Press Photo Showing the Administration of a Mental Examination for Immigrants at Ellis Island

New York City: Brown Bros, 1900. Press photo measuring 5 ½ x 6 ½ inches. Publisher's stamps and manuscript "Ellis Island" on verso. Excellent contrast. Slight damage to edges with a few chips to image, excellent to Near Fine.. Starting in the 1890s, restrictions on immigration began to include bars on people determined to be of lower intelligence, experiencing mental health conditions, or likely to require welfare. These restrictions were reinforced and expanded by the Immigration Acts of 1907 and 1917. As a consequence, immigrants arriving at processing stations like Ellis Island were administered tests of their literacy and mental hygiene. This photograph shows a young woman apparently being administered such a mental examination by an American officer on Ellis Island. Physical health was tested as well; a stadiometer is also visible in the photo. At the time, the concern of those pushing for these tests was the influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and from Asia, with the aim being to ensure a "better, stronger, more intelligent race" of Americans rather than a "weak and possibly degenerate mongrel."[1]

[1] Robert De C. Ward, "National Eugenics in Relation to Immigration," The North American Review 192, no. 656 (July 1910): 56-67.