Catherine Bancroft

Ellis Island Series - Page Four

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A country where the great majority are immigrants is different than a country where people have been living for hundreds of yearsâ€¦People who come to another country, who are torn from their homes, learn that things are not just as they thought; that there are different things to eat for breakfast than coffee and a roll. You can think that is human nature til you go somewhere else and eat corn flakes. - Isaac Bashevis Singer

Settled by the people of all nations, all nations may claim her for their own. You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world...our blood is as the flood of the Amazon, made up of a thousand noble currents all pouring into one. We are not a nation, so much as a world. - Herman Melville

It's a place, Ellis Island.

And it contains all of America.

Its dreams.

Its limits.

The variety of who came here. Their hopes. What they brought with them.

Cultures, languages, religions. Styles of dress, of sitting, of facial expression.

A moment in time. A cacophony of voices. Silently caught.

The procedures of the place. The values and barriers they represented.

Key to Paintings

Child Detained 12x12	Hungarian Farmer 12x12	Hungarian Servant 12x12

Russian Widow 12x12	Irish Girl (sold) 12x12	Italian Laborer 12x12

Russian Cattle Dealer 12x12	Shepherd (sold) 12x12	Irish Servant (sold) 12x12

German Stowaway 12x12	Swedish Woman 12x12	Boy (sold) 12x12

Playing on the Steerage Deck 18x18	Medical Exam - 1907 16x16	Nine Children from Holland 20x24

Detention Dining Hall 12x12	Men on Dock (sold) 12x12	Three Scottish Sisters (sold) 12x12

Two Officials Observing the Line 12x12	Women Arriving (sold) 12x12	Younger Scottish Siblings (sold) 12x12

Catherine Bancroft

Ellis Island Series - Page Four

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Key to Paintings

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