The Nurses of Ellis Island: Life and Work inside the Golden Door

The Nurses of Ellis Island: Life and Work inside the Golden Door tells the story of the nurses who offered hope and healing to some of America’s most vulnerable patients. In the once-modern hospital complex on the southwest side of Ellis Island, a small group of nurses from the U.S. Public Health Service expertly cared for more than 150,000 patients of all ages and backgrounds, suffering from every imaginable illness and injury. These nurses, who lived and worked in the hospital built between the Main Immigration Building and the Statue of Liberty, learned to embrace their roles as both compassionate caregivers and agents of the state, all while navigating the impact of major sociopolitical events that included two world wars, a global pandemic, and increasingly restrictive immigration legislation. Drawing from government records, archival sources, and newly uncovered memoirs from the nurses themselves, award-winning authors and accomplished nurse historians Michelle Hehman and Arlene Keeling reconstruct the lived experience of nursing on Ellis Island during the first half of the twentieth century. This tale of nursing at its finest is a stunning narrative of triumph and tragedy that brings to life the largely invisible yet indispensable work of nursing at the intersection of immigration and public health policy. 

Dr. Michelle C. Hehman is the lead nurse scientist at Houston Methodist Hospital and associate editor of Nursing History Review. An accomplished nurse historian, Dr. Hehman is also co-author of the award-winning textbook History of Professional Nursing in the United States: Toward a Culture of Health.

Dr. Arlene Keeling is the Centennial Distinguished Professor of Nursing Emerita at the University of Virginia School of Nursing. She is an award-winning author of numerous books, including Nursing and the Privilege of Prescription and History of Professional Nursing in the United States: Towards a Culture of Health.