It's true... while we have visions of poor people getting out of the steerage passenger compartment of the ship with all their worldly possession bundled in cloth we forget that many immigrants came to America on first and second class tickets and when the ship pulled into New York Harbor they were let off first at Castle Rock - not the Ellis Island processing point.
Not only that, but there were some people who were already using the steamships to go back and forth to Europe for business, and that includes women, before there was any better way to travel.
The average time across from Europe to America over the Atlantic on a steamship was 10 days.
