Ellis Island Era Immigration People

Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) was an American poet, best known as the author of "The New Colossus," an 1883 sonnet that has become a famous credo of America's immigrant ideals. Lazarus, a native New Yor...

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) was a prominent nineteenth-century American writer. Aldrich's most popular work was The Story of a Bad Boy (1870), a quasi-biographical novel based on Aldrich's ow...

Jane Addams (1860-1935) was a Progressive reformer and the most prominent advocate for the settlement house movement, which was dedicated to improving social conditions for immigrants and other res...

Leon Czolgosz (1873-1901) was an aspiring anarchist who assassinated President William McKinley in 1901. Czolgosz, who gravitated toward anarchist teachings after becoming involved in a series of l...

William Dillingham (1843-1923) was a Republican who served one term as governor of Vermont (1888-1890) and five terms in the United States Senate (1900-1923). Dillingham was best known as the chair...

Madison Grant (1865-1937) was a prominent American eugenicist of the early twentieth century. Grant used his pseudoscientific theories to argue that immigration and inbreeding threatened to pollute...

Anton Cermak (1873-1933) was a Czech immigrant and Chicago Democrat who was elected mayor of the city in 1931. After less than two years in office, Cermak was assassinated while making an appearanc...

Harry Bridges (1901-1990) was an Australian immigrant and the longtime president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), representing West Coast dockworkers. Bridges, a...