Moreno - Children of Ellis Island

BULGARIANS FOR AMERICA. A group of Bulgarian emigrants pose before the offices of the Holland-America Steamship Line in Tarnopol, Bulgaria. This companys agents sold tickets for ships sailing not only to U.S. cities like New York and New Orleans but also to Tampico, Mexico, and Havana, Cuba. These passengers, who include children as well as men and women, are probably emigrating for economic betterment. From here, all of them had to travel by train to the Dutch port of Rotterdam to reach their steamships. (Holland-America Line Archives.)

ARMENIAN REFUGEES ON A BEACH BY THE BLACK SEA. Not all emigrants left their homeland to escape poverty; some left to avoid violence and war. One such group was the Armenians. In this 1920 picture, a crowd of them stands in misery upon a beach at Novorossiysk, Russia. There, the Armenians awaited deportation to their benighted homeland. These refugees had survived the dreadful massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I. (G. P. Floyd photograph, American Red Cross.)

ENTICEMENTS TO EMIGRATE. Just like the airlines of today, early steamship companies enticed people to travel abroad at discount prices. From 1845 to 1930, most travelers were emigrants, so Britains White Star Line vied with its many rivals to offer cheap steerage tickets to America. This advertisement was primarily intended for Irish emigrants. (National Park Service.)

LEWIS KRAUSS, BOY EMIGRANT. Lewis Krauss is pictured in Russia around 1908 at age 15. The young Jewish emigrant is just about to set off for America. He joined thousands of other immigrant boys who passed through Ellis Island on their own. Many Jews fled from the violent anti-Semitic pogroms of the period. Lewis became an American citizen in June 1916. (National Park Service.)