Immigrants who passed the first mental inspection wait in pens in the Registry Room, also called the Great Hall at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, 1910
Nearly every day, for over two decades (1900-1924), the Registry Room was filled with new arrivals waiting to be inspected and registered by Immigration Service officers. On many days, over 5,000 people would file through the space.
For most immigrants, this great hall epitomized Ellis Island. It was here that immigrants underwent medical and legal examinations.
Here they encountered the complex demands of the immigration laws and an American bureaucracy that could either grant or withhold permission to land in the United States.
