Snapshots Of A Transforming Nation

Thousands take the ferry to New York's Ellis Island every day.

CBS News Correspondent Harry Smith notes on CBS News Sunday Morning that some are visitors from abroad.

Some come to find names of their forebears.

But a lucky few, including the Glerum family, can find familiar faces from the past.

Roy Glerum's grandfather, Dingenis, brought his family to the United States from Holland in 1907. And their family portrait is part of a remarkable exhibit of photography on Ellis Island.

"He was a very determined man," says Roy Glerum. "Yeah. I think the courage he had to bring 11 children to this country without having a job or without knowing the language, yeah, he was a very determined man."

Housed in the old dormitory on Ellis Island, Smith reports, the photographs, displayed together for the first time, represent one of the most significant visual archives of American immigration in the first decades of the 20th century.

They were taken by Augustus Frederick Sherman, a registry clerk and an amateur photographer, as a record of the scores of nationalities that came to America every day.

Today, they stand as testament to the determination of the 12 million immigrants, determined to overcome all obstacles on their way to a better life.

According to the exhibit's Web site, "This untrained, yet highly gifted photographer created hundreds of images documenting the new arrivals to America. Fascinated by the diverse origins and cultural backgrounds of his subjects, Sherman created a riveting series of portraits, offering viewers a compelling human perspective on this dynamic period in our country's history."The exhibit, says the Web site, consists of 75 framed black-and-white photographs requiring approximately 200 feet of running wall space.

Arriving on Ellis Island was just the first step in a difficult and sometimes demeaning registration and screening process, Smith points out. That may help explain why the tiny speck of land in New York Harbor came to be known as, "The Island of Hope, The Island of Tears."

Seemingly etched into the faces of these immigrants are the difficulties of the lives they left behind, and the uncertainties about the new lives they were about to begin.

If their clothing seems a little strange, that's because it was, at least to their new countrymen.

"I mean, immigrants, or imagine an immigrant running around New York with a folk dress, a Greek folk dress," chuckled Peter Messenholler, curator of the collection. "People would have laughed at them. So, the question was, 'Why did they do so?'

"And we found out from oral history that the very moment the ships arrived in the harbor of New York and people would see the Statue of Liberty, they would go downstairs and dress up for the occasion. …It's like wearing one's Sunday best."

Family members were tagged with the number of the ship on which they arrived. If any one member of a family failed the physical, they would be sent home on the very same ship.

While many of the stories these people brought with them are lost, bits and pieces survive in notes Sherman made on the photos.

For instance:

• "Enrico Cardi, just 15, but already thrice wounded in the First World War. Already an honorary sergeant in the U.S. Army."
• "Peter Meyer was a wealthy Dane. He said he'd come to the United States in search of 'pleasure.' "
• "Mary Johnson preferred to be called 'Frank Woodhull.' She'd been living as a man in Canada, and decided to do the same in America," where she'd live for another 30 years.

But for most of them, that was very much in the past.

Says Roy Glerum: "Grandpa Glerum, when he came over, he said, 'This is America. This is our opportunity. We're not even gonna speak the Dutch language. I want all you kids to learn English. And this is your opportunity.' And it kind of ended there."

And for millions of Dutch, Austrians, Moroccans, Italians, Germans, Finns, Russians, Indians, Turks, and many more, the pictures of Augustus Sherman capture that most fleeting of moments, when their first lives ended, and their second lives began - as Americans.