1892 - Population

Population

New York's immigrant receiving station moves after 37 years at Castle Garden in Battery Park to Ellis Island in the Upper Bay of New York Harbor (see 1889). (Castle Garden will become the city's aquarium in 1896.) Known since late in the 18th century as Ellis Island after a butcher, Samuel Ellis, who was one of several people to own it, the island was deeded to the federal government by Governor Daniel Tompkins earlier in this century. A powder magazine was removed in April 1890 after safety concerns were raised, construction of the new 12-building facility began shortly thereafter, and the island is being enlarged to 27½ acres. Its buildings have cost about $500,000 (nearly twice the original estimate), it opens in early January, and the first immigrant processed is one Annie Moore of Cork, Ireland (see 1897). Some 7 million people have passed through Castle Garden since its opening in 1855; Ellis Island will process immigrants until 1932.

The padrone system that prevails in Italian immigration to the United States encounters resistance from Roman Catholic missionaries who open the Church of Our Lady of Pompeii in a storefront at 113 Waverly Place, New York, to help immigrants whose passage has been paid by padrones to whom the immigrants are bound almost as indentured servants. Most of the newcomers are working-class people from southern Italy who could easily find jobs at Genoa, Milan, or Turin but have opted to emigrate because their dialects, food preferences, and customs make them feel out of place in northern Italy.

The Geary Chinese Exclusion Act passed by Congress May 5 extends for another 10 years all existing Chinese exclusion laws and requires all Chinese residing in the United States to register within a year or face deportation (see 1902).

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