EllisIsland2

Ellis Island Continued....

After visiting the Virtual Tour of Ellis Island you can begin to understand what it was like for an immigrant to pass through in order to settle in the United States. It was a challenging and difficult process, yet many immigrants did pass through. In fact, over 12 million steerage passengers were processed at Ellis Island.

Some of the artifacts from past immigrants have been collected and displayed at Ellis Island Museum. One of the most interesting exhibits is the Money Exchange where money from immigrants was changed into American Dollars. Did you know that immigrants needed a bare minimum of $20.00 to exchange at the money exchange? This was a great deal of money back then!

Students trying to figure out the origin of the money above.
We found Liras from Italy, Pounds from England, Francs from France, and many other forms of currency or money.

There is a wall of names of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island surrounding part of the Museum at Ellis Island. Many Lothrop students found their family names and ancestors listed on the wall. The student above is pointing to his grandparent's names. This was very exciting to witness because part of his family was composed of recent immigrants from Italy and he had all kinds of cultural stories to share with us.

Back to the Main Page