--- title: Why the First Veterans Day Saw a Mass Citizenship Ceremony description: The first official Veterans Day was marked in the U.S. on Nov. 11, 1954. On that day, thousands of people became citizens. canonical: https://time.com/4976729/first-veterans-day-immigrants-citizenship/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-10T16:00:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:02.378Z og:title: Why the First Veterans Day Saw a Mass Citizenship Ceremony og:description: The first official Veterans Day was marked in the U.S. on Nov. 11, 1954. On that day, thousands of people became citizens og:url: https://time.com/4976729/first-veterans-day-immigrants-citizenship/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac9d41f0931e0359/6988e15722fb852d92e23364/veterans-day-citizen-ceremony-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1622 og:image:height: 912 og:image:alt: 1954 U.S. Citizenship Ceremony og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why the First Veterans Day Saw a Mass Citizenship Ceremony twitter:description: The first official Veterans Day was marked in the U.S. on Nov. 11, 1954. On that day, thousands of people became citizens twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac9d41f0931e0359/6988e15722fb852d92e23364/veterans-day-citizen-ceremony-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Thousands of People Became American Citizens on the First Official Veterans Day > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: the Influencers: Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sebastian Junger [Watch (HLS stream): the Influencers: Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sebastian Junger](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ApkZjOyL.m3u8) (6:16)  _Published 2017-09-26. Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sebastian Junger on war and human nature_  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Nov 10, 2017 4:00 PM UTC  Caption from LIFE. In mass induction of 9,000 new citizens, men and women at New York's Polo Grounds raise their right hands to take oath of allegiance. Caption from LIFE. In mass induction of 9,000 new citizens, men and women at New York's Polo Grounds raise their right hands to take oath of allegiance. Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Nov 10, 2017 4:00 PM UTC  From the Nov. 22, 1954 issue of LIFE magazine. LIFE Magazine Veterans Day, which falls each year on November 11, is a time for Americans to remember the sacrifices made by those who served in the U.S. military. But first Veterans Day that was dedicated to veterans of all wars also happened to honor a different group of Americans. On Veterans Day in 1954 — one month after President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the[ first Veterans Day proclamation](https://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/docs/proclamation%5F1954.pdf) and the new holiday [officially](http://time.com/vault/issue/1954-06-07/page/23/) replaced Armistice Day — a whopping 50,000 men and women from coast to coast were sworn in as new U.S. citizens in what LIFE magazine called “the first time in U.S. history that citizenship was conferred upon so many people in so many mass ceremonies.” A photo in the Nov. 22, 1954, issue showed three Japanese people getting sworn in on the battleship _U.S.S. Missouri_ in Bremerton, Wash., on the same deck on which the Japanese signed their surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, ending World War II — but many more photos from that day exist in LIFE’s archives, and they provide a unique look at that historic day. At a ceremony at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field — where 1,600 men and women took the oath of citizenship — U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. [acknowledged](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/ag/legacy/2011/09/12/11-11-1954.pdf) the renewed significance of the ceremony’s overlap on Veterans Day. “November 11th is a hallowed day for all Americans,” he said, “And it continues as a day dedicated to memory of the past and hope for the future — hope that all men can learn to live together in peace as we have done in this American melting pot of the world.” He also emphasized that swearing allegiance as a U.S. citizen was more important than ever in 1954, with the Cold War in full swing. In fact, the Cold War had changed the character of the country’s most famous immigration station, [Ellis Island](http://time.com/3563179/ellis-island/), as it was put to use in the ’50s to implement a post-WWII policy “banned anyone who had ever been affiliated with a totalitarian party,” as [TIME has previously reported](http://time.com/3563179/ellis-island/). But as Brownell said in his speech, only a few hundred had been detained there in recent months — [compared to the 1.2 million that Ellis Island processed in 1907](http://time.com/4740248/ellis-island-busiest-day/) — so its place as a symbol of immigration to the United States was fading. Immigration function in New York would be moved to a different building, off the island, on Nov. 12, 1954, the day after this historic Veterans Day, Ellis Island [closed](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/12/newsid%5F3963000/3963251.stm) as an immigration center. “The island buildings, I feel sure, can be put to useful service in other work,” Brownell said. In the decades that followed, the immigration center would be reoped as a museum — one that, all these years later, sees even [more visitors each year](https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/ellis-island-history#1965) than the number who came through Ellis Island annually at the height of immigration.  Caption from LIFE. In mass induction of 9,000 new citizens, men and women at New York's Polo Grounds raise their right hands to take oath of allegiance. Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Mass induction of 9,000 new citizens at the Polo Grounds in New York on Veterans Day, 1954. Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Mass induction of 9,000 new citizens at the Polo Grounds in New York on Veterans Day, 1954. Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Mass induction of 9,000 new citizens at the Polo Grounds in New York on Veterans Day, 1954. Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Mass induction of 9,000 new citizens at the Polo Grounds in New York on Veterans Day, 1954. Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Mass induction of 9,000 new citizens at the Polo Grounds in New York on Veterans Day, 1954. Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Mass induction of 9,000 new citizens at the Polo Grounds in New York on Veterans Day, 1954. Lisa Larsen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Mass induction of 9,000 new citizens at the Polo Grounds in New York on Veterans Day, 1954. 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