Past Preservers and Crimson Bamboo have launch two new historical walking tours related to New York History for Rama, an app for the iPhone. The first explores the construction of the Statue of Liberty- the second that takes you through the immigrants’ ordeal of Ellis Island. Both were written by Hannah Murray.

“From disembarkation to medical inspection to entrance into the land of opportunity (or, for the unlucky or politically unpalatable few, deportation back home), Hannah Murray’s Ellis Island shows this place as the hopeful immigrants who arrived her experienced it,” stated Michael Carroll, co-founder of Crimson Bamboo, the creator of the Rama app. “The tour recreates on your iPhone the history of this point of entry for the aspiring immigrants to whom over 40% of Americans trace their ancestry.”

Ellis Island is the sequel to Murray’s Land of Liberty tour, which captures the history and idealism behind the construction of the nearby Statue of Liberty. For $1.99 the tour continues to explore the theme of distinctive sites symbolic for Americans and their heritage, and the stories of the thousands of individuals who left the Old World for the New. It is illustrated with thought provoking and evocative contemporary archival photographs.

“I have been captivated by Ellis Island ever since I visited New York nine years ago,” explained Murray, who has previously worked as a volunteer at the Benjamin Franklin House in London, as well as at the British Museum. She describes history as her passion above all others and will shortly be taking a Masters degree in Public History at Royal Holloway. “I have studied the immigrant experience at university and the impact that it had on American society is what drew me to Ellis Island – the myth of an inclusive environment is somewhat dented by the restriction of Asian and eastern European immigrants, however. Photographs from the early 1920s show immigrants in detention pens, waiting to be sent back home, a part of Ellis Island which has been downplayed in contrast to the thousands leaving its shores to pursue the American Dream &#8212- a life which, for some, was never that smooth in reality.”

Rama can be downloaded from iTunes and was named as one of the ten best new travel apps by BBC Travel in 2010.