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Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom
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Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom
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by Stephen Wilkes and Bill Bradley
Sales Rank : 369970
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Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton October 16, 2006
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393061450
ISBN-13: 978-0393061451
Product Dimensions:
13.3 x 10.4 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
Over the course of five years, photographer Wilkes has captured the dark underbelly of Ellis Island-the south side-where immigrants who failed health inspections were brought to be held and evaluated. Those that convalesced were given passage, while those deemed too ill or contagious were left to perish in confinement just a solitary, tantalizing mile away from their hoped-for new beginning in New York City. Obsolete for over half a century, the facilities on the south side have been left to decay, and Wilkes's camera catches crumbling corridor walls, chipped and faded paint, and heavily fortified containment cells that have become brittle with age and overrun by aggressive vegetation. In the artist's words, the architecture "was 50 percent the work of man, 50 percent the triumph of nature." Wilkes' perspective evokes the hopeless limbo of the facility's residents, capturing the view from the inside looking outward: through the steel grates of a detention cage; through windows of shattered glass; at the Statue of Liberty, a monolithic paradox for those trapped beneath it. Quotations from immigrants, peppered throughout, add context and gravitas to the stark imagery: "Nobody said a word to me for twenty-three days." In an appendix-like "Image Directory," Wilkes gives a short, insightful description of each photo. Historical in both scope and timing, Wilkes's book has been released just as Ellis Island's south side is being renovated, largely thanks to Wilkes's attention; soon the haunted desolation captured in these photographs will vanish forever.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Good Housekeeping "Our Favorite New U.S. History Books," Ellen Heltzel
A sleeper choice for anyone who thinks a picture is worth a thousand Words.
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