“Bread and Hope: A Family’s First Meal in America” Ellis Island NYC, c.1900s” (Watermarks do not appear on the actual artwork.)
“Bread and Hope: A Family’s First Meal in America” Ellis Island NYC, c.1900s” (Watermarks do not appear on the actual artwork.)
“Bread and Hope: A Family’s First Meal in America” Ellis Island NYC, c.1900s” (Watermarks do not appear on the actual artwork.)
“Bread and Hope: A Family’s First Meal in America” Ellis Island NYC, c.1900s." (Original vintage glass camera negative - not for sale, display only)
“Bread and Hope: A Family’s First Meal in America” Ellis Island NYC, c.1900s”, c.1900s
Further images
This poignant limited-edition print captures a quiet yet powerful moment of arrival at Ellis Island in the early 1900s. A family of newly arrived Eastern European immigrants—three women, a man, and two baby girls—sits on the ground sharing a modest meal. Dressed in humble peasant clothing, they rest together after a long and uncertain journey, surrounded by their few belongings.
Behind them, the red-brick architecture of Ellis Island and scattered figures of other immigrants form a backdrop to this deeply human scene. The father, watchful and composed. The mother, tending to her child. The expressions are calm but carry the gravity of a world left behind—and the fragile beginnings of a new life.
Offered as a fine art limited-edition print, this image is a rare and intimate glimpse into the immigrant experience. It honors the resilience and dignity of those who built a new life from the ground up—sometimes quite literally, beginning with a meal on Ellis Island’s soil.
Provenance
Past in Present.com Inc private historical archive.