Ruthenian woman, Augustus Frederick Sherman (1865-1925)
Courtesy of Aperture Foundation and Statue of Liberty National Monument/Ellis Island Immigration Museum

Augustus Frederick Sherman: Ellis Island Portraits 1905-1920
October 11, 2008 through April 26, 2009

Ellis Island, our nation's foremost immigration station, processed an average of 5,000 immigrants per day during the peak years from 1905-1907. Augustus Frederick Sherman entered public service as a clerk with the Immigration Division at Ellis Island in 1892, the year that the "Golden Door" was established. An accomplished amateur photographer, Sherman's position enabled him to take an astonishing body of portraits of over 200 families, groups, and individuals while they were being detained either for medical reasons or for further interrogation. "Augustus Frederick Sherman: Ellis Island Portraits, 1905-1920" brings together for the first time a collection of these striking photographs, presenting an unprecedented historical document. The exhibition is on view at the National Heritage Museum, 33 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA, October 11, 2008 through April 26, 2009. Admission is free.  

Described by leading photo-historians as "one of the most substantial photographic records of that period of mass immigration," Sherman's photographs shown in this exhibition present an extraordinary picture of the incoming stream of immigrants who came through Ellis Island at the turn of the last century. As 20% of the immigrants were detained, some of Sherman's subjects were ultimately deported. His portraits reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of people known as the "New Immigrants" that fled peasant societies, natural disasters, poverty, and political and religious persecution to partake in the great American Experiment. Sherman's subjects, who are frequently dressed in elaborate national costumes or folk dresses, range from Romanian shepherds to Russian vegetarians and deported anarchists, from circus performers and German stowaways to Greek-Orthodox priests and women from Guadeloupe. Each subject is treated with equal gravitas.

Over 280 of Sherman's photographs have spent many years in the collections of Ellis Island and the New York Public Library, rarely shown. Through the exhibition and accompanying book, this extraordinary artist's lifework will finally achieve the worldwide recognition it deserves.

Augustus Frederick Sherman was chief clerk at Ellis Island from 1906 to 1921, when he was promoted to private secretary to the Commissioner, a position he held until 1925. Little is known about the rest of his life. Entirely self-taught as a photographer, Sherman had an abiding passion for human drama, a keen eye for non-Western postures, gestures, and dress, and the ability to pose his sitters without losing sight of their inner natures and difficult circumstances.

This project received generous support from Furthermore: A program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund.

The accompanying book, Augustus Frederick Sherman: Ellis Island Portraits, 1905-1920, is available in the Museum's Heritage Shop for $25. The 160-page volume includes 115 duotone images