Sponsored by Wilmington Trust  

Island of Hope:
The Story of Ellis Island
And the Journey to America

Instructor:  Martin W. Sandler, Author

Course Description:  Martin Sandler introduces readers to the challenges faced by families who left their homelands and braved a long voyage, a new language, and a new culture to a home in America.  Ellis Island and the Journey to America is similar to the Immigrants volume that Sandler wrote for the “Library of Congress Young People’s American History series,” John Peter noted in Booklist, “but in Island of Hope Sandler expands the scope considerably.”  The book follows immigrants through the steps of being processed at Ellis Island (the major immigrant processing center in the United States from 1892 through 1954), then explains where they wound up once admitted to the United States – living in crowded city tenements, going West to stake their claim on a farm, or working as laborers building the railroads or in other heavy industries.  Of particular interest to young readers, noted a Publishers Weekly contributor, is that the book “emphasizes the role of children and teens, who often learned the language and customs more quickly than their parents and assumed great responsibility in families.”  In telling the tales of these young immigrants and their parents, Sandler “seamlessly blends factual information with the moving words and stories of those passing through Ellis Island,” Diane S. Marton declared in School Library Journal, making Island of Hope a “lucid, well-composed work.”

Biographical Information:  Martin W. Sandler is the author of 66 books, including The Story of American Photography, which was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book.  He has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize, and is one of America’s most respected television producers, with five Emmy Awards to his credit.  He is the author of five other Library of Congress Books: Pioneers, Cowboys, Immigrants, Presidents and Civil War.  Mr. Sandler and his wife live in Massachusetts and spend part of their winters in Jupiter, Florida.