Ellis Island: The public and personal representations of the immigrant experience

Between 1892 and 1954, more than 12 million immigrants arrived at Ellis Island's shores for the promise of a new beginning in America. During this period of immigrant influx and in the decades to follow, anti-immigrant sentiment remained at the forefront of the collective American conscious, varying in severity, though ever present. This study compares the relationship between the personal stories of immigrants and the print media's account of immigration in Ellis Island's peak year, 1907, in an attempt to understand how storytelling, as communication, helped shape the collective immigrant experience. It also examines how the relationship contributes to U.S. perceptions of immigrants. The study is informed by Walter Fisher's narrative paradigm theory and was accomplished through a qualitative narrative analysis of both immigrant related articles published in 1907 New York Times articles and the archival artifacts on record at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Journalism and Media Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

2004

Author dc:creator

• Maras, Tara

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dolores Tanno

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/1731

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-2730