ELLIS ISLAND IMMIGRANT PORTRAITS

PUBLIC DOMAIN REVIEW - ELLIS ISLAND IMMIGRANTS


EXCERPT: These images of people wearing their folk costumes were taken by amateur photographer Augustus Sherman who worked as the Chief Registry Clerk on Ellis Island from 1892 until 1925. The people in the photographs were most likely detainees who were waiting for money, travel tickets or someone to come and collect them from the island.

ELLIS ISLAND CLERK AUGUSTUS SHERMAN's PHOTOS - THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN MELTING POT

DAILY MAIL - AUGUSTUS SHERMAN's ELLIS ISLAND PHOTOS


Dutch children in clogs, a Romanian piper with sheep skin cape, a Slovak woman and a Ruthenian woman in their best  embroidered dresses...


If you haven't seen these photos yet, you've missed out.

"Yet Sherman's notes offer only the most tantalizing of glimpses into the life of the immigrants risking it all to reach the Land of the Free.

One man, covered in tattoos, is simply referred to as a German stowaway by the amateur photographer. 

Sherman, born in 1865 in Lynn, Pennsylvania, never received any training as a photographer in an age where the art was still in its infancy.

But his incredible pictures serve as a historic tapestry of America's diverse beginnings.

In 1907, they were published in National Geographic magazine and framed versions hung on the walls of headquarters of the federal Immigration Service in Manhattan.

Today, they are now housed by the New York Public Library."