Historical Museum's New Exhibit Illustrates Hoboken's Roots

The following was submitted by the Hoboken Historical Museum:

If Hoboken seems crowded today, with a population just over 50,000, imagine how crowded it was between 1892 – 1924, the peak period of U.S. immigration. Following the Immigration Act of 1891, which established federal control over immigration, Hoboken’s—and the entire country’s—demographics changed dramatically. During the next three decades, 20 million people immigrated to the United States, and more than half, 12 million, passed through the New York and Hoboken.

Hoboken became renowned across the world as “the port of entry to a continent,” according to Daniel Van Winkle’s history of Hudson County, published in 1924. Hoboken’s population swelled from 43,648 in 1890 to 70,324 in 1910 with the surge in European immigration, which was fueled in part by the major passenger shipping lines that docked here, including Hamburg-America Packet Company, North German Lloyd Steamship Company, Scandinavian-American Line, and Holland America Line.

The Hoboken Historical Museum examines this period in a new exhibit, “Hoboken, Ellis Island, and the Immigrant Experience, 1892-1924,” which opens Sunday with a free reception from 3 – 5 p.m. Guest curator Dr. Christina Ziegler-McPherson, an immigration historian who lives in Hoboken, brings to life through images, artifacts, and oral histories the experience of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island and Hoboken during the peak years of U.S. immigration. A companion lecture series, “The Immigrant Experience,” will bring noted scholars and authors to the Museum to expand on the topic; see below for the full schedule.

Immigration Transformed Hoboken
In addition to descendants of Dutch and English settlers, German and Irish immigrants had largely shaped Hoboken in the mid- to late 19th century. In 1890, 40 percent of Hoboken’s population of 43,648 was foreign-born—and the majority of the city’s native-born residents had parents born in Germany or Ireland. Only 790 Italian immigrants lived in Hoboken in 1890.
Just two decades later, in 1910, Germans and German-Americans continued to dominate Hoboken, but for the first time, the city had more Italian and Italian-American residents than Irish and Irish-Americans. Hoboken also had a growing number of residents born in Russia, Austria, and Norway.

The exhibition also offers an in-depth look at the conditions immigrants faced before leaving their ports of embarkation, and the class divides on board between first and second class and steerage. The treatment received on arrival in New York Harbor differed by passenger class, too, with the steerage passengers diverted to Ellis Island for screening, while first and second class passengers simply disembarked in Hoboken or New York after an on-board health check, and then were free to go.

On Sunday, Aug. 17, at 4 p.m., the Museum will screen an award-winning documentary, “Every Day is a Holiday,” by Chinese-American filmmaker Theresa Loong. Growing up in suburban New Jersey, Loong knew little about her father’s past. One day, she discovered his secret diary, written when he was a teenager and prisoner of war in a Japanese work camp during World War II. In it, he vowed to make ‘every day a holiday’ if he survived. The hour-long documentary tells the painful but life-affirming story of her father’s journey from Chinese Malay teenager and POW, to merchant seaman, Veterans Affairs doctor and naturalized citizen of the country that liberated him: the United States. The exhibition is on view six days a week through Dec. 23.

The Immigrant Experience Lecture Series:
Accompanying the exhibition is a lecture series, “The Immigrant Experience,” in which scholars and authors will tackle the topic of immigration from diverse angles. From the business model of transporting immigrants in the 19th and 20th century, to the issues faced today by asylum seekers and refugees, to immigrants’ impact on architecture, healthcare and the newspaper business, there’s a talk for every interest.

The lecture series kicks off on opening day of the new exhibit, Sunday, Aug. 3, with a talk at 2 p.m.; all other lectures will begin at 4 p.m.:
• Aug. 3, 2 p.m., Christina Ziegler-McPherson, guest curator, “A Good Business: Migration and the Hamburg America Line, 1847-1914”
• Sept. 14, 4 p.m., Anjum Gupta, Rutgers University, “Forced Migration: Contemporary Issues Faced by Refugees and Asylum Seekers”
• Sept. 28, 4 p.m., Julia Preston, The New York Times, “Immigration Reform and the Emerging America”
• Oct. 5, 4 p.m., Dr. Hasia Diner, New York University, “Roads Taken Beyond New York: The Great Jewish Migration to America from the 1820s to 1920s”
• Oct. 12, 4 p.m., Dr. Vincent DiGirolamo, Baruch College of the City University of New York, “Little Aliens of a Beaten Race: Immigrant Newsboys and Newsgirls in America, 1892-1924”
• Oct. 19, 4 p.m., Dr. Alan Kraut, American University, “Caring for Foreign Bodies, the Role of Healthcare in the Transformation of Aliens into Americans”
• Nov. 16, 4 p.m., Jeff Dosik, National Park Service, “Tales of Ellis Island”
• Dec. 7, 4 p.m., Dr. Charlotte Brooks, Baruch College of the City University of New York, “The Excluded: Chinese Immigration to the Tri-State Area in the Early Twentieth Century”
• Dec. 14, 4 p.m., Dr. Jerome Krase, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, “The Vernacular Architecture of Italian American Neighborhoods”