The years hetween 1820 and 1931 saw the United States experience its greatest wave of immigration. Between 1892 and 1954, more than 66 percent of immigrants to America came through Ellis Island. The majority of Americans today are the descendants of pioneering ancestors from that period.

Here then are firsthand accounts by the last surviving immigrants and others of the hardships they endured, experiences they recalled, and the wonder and amazement they felt seeing the Statue of Liberty upon their arrival at Ellis Island - the proof that America, their dream, was real.