The series tells the story of four immigrants to America, played by Peter Riegert as a Russian Jew, Gregory Paul Martin as a working-class Italian, and Alice Krige and Judi Bowker as two Irish sisters.

[1] Ellis Island highlights a number of historic events in Europe and the U.S. throughout the time period,[1] and some of the characters involved are based on real persons, such as Irving Berlin.

[3][2] The miniseries features six Irving Berlin–style songs, composed by John Addison, with lyrics by Douglas Brayfield and Fred Mustard Stewart.

He passes a dance hall and hears ragtime music being played by black American pianist Roscoe Haines, who allows Jacob to attempt to imitate him, which he does well from his classical training.

Roscoe passes a hat to raise Jacob's boat fare, and tells him to look up Abe Shulman's music publishing company in New York for a job.

In Ireland, chambermaid Bridget O'Donnell is sleeping with the young English Earl of Wexford in his palatial estate.

Kevin sends her off to America to avoid arrest, and her sister Georgiana accompanies her; Bridget begs him not to harm the earl.

Bridget argues vociferously with the doctor, and while Georgiana is in detention gets her American uncle Casey O'Donnell to fix the situation by paying someone off with $200.

Shulman sends him to his cousin who owns the Coney Island Music Hall, but he is only hired as a waiter.

By 1909, Marco is unhappy working construction, and borrows $50 from a loan shark to buy a van so he can start his own delivery business.

Bridget runs into the widower Dr. Travers, who offers her a job as his secretary and assistant at Ellis Island.

Senator Phipps Ogden, a widower who has been seeing Maud, visits her unannounced and accuses her of having an Italian lover, but she throws him off the scent.

Shulman won't publish Jake's songs, so Roscoe has his black friend Flora Mitchum sing one of them in her nightclub act.

Flora and Roscoe move to Paris to escape the anti-black employment discrimination they face in the U.S. Maud marries Senator Phipps Ogden for financial security.

With the help of a fellow inmate, he escapes from his holding cell and swims to the New Jersey shore, and Jake finds him a hiding place in Newark.

While at work at Ellis Island, Bridget notices Kevin Murray, who begins to blackmail her for money and favors.

Marco announces that he is running for the New York State Senate, opposing the Irish candidate controlled by Casey O'Donnell's corrupt cronies.

She makes a spectacle of herself at a large party which is also an important political event for Marco, and she is taken to a distant psychiatric sanatorium.

Nellie gets a telegram telling her that she has been given a contract to perform in Hollywood, and announces she is leaving Jake and has signed the divorce papers.

One night while in her bed when Dr. Travers is out, she hears her sister crying out; she goes downstairs, grabs a pair of long shears and stabs and kills Kevin, who is trying to rape Bridget.

Celebrating his victory with the crowd gathered, including Jake and Violet, Marco leads the audience in a sing-along of "America the Beautiful".

At the Emmy Awards the series itself received a nomination, as did actors Richard Burton and Ann Jillian, and sound mixer Tony Dawe.