Hope & Healing: The Untold Story of the Ellis Island Hospital

FAIN: GN-50605-05

Filmmakers Collaborative, Inc. (Melrose, MA 02176-3933)
Lorie Conway (Project Director: November 2004 to May 2009)

Production of a one-hour television documentary about the Ellis Island immigrant hospital.

Hope and Healing is the first documentary film produced about the Ellis Island immigrant hospital, which served the hundreds of thousands of aliens seeking entrance through New York in the years between 1892 and 1924. Part of an elaborate system of medical inspection conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service on behalf of the federal immigration officials, the immigrant hospital at Ellis Island is an important and little-known chapter in American history. The film challenges popular myths about Ellis Island as it explores the hospital's place at the intersection of American immigration history, social history, the rise of professional medicine, and the emerging field of public health.

Associated Products

Forgotten Ellis Island (Book)
Title: Forgotten Ellis Island
Author: Lorie Conway
Editor: Harper Collins
Abstract: A century ago, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, one of the world's great public hospitals was built. Massive and modern, the hospital's twenty-two state-of-the-art buildings were crammed onto two small islands, man made from rock and dirt excavated during the building of the New York subway. The Ellis Island Hospital was at once welcoming and foreboding-a fateful crossroad for hundreds of thousands of hopeful immigrants. Those nursed to health were allowed entry to America. Those deemed feeble of body or mind were deported.
Year: 2007
Primary URL: http://www.forgottenellisisland.com
Primary URL Description: The website for the film and companion book contains many additional photos, interactive components such as a historical timeline, as well as behind the scene information about the making of Forgotten Ellis Island, which was supported by three NEH grants.
Secondary URL: http://www.bostonfilmandvideo.com
Secondary URL Description: This is the website for the production company which created Forgotten Ellis Island film and companion book.
Publisher: Harper Collins
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-0-06-1241

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