“Augustus Sherman, the Ellis Island Chief Registry Clerk, had special access to potential subjects for his camera. It is likely that Sherman’s elaborately costumed subjects were detainees, new immigrants held at Ellis Island for one reason or another. While waiting for what they needed to leave the island (an escort, or money, or travel tickets), some of these immigrants may have been persuaded to pose for Sherman’s camera, donning their best holiday finery or national dress, which they had brought with them from home. Sherman’s pictures were published in National Geographic in 1907 and for decades hung anonymously in the lower Manhattan headquarters of the federal Immigration Service. Incoming correspondence in the William Williams Papers suggests that the Commissioner gave copies of Sherman’s haunting photographs to official Ellis Island visitors as mementoes.”