Home Annie: Rethinking Ellis Island and Annie Moore in the Classroom Mia Mercurio

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! —Emma Lazarus (1883)1

he story of the United States and the people who have made it their home would ulated receiving station arose from not be complete without considering the experience of Irish immigrants— abuses immigrants encountered when Tparticularly the experience of Annie Moore, the first immigrant to be processed they landed in Manhattan: swindlers on Ellis Island. However, the story of Annie Moore, and how it has been recounted accosted immigrants with offers of food, and taught to date, is inaccurate. This article focuses on the past inaccuracy and offers housing, trinkets, and railway tickets, or guidance on how Annie Moore’s story should be taught, given the new information initiating exchanges by taking money that has surfaced about her life. but delivering no (or inferior) goods.3

Problems Faced by Social for a new life. Many stories of immigra- Ellis Island Studies Teachers tion, such as the story of Annie Moore, In 1890, New York City commissioners How social studies teachers decide what have been romanticized over the years were notified that the federal government to teach involves reflecting on and resolv- and in the process some have become would assume responsibility for immi- ing several pedagogical problems, two of untrue. The immigrants of that time gration. The property known as Ellis which will be emphasized in this article. came as America was undergoing a major Island was chosen as the new location. Social studies teachers must endeavor transformation—from a rural to an urban Over the course of 20 months, it was to: society—with unprecedented prosperity enlarged, the channel dredged, docks • “Get it right” by assessing official for some, due to a huge growth in indus- built, and wooden buildings constructed. and unofficial versions of history try. The need for millions of laborers It formally opened on New Year’s Day, for accuracy; and provided an economic draw for those 1892.4 • Recognize that students will need in less prosperous European countries.2 help to sort fiction from reality. During this time, New York itself was Annie Moore’s American Story Let’s consider these problems in rela- growing, cow pastures were quickly Begins tion to teaching about Irish immigration being turned into brick and stone multi- When Ellis Island officially opened in New York and the Irish immigrant floored structures; apartment buildings its doors on January 1, 1892, the first Annie Moore. were growing across the skyline to create person registered at the immigration homes for the new immigrants. station was a young Irish girl named Irish Immigration in New York In schools today, students are often Annie Moore. She must have seemed From 1820 to 1920 more than four taught the story of these immigrants like an ideal poster child for America’s million people left Ireland bound for through the passageway of Ellis Island. welcome of immigrants: young, but not the port of New York and the chance The decision to open a federally-reg- too young to travel without adults, and

M a y /Ju n e 2008 203 lovely to look at (no apparent deformity or illness). Fourteen-year-old Annie and her two brothers, Anthony, 11, and Phillip, 7, departed from Cobh, Ireland, formerly Queenstown (County Cork) on December 20, 1891, aboard the S.S. Nevada, three of the 148 steerage passengers. The trip took a total of 12 days including Christmas Day. The Nevada arrived in New York on Thursday evening, December 31st. The Moore children were coming to America to reunite with their parents, Matthew and Julia, who had come first. Matthew was a longshoreman.5

On American Soil

On the morning of New Year’s Day, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-7386 1892, (which was also Annie’s fifteenth birthday) first- and second-class passengers disembarked in Manhattan before the Nevada moved toward Ellis Island. The 148 steerage passengers were placed on an immigrant transfer launch that was able to manage shallow water—the John E. Moore. It was decorated with bunting and pulled alongside the wharf with bells clanging and whistles blowing. A New York Times article (January 2, 1892) reported that there were three steamships in the harbor waiting to land their steerage passengers at the new sta- Hendley’s request and personally pre- Approximately 2 percent of immi- tion and much anxiety and anticipation sented Annie with a $10 gold coin. It was grants were sent home each year—per- among the immigrants. The Nevada the first United States coin she had ever ceived as a potential liability for the arrived late on New Year’s Eve, forc- seen and reportedly the largest amount nation. It was feared that America would ing steerage passengers to stay on board of money she had ever possessed. The become either the hospital or the prison until morning. To complete this celebra- Times reported: “She says she will never for the world.9 One in five spent long, tory moment, the first to embark must part with it, but will always keep it as a anxious days in detention or quarantine, have been carefully, though quickly, pleasant memento of the occasion.” 7 some merely waiting until they could be selected. “The honor was reserved for processed, others until officials were a rosy-cheeked Irish girl...” the Times The Ellis Island Experience for satisfied that they had met all require- reported.” As soon as the gangplank was Immigrants ments for admission. run ashore, Annie “was hustled ahead Though hours of congestion, medical Ships that came in after the island had of a burley German by her two younger examinations, and interviewing awaited been packed to capacity were forced to brothers and an Irish longshoreman who most immigrants, the New York Herald keep steerage passengers on board until shouted ‘Ladies first!’” 6 reported that Annie was hurried along the crowds eased, a process that some- Annie was the first immigrant (of to the waiting room to meet her parents times took days. First- and second- class 445,987 immigrants that year) to be in less than half an hour from the time passengers did not have to go through processed at the registry desk. Charles she landed (January 2, 1892, p. 2). This Ellis Island. They were given a cursory Hendley, the former private secretary of was quite unusual and was most likely examination on board and allowed to Treasury Secretary William Windom, due to Annie’s newfound celebrity. For pass directly into New York City, while asked for the honor of processing the most immigrants the process was much third class (steerage) passengers waited first immigrant. Colonel Webber, the more tedious and time consuming, often on board. Ships officers were brusque, superintendent of immigration, granted traumatic.8 if not rude, in readying remaining pas-

S o c i a l Ed u c a t i o n 204 Approximately 2 percent of immigrants were sent home each year—perceived as a potential liability for the nation. It was feared that America would become either the hospital or the prison for the world.

sengers for arrival. They pushed and wrong, a chalk mark was made on that prostitutes. They were then divided into shoved, shouted demands, herded pas- individual’s lapel. The chalk marks were groups based on information recorded sengers into groups “as though they were coded: B for back; C for conjunctivitis; on the ship’s manifest. Interpreters were animals.” 10 Ct for trachoma; E for eyes; F for face; provided, but often the barrage of ques- Doctors, clerks, translators, baggage Ft for feet; G for goiter; H for heart; tions caused much confusion and mis- handlers, ticket agents, and food suppli- K for hernia; L for lameness; N for understanding. Inspectors had to deci- ers on the island were overworked and neck; P for physical and lungs; Pg for pher names from the handwritten ship’s frequently abrupt, often untrained for pregnancy; Sc for scalp; S for senility; manifest; as a result, many names were their assigned job. Work on the island X for mental retardation; and a circled changed or simplified on Ellis Island. was difficult and strenuous. Inspectors K for insanity. The medical examina- It was not unusual for immigrants to worked seven days a week during heavy tion was the most dreaded part of the leave home with one name and arrive immigration times; it was a constant process for immigrants.14 Immigrants, in America with another. Many were grind from the moment they caught many of whom had never before been detained unfairly—especially those the ferry for the island and got into to a doctor, were forced to partially dis- classified as mentally deficient—many their uniforms until they left by ferry robe in groups for examinations that wrongly diagnosed due to communi- at night.11 As a result, the processing of they did not understand and found cation problems between doctor and immigrants was not often carried out humiliating: males were told to expose patient. Annie Moore and her brothers with courteousness. their penises; women were told to open missed the worst of this process.18 After disembarking, passengers were their blouses.15 separated down a maze of aisles leading Most dreaded was the eye examina- Annie’s Story Goes Awry—What to the seated registry clerks. Congestion tion (rumored as a primary reason for We Thought We Knew was awful, conditions unsanitary, and deportation). Doctors would flip up The common account about Annie airspace insufficient. Fortunate immi- the eyelids of each immigrant with a Moore, who is cited in story and song grants might only wait 2–3 hours, but buttonhook, hairpin, or their fingers, as the first of 12 million immigrants longer waits were usual—sometimes lon- searching for signs of trachoma, the to arrive at Ellis Island, and who is ger than 24 hours.12 They carried iden- common eye disease of the time, which memorialized in bronze statues at Ellis tification papers that had been prepared was contagious and could lead to blind- Island and in Cobh, Cork, Ireland, is for them in Europe and wore manifest ness if not treated. Favus, a contagious that she left her new home in New York tags referring to their ship. They left scalp disease that was difficult to cure, City as a young adult. She was believed their baggage in storage while they went was also cause for deportation.16 Those to have moved west, depending on the through the intensive inspection process. who failed these initial examinations story, to Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, As the lines moved, doctors observed were placed in a chicken-wire screened New Mexico, and eventually Texas; she individuals for lameness and other obvi- enclosure—a terrifying situation for married, had many children, and was ous deformities that might disqualify an many. Ill children might be separated killed in a tragic streetcar accident in immigrant. Doctors first carried out an from well parents. Parents feared that Texas in 1924.19 However, while there overall assessment, before completing a child was being taken away forever.17 was an Annie Moore in the West, it was the more detailed review of feet, legs, Some individuals became hysterical not the Ellis Island Annie Moore. Yet body, arms, face, eyes, and head. Even when separated from family members the story of the immigrant girl who went crooked fingers were noted.13 for medical reasons. west became so commonly accepted that Immigrants who seemed healthy Passengers who got past the medical even descendents of the Annie Moore passed on to the next phase; if there examination continued down the line to who died in Texas came to believe it.20 was suspicion that something might be the woman whose job it was to look for In fact, over the years several of her

M a y /Ju n e 2008 205 Texan relatives have been invited to Annie returns after two years in the railroad. O’Connell died of influenza participate in ceremonies on Ellis Island “Wild West,” and reconnects with Mike in 1919. This Annie and her children and in Ireland. Tierney, the young man she loves, and managed the successful property until To complicate the story further, marries, offering to share her $10 gold she was knocked down and killed by fictitious Ellis Island Annie Moores piece which, according to the story, had one of the first rapid transit trains while began to surface in children’s books remained unspent.23 visiting her young brother, Pat, in Fort published in Ireland and the United Loughrey includes an epilogue in her Worth. Her children were young and States. Three books written by Eithne last book stating that readers of her fic- were raised by their aunt and uncle. Loughrey include elements of fact, but tional books might like to know what Eve Bunting, another children’s are almost completely based on the happened to the real Annie Moore after author, imagines Annie Moore’s expe- author’s imagination. In First In Line she arrives in New York. The author rience aboard the Nevada in Dreaming for America, she invents Annie adven- notes that there is not a lot of informa- of America, An Ellis Island Story.24 tures, friends, work in a laundry, and tion about the real Annie Moore. But While the text is imagined, it is based even fabricates letters supposedly writ- Loughrey does not explain the differ- on what travel for immigrants might ten by Annie’s mother and Annie.21 In ences between her fictional Annie and have been like. The painted illustra- The Golden Dollar Girl, Annie works the so-called facts. She writes that the tions are intermingled with reprints as a servant for a wealthy family in family moved to Indiana after a time of actual documents; a photo of the Manhattan, misses the fictional Mike in New York where Annie met Patrick Nevada; the ship’s manifest, which Tierney whom she supposedly met on O’Connell whom she married in Texas included the Moore children’s names board the Nevada, and finds her life in 1898 when she was 21. Annie and and ages (though Annie was incor- saved by another fictional character, Patrick moved to Waco, Texas, to farm. rectly marked down as 13); a photo of Carl Lindgren.22 She leaves the wealthy Her lungs were discovered to be weak, a group of singing immigrants aboard family in disgrace and goes to Nebraska and they moved to Fort Worth, then a ship; a photo of the original wooden where she has a (fictional) female friend. to Clovis, New Mexico, where they building on Ellis Island (which would In Annie Moore: New York City Girl, owned a hotel and restaurant beside the have been the one that Annie and her brothers entered). In this book, Annie and her brothers share a private room in steerage, complete with pitcher and bowl as well as white sheets and blue CANADA IS COMING TO NCSS! blankets. The children remain crisp and 2008 NCSS Conference in Houston • Nov. 14-16, 2008 clean throughout the voyage and enjoy meals at a dining table with white, iron- stone crockery. On Christmas Day they open large, wool scarves for each child from their aunt and uncle in Cork. On Annie’s birthday, Annie opens another gift: a ring of connected red stone hearts from their aunt and uncle. Not only is this book imagined, but also it portrays life in steerage in an idealized manner. Bunting includes an afterword indi- cating that several years after Annie and her brothers arrived in New York, the family moved to Indiana where, at 21, Annie married Patrick O’Connell. Bunting states: “This much of Annie’s story is true.”

Annie’s Story Revised A contest initiated in July 2006, unearthed what may be the truth about Annie. Megan Smolenyak, a professional Learn more at www.k12studycanada.org and genealogist, had begun to suspect that www.umaine.edu/canam/teachingcanada.htm continued on page 188

S o c i a l Ed u c a t i o n 206 Welcome Home Annie infants and one who survived to 21) in 3. Ann Novotny, Strangers at the Door: Ellis Island, Castle Garden and the Great Migration to America from page 206 Calvery Cemetery, Queens. A move- (Greenwich, Conn.: Chatham Press, 1971). ment is underway to place a headstone 4. Ibid. the woman who died in Texas was not on her unmarked grave, lost to history 5. Annie Moore Memorial Project, www.anniemoore. the real Ellis Island Annie Moore, but for eight decades.29 net. someone else entirely. She offered a 6. Reeves. 7. Ibid. $1,000 prize to find out the truth about Why is Annie Moore Important 8. Annie Moore Memorial Project, www.anniemoore. Annie. New York City’s commissioner for Teachers? net. of records, Brian Andersson, together The story of Annie Moore exempli- 9. The History Channel, Ellis Island (A film available from The History Channel, www.history.com, with a great-niece of Annie solved the fies the two pedagogical problems 2003). mystery. “It turns out that the Texas highlighted at the beginning of this 10. Martin Sadler, Island of Hope: The Journey to America and the Ellis Island Experience (New York: Annie Moore was not an immigrant at article—that social studies teachers Scholastic, 2004). 25 all.” Smolenyak writes: “Their life must endeavor to 11. Ellis Island Foundation, (www.EllisIsland.org). stories had become interwoven through 12. Sadler. accident and happenstance, and a fail- •“Get it right,” by assessing official 13. David Brownstone, Irene M. Franck, and Douglass Brownstone, Island of Hope, Island of Tears: The ure to fully research the lives of both and unofficial versions of history Story of Those Who Entered the New World through women.” 26 for accuracy. Ellis Island—In Their Own Words [1979](New York: Barnes and Noble, 2000). 14. Veronica Lawlor, I Was Dreaming to Come to Let (What May Be) the Truth Be • Sometimes historians and writers America: Memories from the Ellis Island Oral History Taught of historical topics are wrong— Project (N.Y.: Puffin Books, 1997). Annie and her brothers moved into either due to honest mistakes, 15. The History Channel, Ellis Island. 16. William Griffin, The Irish American (N.Y.: Hugh their parents’ tenement apartment at 32 sloppy research, or purposeful Lauter Levin Publishers, 1998). Monroe Street in the Lower East Side of deception to affect how a time in 17. Reeves. Manhattan (there is also a 32 Monroe history is perceived. Later histo- 18. Sadler. Street in Brooklyn, but the Manhattan rians, genealogists, writers may 19. Sam Roberts, “A Great-Great-Great Day for Annie,” The New York Times (September 14, 2006). address is believed to be correct). This eventually correct these distor- 20. Roberts, “First Through Gates of Ellis Island, She building was a five-story brick building, tions. Was Lost. Now She’s Found,” The New York Times built at the turn of the century to house (September 14, 2006). 21. Eithne Loughrey, First In Line for America (Dublin, the influx of immigrants settling in New • Recognize that students will Ireland: Mercier Press, 1999). York City. We do not know what hap- require help to sort out fiction 22. Loughrey, Annie Moore: New York City Girl (Dublin, pened to Annie immediately after she from reality. Ireland: Mercier Press, 2000). 23. Loughrey, The Golden Dollar Girl: Annie Moore got to her new home. There does not (Dublin, Ireland: Mercier Press, 2001). appear to be information on whether Sometimes children’s writers com- 24. Eve Bunting, Dreaming of America: An Ellis Island she was allowed to attend school or bine fiction and reality (or what may Story (East Sussex England: Bridgewater Books, 2000). was forced to work to help support her not, in fact, be the reality) in a way that 25. Annie Moore Memorial Project, www.anniemoore. family. Smolenyak writes that she “had confuses young readers. net. the typical hardscrabble immigrant life,” The errors in completing the account 26. Wrong Annie, www.honoringourancestors.com. adding “she sacrificed herself for future of Annie Moore’s story offer a warning 27. Roberts, “First Through Gates of Ellis Island….” 28. The History Channel, Ellis Island. 27 generations.” to historians and storytellers to exercise 29. Annie Moore Memorial Project, www.anniemoore. We know that Annie married a care in research. We must be vigilant for net. German-born bakery clerk (or the son discrepancies and pursue any doubts. of a bakery clerk) named Shayer. If her We must not hide or neglect the mistakes husband was the son of a baker, rather of history or the mistakes of historians than the baker, he was reported to be an and writers as they present what they Mia Mercurio is a professor in the Department of Special Education and Reading at Southern engineer and salesman at the Fulton Fish think to be accurate. We must, in fact, Connecticut State University. Her research interests Market. They had at least 11 children, include them as history, teaching stu- include the use of historical events in the devel- five of whom survived to adulthood. A dents to assess not only the strengths of opment and implementation of interdisciplinary famous picture of Annie and their first professional documenting history, but units in the middle school environment and the use of children’s books to help with difficult life baby appears in multiple references to weaknesses as well. events. her.28 Annie was 47 when she died of heart failure at 99 Cherry Street, in Notes 1924. She lived and died within a few 1. Emma Lazarus, The Poems of Emma Lazarus (Irvine, The author wishes to acknowledge the gen- Calif.: Indy Publishers, 2002). blocks on the Lower East Side. She is 2. Pamela Reeves, Ellis Island: Gateway to the American erous contributions of her colleagues to this buried with six of her children (five Dream (Avenel, N.Y.: Crescent Books, 1991). article.

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