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ELLIS ISLAND RESTORATION
COMMISSION PROJECTS
- From 1976 to 1980, the Commission campaigned
for the restoration of Ellis Island as a national museum. During
that period of time, the Commission, after extensive communications
and meetings with National Park Service, Department of Interior and
members of the U.S. House and Senate, succeeded in convincing the
U.S. government to restore and rehabilitate Ellis Island and to create
a national museum reflecting the role of immigration in the growth
of America.
- When the Ellis Island restoration was complete, the Commission, over
a period of ten years, pioneered the concept of creating full access
to the records of immigration arrivals through the ships manifests
and the computerization of those records and internet access. The Commission
undertook a television campaign featuring Public Service announcements
featuring actor and Commission member Cliff Robertson in order to promote
the concept of a Family History Museum on the internet that would contain
the records of all those who immigrated through Ellis Island. Those
efforts resulted in the development of the Family History Museum, through
which millions of Americans are now able to trace the arrival in America
of their families.
- The Commission is currently involved with enhancing the Oral History
Museum at Ellis Island which will contain the recorded interviews of
immigrants who arrived through Ellis Island.
- The Commission has sponsored legislation in
the U.S. House of Representatives to name the Third Floor of Ellis
Island the Bob Hope Memorial Library, in memory of Bob Hope, who
came through Ellis Island at the age of four years, and who became
a national treasure an one of America’s
most famous entertainers.
The Third Floor of Ellis Island currently bears a plaque commemorating
the work of the Commission, as follows:
“Presented to the Ellis
Island Restoration Commission, which since
the 1970’s has dedicated
itself to the restoration of Ellis Island, and
has championed public access
to records documenting all of the
immigrants who first set foot on American
soil at Ellis Island in their
quest for the American Dream."
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