Forgotten Ellis Island

Forgotten Ellis Island: The Extraordinary Story of America's Immigrant Hospital

by Lorie Conway [j325.1 Con]

This nonfiction selection tells the story of the state-of-the-art hospital built on man-made Ellis Island to accommodate thousands of immigrants who were found not to be physically/mentally well enough to enter the United States. Some patients viewed the hospital, in use for only three decades, as a place of rescue while others viewed it as a "place of tears." It housed a "mental defect" wing as well as a separate contagious diseases facility. The reader becomes acutely reminded of the giant steps in medical knowledge from that era to this one. A corps of doctors, nurses, and interpreters worked at the site where 7-8,000 immigrants were seen on a busy day. One of the service interpreters spoke Yiddish, Italian, and Spanish, and was noted for his kindness of bringing a chocolate bar to patients from the city where he was attending law school. Fiorello LaGuardia would eventually become Mayor of New York City and suffered over the deportation decisions (marked by a large chalked "X" inside a circle on the right shoulder) made regarding mental health. With the window of a year in 1999, the author was given exclusive rights to document the remains of the hospital before restoration efforts began (despite such obstacles as poison ivy, asbestos and lead paint). Because of Conway's work, the reader is able to relive some of the authentic history of this one-of-a-kind facility through fascinating photos and anecdotes. (Even the survivors of the Titanic were required to disembark at Ellis Island!) -- recommended by Kay V. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ Wikipedia entry on the Documentary filmed by Lorie Conway ] [ official Publisher's Page for Lorie Conway ]

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