Disembarkation of third class passenger

[Stefan Christiansson]

How did the third class passengers disembark when arriving in New York back in those days? Did the liners stop off Ellis Island and letting the 3rd class passengers get off there into a shuttle boat or were they brought to Ellis island after the ship had docked at the pier?

 

[Jacob Bineke]

its possible some of them were Americans. I don't think they would be forced to go to Ellis. There were also 2nd Class or 1st Class passengers probably looking to immigrate to the US. Unless the rich were excluded from Ellis Is?

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Jacob, Stefan is long gone but in answer to your own question: the only passengers ferried out to Ellis Island were those traveling with 3rd Class tickets and setting foot in the US for the first time. Everybody in 1st and 2nd Class, and any in 3rd Class who were returning to the US, were generally excused. There were occasional exceptions. If, for instance, there was an outbreak of contagious disease on a ship and it wasn't confined to the 3rd Class areas, then everybody could be sent to Ellis for medical examination.

 

[Stanley C Jenkins]

First class and second class passengers were sometimes detained at Ellis Island.

In 1913, for example, the British music hall/vaudeville entertainer Marie Lloyd, who was travelling 1st class aboard RMS Olympic, was the subject of a "Special Board of Inquiry at Ellis Island" after a half hour hearing had ordered her deportation from the United States.

The board had based its decision "on the admitted fact that the singer was traveling aboard the liner with Bernard Dillon", an Irish jockey, although they were not legally married. With songs like "She Sits Among the Cabbages and Peas" — a title that sounds less innocent than it looks - her music hall material was also regarded as obscene.