This is the room where immigrants wait during their examination process as Ellis Island.
Children are forced to work in factories in order to help the family.
Being an immigrant in the early 1900’s was simply horrible. Not only was it a struggle to be admitted into the country, but once in the country there are many more struggles ahead. In the first picture, it shows immigrants at Ellis Island waiting for days just to go through an examination process. Once they enter the country, they have to start from scratch and make a living. Often time, it’s so difficult that children are employed in factories for very low wages. These children shown in picture two are usually treated poorly and have a high chance of death through their work at the factories.
I didn’t think being an immigrant was so bad, but these pictures kind of help change my mind. The first picture isn’t anything crazy though. You expect to wait before you enter a new country, just as in an airport.
wow, seeing the kids working like this makes me upset.The second picture really shows the bad conditions.. even kids are working.
children working in factories with low wages is a horrible thing. in that age, they are supposed in the school.
I am really happy that we have a public school system although its not the best it still provides education for the kids.
I am also we have a child labor law and I think there is also a law that says kids under a certain age are required to be in school ( don’t quote me on that).
It is upsetting to look at these pictures, especially the one with the little boy. Most of the children had no choice but to work, since the family probably needed any resource available to bring bread to the table.
I see there are a lot of pictures of immigrants taken in Ellis Island. It was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States as the site of the nation’s busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 to 1954.
I’ve read several articles about how harsh those kids’ working and living conditions were.They were injured and killed consequently.They were treated bad if they didn’t obey,if they came late,fell asleep or slowed down their work,they would be punished.
I’ve known about how children having to work at factories and how it causes many deaths but after looking at these pictures it really shows how horrible they were treated. The kid shown in the pictures doesn’t even wear shoes and he is such a young kid.
It is really hard to believe that such young children were working, when i see children today i couldn’t imagine any of them not receiving an education and going to work for wages. Both illustrations are great in showing the struggle people endured when they arrived to America. I am sure this was not what many of them thought they would be going through upon their arrival.
The obvious negative is the lack of education received by kids. Often overlooked however is the fact that kids had a greater attention span as a result.
I think that seeing pictures like this of young children working in a factory (or anywhere else for that matter) really helps us all to put things in perspective and appreciate not only the fact that we have to opportunity to go get an education, but also to appreciate what our parents and/or grandparents did for us to have that opportunity. Great choice for an image.
The theme about immigrants is definitely worthy of being on the midterm. Still in our days a lot of immigrants coming from different countries, but being an immigrant in the early 1900′s and in 2000 and up have a huge difference. In 1900s were more difficult to come and conditions of life were very bad, therefore it is important to know what happened in our past.