I don’t particularly know why but I found the idea that, for the most part, only young Irish couples or individuals immigrated to America in the nineteenth century. I mean, it makes sense: it was expensive to send one person to America let alone five or six and small children tend to have weaker immune systems and probably would have died on the journey and possibly spread diseases around that would have barred other immigrants from successfully entering through Ellis Island.
I was also shocked by the amount of people that couldn’t get through Ellis Island because it (the population, not the island) was so small. I thought it was interesting that so many people either did not get sick or were not sick enough that they couldn’t hide their maladies since the ships were unsanitary and crowded, at least that was what I got from years of history classes. You would think that because of labor competition, there would have been stricter guidelines for admissions. Although, it probably would have been a drain on travel costs if too many immigrants were turned away.
