Final answer:
European immigrants, particularly from southern and eastern Europe, traveled to Ellis Island as their first stop in America, seeking better economic opportunities, to escape persecution, and due to political unrest.
Step-by-step explanation:
European immigrants traveled from the East to get to Ellis Island, which was the first destination for most southern and eastern Europeans. This happened during a period when approximately sixty million Europeans sought better opportunities on other continents, primarily due to economic motivations, religious persecution, and political unrest. Between 1890 and 1914, many southern and eastern European immigrants, who were mostly peasant farmers, traveled to Ellis Island in search of the American dream.
In contrast to earlier waves of well-off immigrants from northern and western Europe, these newcomers were drawn by the promise of wage-earning work in the rapidly growing manufacturing sector of the Northeast and around the Great Lakes. Eastern European Jews and Roman Catholics were among the immigrants who made their way to American shores, often to urban areas, in the hope of finding better living conditions and escaping troubles such as famine, persecution, and pogroms in their homelands.
Once in the United States, these immigrants found work in a variety of industries, including factories, steel mills, and textiles, contributing significantly to the economic development of the country during that time.