While the majority of men and women who immigrated through Ellis Island came from Italy and Eastern Europe, the arrival of nearly 40,000 black people from the Caribbean at the turn of the century transformed black New York.

When Ellis Island opened, a great change was taking place in U.S. immigration. Fewer arrivals were coming from northern and western Europe—Germany, Ireland, Britain and the Scandinavian countries—as more and more immigrants poured in from southern and eastern Europe.

Europe

Ireland, Italy, and Germany were the three countries most represented at Ellis Island.

Albert Einstein, a German physicist, came to the United States with his wife, Elsa, onboard the SS Rotterdam. They arrived at Ellis Island on March 23, 1921 – he was 43 years old and she was 45 years old at the time. His birthplace is recorded as Ulm, Germany His final destination was New York, New York.

The Statue of Liberty has another name: the Mother of Exiles. The nickname — symbolizing the United States as a nation of immigrants — was imagined by the poet Emma Lazarus, who in 1883 wrote the sonnet “The New Colossus” to raise money to create the statue’s pedestal.

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Visitors have not been allowed inside the torch for over a century after a massive explosion. The National Park Service’s Statue of Liberty website cites the Black Tom explosion as the reason the torch is closed off, though it is unclear why, a century later, guests are still not allowed inside.

1. The original model may have been an Egyptian woman. Many historians say that the Statue of Liberty was modeled after Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. However, sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi was first inspired by the colossal figures guarding Nubian tombs.