She Wrote Their Names

About this book

On the seventeenth of April, 1907, Ellis Island had the busiest day in its history. Eleven thousand seven hundred and forty seven people came through its doors in a single day, and every one of them had a story. Ada Kerrigan, twenty three years old, heard more of those stories than almost anyone, because she was the one who wrote them down. Ada is a stenographer for a Board of Special Inquiry, the small room where three inspectors decide the fate of the immigrants who have been held back. She sits at a side desk by the door with her pencil and her shorthand book, and her job is simple: to write down every word, exactly as it is said, and never to say a word herself.