterfront, 374.
24 In upper New York Harbor: Diana diZerega Wall and Anne-Marie Cantwell, Touring Gotham’s Archaeological Past: 8 Self Guided Walking Tours Through New York City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 20–21.
25 Seals, whales, and porpoises: Diana diZerega Wall and Anne-Marie Cantwell, Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 87; John Waldman, Heartbeats in the Muck: The History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor (New York: Lyons Press, 1999); and Mark Kurlansky, The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell (New York: Ballantine Books, 2006).
25 Little Oyster Island: Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 63.
25 One of the first orders: Berthold Fernow, ed., Records of New Amsterdam, vol. 1 (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1976), 51, 58–59; Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 259; Elva Kathleen Lyon, “Joost Goderis, New Amsterdam Burgher, Weighmaster, and Dutch Master Painter’s Son,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 123, no. 4 (October 1992).
26 Little Oyster Island would also: Reimer, “History of Ellis Island,” 7.
26 Ellis died in 1794: I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol. 5 (New York: Arno Press, 1967), 1198–1199; Thomas M. Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate: A History of Ellis Island (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 3.
27 Over the next few years: Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate, 4–5.
27 In 1807, Lieutenant Colonel: Reimer, “History of Ellis Island,” 16.
28 Nature blessed New York’s: Robert Greenhalgh Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 1815–1860 (New York: Scribner’s, 1939), 16–29.
28 Having such a natural port: Edward Robb Ellis, The Epic of New York City: A Narrative History (New York: Kondasha International, 1997), 223–229.
28 New York City was: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 435–436; Albion, 389; John Gunther, Inside U.S.A. (New York: Book of the Month Club, 1997), 555.
29 For the next few decades: Reimer, “History of Ellis Island,” 17–18.
CHAPTER TWO: CASTLE GARDEN
30 These men, women: NYT, August 7, 1855.
31 The old fort: On Castle Garden’s history, see Commercial Advertiser, June 22, 1839; James G. Wilson, ed., The Memorial History of the City of New York, vol. 4 (New York: New York History Company, 1893), 441; Phillip Lopate, Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), 24; Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 815–816; Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller, The Other Islands of New York City: A History and Guide, 2nd ed. (Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press, 2001), 72–74.
31 The new immigration station: NYT, August 6, 7, 1855.
31 The indignation meeting: NYT, August 7, 10, 1855.
32 This was an exercise: Theodore Roosevelt, New York: A Sketch of the City’s Social, Political, and Commercial Progress from the First Dutch Settlement to Recent Times (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906), 238, 246.
32 Born in upstate: On Rynders, see Tyler Andbinder, Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum (New York: Free Press, 2001), 141–144, 166–167 and T. J. English, Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster (New York: Regan Books, 2005), 13–15, 26–27.
33 There were certainly: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 736.
33 Rynders was: George J. Svejda, “Castle Garden as an Immigrant Depot, 1855– 1890,” National Park Service, December 2, 1968, 41.
34 As soon as: Friedrich Kapp, Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York (New York: Nation Press, 1870), 62; Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 737.
34 A committee of: “Report of the Select Committee to Investigate Frauds upon Emigrant Passengers,” 1848, excerpted in Edith Abbott, ed., Immigration: Select Documents and Case Records (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924), 130– 134.
34 The federal government: Hans P. Vought, The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot: American Presidents and the Immigrant, 1897–1933 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004), 5.
35 The job of regulating E. P. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798–1965 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 388–404; Daniel J. Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 58–59; Gerald L. Neuman, Strangers to the Constitution: Immigrants, Borders, and Fundamental Law (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 19–43. For examples of these state laws, see Abbott, ed., Immigration, 102–110.
36 The Board of Commissioners laid out: Kapp, Immigration and the Commissioners, 109–110. For a history of the Battery, including Castle Garden’s many incarnations, see Rodman Gilder, The Battery (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936).
36 Wealthy New Yorkers: NYT, June 15, 1855; Svejda, “Castle Garden,” 40.
36 On Castle Garden’s first day: Svejda, “Castle Garden,” 45–46; NYT, August 4, 1855.
37 Having failed: NYT, August 7, 1855. In a letter to the editor the day after the indignation meeting, Rynders clarified his views on the matter. NYT, August 8, 1855.
37 After the final: NYT, August 8, 1855; New York Daily Tribune, August 7, 1855.
37 Throughout the fall: NYT, August 14, 18; December 15, 1855.
37 The harassment of: Kapp, Immigration and the Commissioners, 108; Svejda, “Castle Garden,” 50–57.
38 Some reports claimed: Kapp, Immigration and the Commissioners, 81.
38 With the runners: William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (New York: Meridian, 1994), 263; NYT, December 23, 1866; Friedrich Kapp, quoted in Charlotte Erickson, ed., Emigration from Europe, 1815–1914 (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1976), 274; New York: A Collection from Harper’s Magazine (New York: Gallery Books, 1991), 363.
39 Between 1860 and: John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 39.
39 A writer in: Higham, Strangers in the Land, 35; “Dangers of Unrestricted Immigration,” Forum, July 1887.
40 Daily newspapers: Edward Self, “Why They Come,” NAR, April 1882; Edward Self, “Evils Incident to Immigration,” NAR, January 1884.
40 Newspapers throughout: Public Opinion, April 30, May 14, June 30, 1887.
41 Others used: “Immigration and Crime,” Forum, December 1889.
41 It took Episcopal bishop: “Government by Aliens,” Forum, August 1889.
41 Despite Coxe’s florid: Public Opinion, April 30, July 30, 1887, December 28, 1889.
42 Shortly after the decision: Hutchinson, Legislative History, 65–66.
42 It was not until: “An Act to Regulate Immigration,” 1882, excerpted in Abbott, ed., Immigration, 181–182.
43 That same year: Vought, Bully Pulpit, 10; Tichenor, Dividing Lines, 89–90; Hutchinson, Legislative History, 80–83.
44 The Board of Commissioners: Document No. 815, Box 4, INS.
44 Of the estimated: NYT, January 25, 1883; “Immigration Investigation Report, Testimony and Statistics,” House Report 3472, 51st Congress, 2nd Session, Serial 2886.
44 To many, this cried out: NYT, February 11, 1883.
45 In 1880, a twenty-
two-year-old: Robert Watchorn, The Autobiography of Robert Watchorn (Oklahoma City, OK: Robert Watchorn Charities, 1959); “Robert Watchorn,” Outlook, March 4, 1905.
45 Another sign: Roll 19, G-7-G20, ANY.
45 Public concern about: James B. Bell and Richard I. Abrams, Liberty: The Story of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (New York: Doubleday, 1984), 43–45.
46 In 1887, Pulitzer trained: NYW, July 27, August 4, 10, 1887; Erickson, ed., Emigration from Europe, 1815–1914, 276; NYT, August 31, 1887.
46 In 1888: The Ford Report, reprinted in Congressional Record, 50th Congress, 2nd Session, 997–999.
48 Congress never acted: Vought, Bully Pulpit, 12.
49 As conditions at: “Immigration and Crime,” Forum, December 1889.
49 The decision was inevitable: John B. Weber, Autobiography of John B. Weber (Buffalo, NY: J.W. Clement Company, 1924), 88.
50 In response, a joint House and Senate: Congressional Record, 51st Congress, 1st Session, Volume 21, 3085–3089.
50 “Give us a rest”: Francis A. Walker, “Immigration,” Yale Review, August 1892; Francis A. Walker, “Immigration and Degradation,” Forum, August 1891.
51 Walker also saw: See Maurice Fishberg, “Ethnic Factors in Immigration—A Critical View,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, May 1906. Australia and New Zealand, largely Anglo-Saxon and with little immigration, saw their birth rates decline during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well.
51 Walker’s views: Henry Cabot Lodge, “The Restriction of Immigration,” NAR, January 1891.
51 Lodge used the occasion: Henry Cabot Lodge, “Lynch Law and Unrestricted Immigration,” NAR, May 1891.
52 Walker and Lodge: NYT, April 30, 1891; Boston Traveler, October 24, 1891; “Report of the Select Committee on Immigration and Naturalization,” 51st Congress, 2nd Session, Report No. 3472, January 15, 1891; “Regulation of Immigration and to Amend the Naturalization Laws,” House Report, 51st Congress, 2nd Session, Report No. 3808.
52 The 1891 Immigration Act: Michael LeMay and Elliot Robert Barkan, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 66–70; Higham, Strangers in the Land, 99–100.
53 Immigration was now: Hiroshi Motomura, “Immigration Law After a Century of Plenary Power: Phantom Constitutional Norms and Statutory Interpretation,” Yale Law Journal, December 1990; Lucy E. Salyer, Laws as Harsh as Tigers: Chinese Immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 26–28. Salyer claims that the inclusion of this clause that made the executive branch the final arbiter of immigration appeals stemmed from unhappiness over Chinese immigrants using the courts to challenge the Chinese Exclusion Act. While this could very well be true, it remains speculation.
53 The new immigration system: On the rise of the federal government and the administrative state, see Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Keith Fitzgerald, The Face of the Nation: Immigration, the State and the National Identity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996); Morton Keller, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977); Morton Keller, Regulating a New Society: Public Policy and Social Change in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994); and Gabriel J. Chin, “Regulating Race: Asian Exclusion and the Administrative States,” Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review 37 (2002).
54 Despite the corruption: Svejda, “Castle Garden,” iii.
CHAPTER THREE: A PROPER SIEVE
57 As she exited: The discussion of Annie Moore comes from the NYT, January 2, 1892; New York Herald, January 2, 1892; NYW, January 2, 1892; Thomas M. Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate: A History of Ellis Island (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 19; and the records of ship manifests found at www. ellisislandrecords.org.
58 She was soon: A controversy arose over what happened to Annie Moore. Legend held that she headed out west to Texas, married, and died tragically when she was struck by a streetcar. More recent research found that Annie Moore actually never left New York. Instead, she remained in lower Manhattan, married a German-American named Schayer three years after her arrival, had eleven children of whom only five survived, and died of heart failure at age forty-seven in 1924. “She had the typical hardscrabble immigrant life,” said Megan Smolenyak, the genealogist who discovered the story of the real Annie Moore. “She sacrificed herself for future generations.” The living descendants of Annie Moore have Irish, German, Italian, Jewish, and Scandinavian surnames, a testament to the American melting pot. NYT, September 14, 16, 2006.
60 Once on the second floor: HW, October 24, 1891.
60 A reporter from: HW, August 26, 1893.
60 Politicians, journalists: NYT, November 7, 1895; Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labour, vol. 2 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1967), 154.
61 “The existing immigration law”: “Annual Report of the Superintendent of Immigration to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1892,” 11.
61 In 1875, the Supreme Court: Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 U.S. 581 (1889). See also, Hiroshi Motomura, “Immigration Law After a Century of Plenary Power: Phantom Constitutional Norms and Statutory Interpretation,” Yale Law Journal, December 1990.
61 Three years later: Nishimura Ekiu v. U.S., 142 U.S. 651 (1892); Hiroshi Motomura, Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 33–34; Daniel J. Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 110; “Developments in the Law: Immigration Policy and the Rights of Aliens,” Harvard Law Review, April 1983.
63 The government wanted: The following discussion is taken from “A Report of the Commissioners of Immigration Upon the Causes Which Incite Immigration to the United States,” 52nd Congress, 1st Session, Executive Document 235, January 1892. See also, John B. Weber, “Our National Dumping-Ground: A Study of Immigration,” NAR, April 1892.
64 There was an additional: John B. Weber, Autobiography of John B. Weber (Buffalo, NY: J.W. Clement Company, 1924), 105.
65 Weber noted that: A Harper’s Weekly editorial made the same point, asking, “Who else is there here to do the work which these immigrants are doing for us? We have on former occasions called attention to the important fact that the native American is becoming more and more disinclined to do hard work with his hands. . . . How many native Americans are willing to do the dirt work in railway or canal building or to dig coal or even to serve as farm hands?” HW, September 1, 1894.
65 Following his instructions: NYT, February 15, 1892; Mary Antin, From Plotzk to Boston (Boston: W. B. Clarke: 1899), 12.
66 The emigration of: Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 5–7.
66 The two Americans: Weber, Autobiography, 112–128.
67 By the 1890s: Howe, World of Our Fathers 21; Weber, Autobiography, 106.
CHAPTER FOUR: PERIL AT THE PORTALS
70 Weber was not resentful: NYT, January 31, February 2, 1891.
71 The Massilia had departed: The discussion of the Massilia case comes from “Immigration Investigation, Ellis Island, 1892,” 52nd Congress, 1st Session, House Reports, Vol. 12, No. 2090, Series 3053; “Annual Report of the Board of Health of the Health Department of the City of New York for the Year Ending December 31, 1892,” City Hall Library, New York City; and Howard Markel, Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
73 Often confused with: NYT, February 14, 1892.
74 Within two days: NYT, February 12, 1892.
74 Edson and his staff: NYT, February 13, 1892.
> 76 The actions of Edson: “Annual Report of the Board of Health of the Health Department of the City of New York for the Year Ending December 31, 1892,” 142, City Hall Library, New York City. Howard Markel overemphasizes the role of nativism in explaining the behavior of Edson and other city officials. He complains that the quarantine stigmatized immigrants and that “there was a huge price to pay in the form of violated civil liberties, cultural insensitivities, inadequate financial or physical resources devoted to their medical care.” In a more nuanced interpretation, Sherwin Nuland argues that city health officials “did what they believed to be the prudent thing, consistent with measures then current among their colleagues all over the world.” The city’s response, Nuland continued, mixed anti-immigrant sentiment with “an earnest desire to protect the people for whom they felt primarily responsible: the citizens of their city.” Sherwin B. Nuland, “Hate in the Time of Cholera,” New Republic, May 26, 1997. Markel also misreads an 1895 article by Edson entitled “The Microbe as a Social Leveler.” In it, Edson argued that because of contagious diseases, poor and rich, native-born and immigrant, were all tied together. Treating contagious diseases, therefore, called for a more holistic approach. “To the man of wealth, therefore, there is a direct and very great interest in the well-being of the man of poverty,” Edson wrote, describing a kind of public health socialism. Edson did describe Russian Jews as “poor, ignorant, down-trodden” and implied that they could be susceptible to bringing contagious diseases to the United States. However Edson was not scapegoating Russian Jews or calling for their exclusion. If anything, he was saying that native-born Americans had a distinct interest in the well-being of Russian Jews, whether in Russia or in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. See, Cyrus Edson, “The Microbe as a Social Leveller,” NAR, October 1895.
76 The sometimes callous treatment: NYT, February 24, 1892.
77 New Hampshire senator: Leon Burr Richardson, William E. Chandler: Republican (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1940), 7–11.
77 As easy as it may be: Richardson, William E. Chandler, 439; Carol L. Thompson, “William E. Chandler: A Radical Republican,” Current History 23 (November 1952); NYT, March 7, 1892. Historian Morton Keller writes that Chandler “gave voice to a widespread attitude when he warned that trusts . . . tended to destroy competition, crush individualism, and put the control of society into the hands of opulent oligarchs.” Morton Keller, Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 25.