Untitled, Ellis Island,

1956

Once the busiest immigration point in the United States, processing around a million people a year from 1905 to 1915, Ellis Island was largely converted to an immigration detention center in the 1920s and closed in 1954, shortly before Burden took this photograph. A site associated with “huddled masses” appears here as an empty room with a dusty stained table, two pairs of abandoned shoes and a dirty plate, cracked and peeling walls, and an unplugged fan. On the wall behind, taped up posters of George Washington and a torn and wrinkled Abraham Lincoln are the only reminders that the island once served millions of immigrants hoping to find a new home in America.