Around 1900, both the ports of Antwerp and New York ranked high in the select group of world ports. The United States on the other side of the Atlantic was starting a period of unprecedented economic growth following the civil war. During a period of 60 years (1873 - 1934) the Red Star Line shipping company carried a million migrants to the new world. The assassination of Tsar alexander II of Russia in 1881 and subsequent anti-Jewish economic legislation resulted in a massive Jewish exodus. The worst pogroms took place in Kyiv, Odessa and Warsaw. Jews fled in large numbers. Flemish artist Eugeen van Mieghem (1875-1930) was an important witness to massive migration through the port of Antwerp. Numerous publications and exhibitions both in the United States and in Europe (the Jewish museums of Amsterdam, Prague and Budapest) turned van Mieghem into the internationally best-known interpreter of European migration to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.

"Van Mieghem was a fine draftsman and colorist, whose long forgotten work evokes that of Van Gogh and Kathe Kollwitz. Now it seems to be slowly returning to art-world memory.” — (New York Times, 2006)