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Thanksgiving is a uniquely North American holiday (it has long been celebrated in Canada as well as the United States.) Historic newspaper accounts report of the efforts of individuals and organizations to bring Thanksgiving to those deemed less fortunate in the greater New York City metropolitan area. For homeless newsboys to inmates at Riker’s Island, there was turkey on Thanksgiving. According to a 1907 New York Times article, “If any one [sic] in New York missed turkey yesterday on account of hard times it was because he had hidden himself so well that a Sherlock Holmes could not have found him…”

Judith Rohrbacher McAlpin, 72, known to friends as Judy, of Charleston, South Carolina and Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania, wife of Malcolm McAlpin, passed away peacefully surrounded by family on Saturday, January 23, 2021.

These past few months have been a challenging time for everyone. Like most other historic and cultural sites and institutions, our on-site programs have stopped and our buildings are empty. However, at Save Ellis Island we know that our story is more important now than ever. A groundbreaking hospital designed and built to keep infectious and contagious disease spreading to our country may have once seemed abstract, even to those who toured the halls of our Hospital Complex. Now everyone has a greater understanding and appreciation for the tremendous accomplishment that happened on this small island. No epidemic or pandemic has ever been traced back to Ellis Island.

Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, millions of people — in numbers which have not been seen since — came to America in pursuit of a better, freer life.

By the time Ellis Island opened its doors in 1892 welcoming young Annie Moore from Ireland as its first arrival, the fight for women’s suffrage – the right to vote – had been raging for 44 years. The movement began in 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, among other brave women, held the first Women’s Rights Convention in July in the little town of Seneca Falls, New York (home to the Women’s Rights National Historical Park). In the early twentieth century the politics of suffrage reached Ellis Island as prominent suffragists from abroad were detained at Ellis Island due to their political activities. Since 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, this month’s blog explores the role that Ellis Island played in that long struggle.

The Daughters of the American Revolution or DAR as they are also known, is not an organization that most people would associate with Ellis Island or the hospital that operated on Ellis Island until 1954. In order to be a DAR member, women must trace their ancestors to someone who served in the American War of Independence. Few of the millions of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island are likely to have been candidates for membership. However, the history of the DAR and the history of the Ellis Island Hospital Complex are forever linked.