Italians interned at Gloucester Immigration Station photographs, 1941
Permanent ID:
14245Dates:
April 22 1941April 24 1941
April 1 1941
Image Description:
This digital record contains sixteen images that depict eight photographs held in folder 1222, labeled as, "Immigration Station - Gloucest, N.J." This folder contains an additional fourteen photographs which are not currently digitized.Inscription:
The Three=acre recreation yard at the Gloucester Immigration Station. Most of the 179 internees shown are Italian seamen. There's also a Canadian, 2 West Indians and 2 Portuguese stowaways taken from a cork ship at the Gloucester piers of the Armstrong Cork Company. (Back of Photograph 1)Mrs. Emily Duff, the registered nurse on the staff of the Gloucester Immigration Station examines the tonsils of an internee in the station dispensary. Many inmates develop digestive disorders at first, because of the inactivity of their life in confinement, but the general health of most is good. (Back of Photograph 2)
UNCLE SAM'S BUSINESS at the Gloucester (N. J.) Immigration station dependes on a steady turnover in that most perishable of commodities, the alien. This is the detention building where some 1100 deportees are received annually. Three weeks ago business picked up when 117 crew members of three Italian freighters seized by the U.S. in the harbor here were interned. (Back of Photograph 3)
These Italians, taken from sabotaged ships in Philadelphia's Harbor, resented having their pictures taken because the photo shows the heaping plates of good food before them. They wanted the photographer to "shoot" them in the cramped quarters to which they were assigned for one day while the dormitories were being made ready for them, because that would have made it appear they were being mistreated. (Back of Photograph 4)
CHEF Elmer W. Troth (in background) stirs the potatoes while his wife, Marie, whom he met during World War I, tastes soup. Their varied kitchen skill made interned Italian seamen cheer up appreciably after first station meal. Nearly 600 institutions in district from prisons to almshouses aid in tracing deportable aliens. (Back of Photograph 6)