The first documentary film about the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, one of the largest in the world at the turn of the 20th century, features exclusive location footage and interviews with former patients, relating the lost history of this “hospital of all nations.”

From 1902 until 1930, the enormous medical complex on Ellis Island — where for many years, most immigrants tried to gain admittance to the United States — was like no other hospital on earth. It was the largest Public Health Service hospital in the country: twenty-two buildings, in all. More importantly, it was the setting for a conflict that virtually defines the issue of government in America — a conflict between those who wanted to help the dis-enfranchised, and those who wanted to exclude them.

Some powerful and very basic political questions loomed behind hundreds of thousands of medical decisions that the physicians made on Ellis Island. What should America be? And who is it for?

Screening followed by Q & A with filmmaker, Lorie Conway

Thursday, June 5th, 2008
at 7:00 pm

Watertown Free Public Library
123 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Free to the Public

For more info: 617.972.6436