Coming to America
THE SHIPS
S.S. Perugia
Rose (Rosaria) Lupo (see Lupo and Ansaldo) come to Ellis Island from Riesi, Sicily in 1910 when she was 3 years old. The Perugia - Anchor Line - was built in 1901 by the D. & W. Henderson & Co., Glasgow, Scotland. Tonnage: 4,348. Dimensions: 375' x 47', single-screw, 13 knots, triple expansion engines, two masts and one funnel. The ship was placed in the Mediterranean-New York service August, 1901. The ship was sunk in the Mediterranean, December 3, 1916 by an enemy submarine in the Gulf of Genoa. Resource: Mariners' Museum and http://www.fortunecity.com/littleitaly/amalfi/13/shipp.htm
Photo right is of the Perugia (in background) while it was quarantined in dock during a Cholera outbreak. Click on image for larger view.
S.S. Colombo/SanGennaro 1915
Pasquale Ansaldo (see Ansaldo) Came to America from Riesi, Sicily in 1923. on the Colombo.
Built by Palmers Co Ltd, Jarrow-on-Tyne as the SAN GENNARO for Sicula Americana, Messina, this was a 12,087 gross ton ship, length 518ft x beam 64ft, two funnels, two masts, twin screw and a speed of 16 knots. Launched in Oct.1915, she was transferred to Transoceanica of Naples and completed in 1917 as a 10,917 gross ton cargo ship. In 1921 she was rebuilt to 12,087 tons with accommodation for 100-1st, 700-2nd and 2,000-3rd class passengers. The company was absorbed by Navigazione Generale Italiana in 1921 and the ship was renamed COLOMBO. She commenced her first Naples - New York voyage on 23rd Nov.1921, was refitted to carry cabin, intermediate and 3rd class in 1925 and on 4th Sep.1928 started her last Genoa - Naples - Palermo - New York sailing. Subsequently used on the South American service, she came under the ownership of Italia Line in 1932 and Lloyd Triestino in 1937. On 8th Apr.1941 she was scuttled at Massaua, Eritrea, was later raised and scrapped in 1949.
Reference: North Atlantic Seaway by N.R.P.Bonsor, vol.3,p.1119 and
http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/descriptions/ShipsCC.html
PORTS
Palermo, Sicily
Both Rose (Rosaria) Lupo and Pasquale Ansaldo passed through the port at Palermo, Sicily. The photo is what it looked like in 1906, similar to what it would have looked like when rose left Sicily in 1910. See Pasquale Ansaldo's ticket stamped with Palermo.
UPON ARRIVAL
They were impressed with the Italians
New York Times, July 2, 1923
Immigration Record Broken As 11 Ships Race To Enter Port 2,074 Aliens Inspected–2,324 on List for Today–More Held on Vessels Bricklayer’s Wage A Lure First Italian Examined Says He Has a Brother Here Making $12 a Day Cabin Total A New Mark 11,482 Arrivals in All Classes–5,551 Passed Through the Customs
Eleven passenger liners arrived here yesterday with 11,482 passengers of all classes and 4,100 in their crews, making a total of 15,582 persons who had to be passed by the public health surgeons and the immigration inspectors before the vessels could proceed to their piers. This was done without any confusion and very little delay. According to the new Commissioner of Immigration, Henry H. Curran, it was nearly double the number arriving on July 1 last year. Within six hours the Ellis Island staff had inspected 2,074 immigrants, mostly Italians and Greeks, and were in readiness to handle 2,324 more today. By 5 o’clock tomorrow afternoon the immigration Officials in New York will have handled the largest number of aliens who have sought admission to the United States since the selective quota law was enacted in 1921. Commissioner Curran was at the Barge Office at 5:30 A.M. yesterday and watched crowds waiting outside to greet their relatives and friends when they landed. One Italian had purchased sleeping car tickets to take his family to Chicago and was very much disappointed when informed by Inspector Dugan at the gate that the ship they were on would not land her immigrants until today.
Eighty Per Cent Will Be Admitted The staff of the immigration depot, including eighty-five inspectors, was at work, and the Commissioner said that there was no congestion or delay. In his opinion, 80 per cent of the 2,074 who landed at the island would be passed and admitted to the country. There were 867 aliens already at Ellis Island, of whom 420 were waiting to be sent back to Europe. There were 1,750 beds ready last night, and no one, Mr. Curran said, would have to sleep on a bench. In the Jersey freight yards are 232 more beds which will be taken to the island today. Immigration Commissioner General William W. Husband telephoned from Washington to Commissioner Curran at Ellis Island during the day for full details as to the number of steamships which had arrived, the number of immigrants they carried and what difficulties the local officials, inspectors and clerks had encountered in handling them. Commissioner Curran was assisted yesterday by the veteran Deputy Commissioner Byron H. Uhl, who has been on the island more than a quarter of a century. Assistant Commissioner Harry R. Landis and Chief Superintendent Irving W. Wixon, who came on from Washington.
Italians Impress Congressman Congressman John L. Cable of Ohio, who is a member of the Immigration Committee in the House of Representatives, spent the day at Ellis Island to get first-hand information on the subject. He was much impressed with the Italians who landed from the liner Presidente Wilson and commented on their good appearance. They appeared to have adopted American customs in dressing, the Congressman added, and were mostly single men between 25 and 30. The first alien to be examined for the new fiscal year, which began yesterday, was Cesare Litterini, 18 years old, of Trento, Italy, who said he was a laborer and had a brother living in New York working as a bricklayer and earning $12 a day which, he admitted, was the lure that brought him to America. In Italy, he said, one had to work hard to get enough food to eat at the present time because everything was so dear through the drop in the currency. When Congressman Cable had watched the aliens passing through the examination hall for some time he turned to Commissioner Curran and said: “More Congressmen ought to see these immigrants land here and then they would have a better idea of what selective immigration means. I’ve always been interested in immigration from the viewpoint of absorbing them into our farm and industrial life, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen them come into the country. Good Material Coming In “These Italians are a fine lot. The Italian Government is the only European Government that has worked out a selective emigration program, and the result is that we are now receiving good material and men and women whom we can absorb.” When he was asked how it would do to import all the pretty women from Italy to America, he replied, “Why, for the fiscal year of 1921, out of a net gain of 90,000 immigrants, 87,000 were women and girls. The men made money here and went back to Italy to spend it.” “Ninety per cent of the people of America,” he continued, “are against lifting the barriers on immigration. That’s how I managed to get an additional appropriation of $300,000 reinstated in the immigration budget last year. Congress felt that it would take that much to enforce the law and it is willing to appropriate many times that much. “The new law which will go before the next Congress, I am certain, will be based on the census of 1890,” Congressman Cable added that he had no religious prejudices and felt in immigration that the Jew, Gentile, Confucian and Moslem, are all entitled to consideration, but he believes the Jewish immigration, specially from Poland and Russia, is too large. After spending some hours on Ellis Island the Congressman went to the Italian liner Giulio Cesare which arrived yesterday morning from Naples with 1,356 immigrants on board and watched them playing on deck. German Has American Wife One passenger who said he was a German business man from Munich and had embarked at Trieste, told the Inspector that his wife, who was an American, was ill in her stateroom and could not come into the saloon to be examined. “How can she be an American and your wife if you are a German?” the Congressman asked. “She is from California and we were married after September 22,” was the reply. “Now the law is working right,” said Mr. Cable. “That’s what the law intends–that an American woman can retain her citizenship unless she wishes to renounce it.: It was not only his first visit to Ellis Island, he said, but his first visit to an ocean liner. [see the Prologue article "Women and Naturalization"] The customs officials played a big part in yesterday’s program and according to Alexander McKeon, the Deputy Surveyor in charge, there were altogether 350 inspectors and other officials working on the piers and fifty appraisers. He said that the number of cabin passengers landed yesterday, 5,511, was the biggest on record at the Custom House and the next to it was 4,400 in September, 1913.
Thousands Greet Arrivals Neither the customs or the immigration officials were certain whether they would be paid for the day’s work, but that did not interfere with their desire to complete the job on hand. The ships were landing in Hoboken and Brooklyn as well as New York, so that the customs officials had to be ferried across the river on fast motor launches to get the work done. In addition to the throngs waiting all day outside the Barge Office at the Battery to see the immigrants land, there were thousands outside the piers to greet their relatives or friends who came in the cabin, and hundreds more hired launches and steamed around the sterns of the big liners, cheering their friends who were hanging over the rail and waving their handkerchiefs. On the pier at the foot of West Fifty-fifth Street, opposite the one where the Italian liner Giulio Cesare docked, there were at least a thousand Italians waving and shouting to the 1,070 immigrants on board, who will have to remain there until tomorrow. Late last night Commissioner Curran said that out of the 2,074 immigrants examined that day at Ellis Island, 600 had been held over for further examination and the remainder had been admitted to the country. He added that he was very gratified for a handsome floral horseshoe which had been sent to him during the day by the patrolmen’s and firemen’s societies of New York City as a token of their regard for him. He had kept it in his office all day, he said, and then sent it to the hospital on the Island, where it was placed in the centre of the big ward.
The Washington First to Arrive The Greek liner Washington was really the first to arrive at Quarantine after midnight, but the customs officials boarded the Danish liner Polonia first because her yellow flag was the first one to be lowered yesterday morning and there was no time for delay. After that they were all taken pretty well in the order in which the vessels anchored at the Quarantine station–Canada, King Alexander, President Wilson, Stockholm, Nieuw Amsterdam, France, President Adams, Aquitania. The Eleventh ship was the Giulio Cesare, which did not arrive until the forenoon. The Aquitania sails for Southampton at 10 A.M. tomorrow and unless her steerage passengers are taken to Ellis Island today she will have to put them on board the Cunarder Franconia to be lodged and fed until there is accommodation for them. About 103 cabin passengers on the liner were detained for further examination and will have to go to Ellis Island with the other aliens in the steerage. The aliens arriving yesterday came from all countries in the world, the immigration officials said, and the only quota that was definitely exhausted was the Greek, which was only 650 for the first month in the fiscal year. The Italian quota was not exhausted, and the British and German quotas both have plenty to spare. The steamers arriving today with more aliens are the Ohio of the Royal Mail Line, the Cunarder Franconia, the Muenchen of the North German Lloyd, the Oscar II of the Scandinavian-American Line, the Drottningholm of the Swedish-American Line and the Dante Alighieri of the Transatlantic Line.
Where they Settled
The families came through Ellis Island, then settled in Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City, NJ old Photos
Old Italian Village of Jersey City restoration
Jersey City Photos from 1915:
