Forgotten Ellis Island
Forgotten Ellis Island
(check local listings)
PBS/ Boston Film & Video Productions
This is the first film (and companion book) to be produced about the immigrant hospital on Ellis Island. Opened in 1902, the hospital grew to 22 medical buildings that sprawled across two islands adjacent to Ellis Island, the largest port of entry in the United States. Massive and modern, the hospital was America's first line of defense against contagious, often virulent disease. In the era before antibiotics, tens of thousands of immigrant patients were separated from family, detained in the hospital, and healed from illness before becoming citizens. 350 babies were born in the hospital, and many were named after the doctors and nurses that helped deliver them. Ten times that many immigrants died on Ellis Island — 3,500 were buried in paupers’ graves around New York City. Elliott Gould narrates.