Ellis Island: everything you wanted to know

Between the 1890s and 1920s, an estimated 12-13 million immigrants arrived in the United States via a vast processing centre on an island just off New York. But who were those immigrants? What did they have to do to be admitted to the country? Did many people get turned away? And did officials really change immigrants’ surnames to make them sound more “American”? Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, Professor Vincent Cannato answers listener questions on Ellis Island for our latest Everything you wanted to know episode.

Vincent Cannato is the author of American Passage: The History of Ellis Island (HarperCollins, 2009).