"The story of Annie Moore

is a microcosm of the New York -- and American -- immigrant saga. Families are separated and sometimes reunited. Unrealistic expectations clash with harsh reality. There are tragic deaths and miraculous tales of survival and success. Loved ones are lost, and sometimes found. There are lies and heartache. "Hating one another, loving one another, agreeing and disagreeing in a hundred different languages, a hundred different dialects, a hundred different religions. Crowding one another, and fusing against their wills slowly with one another," is how one immigrant described the New York experience a century ago, a characterization that has pretty much held true for four hundred years.

-Tyler Anbinder, City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), p. xxiii.