Who was Mary Anne Macleod, Donald Trump’s mother who arrived in the US with US $ 50 in her pocket and managed to be part of the New York elite

According to these documents, Macleod embarked on May 2, 1930 in the port of Glasgow towards the US, where he arrived nine days later aboard the Transylvania ship.

“He came with an immigrant visa to have a permanent residence,” Barry Moreno, historian of the National Museum of Immigration of Ellis Island in New York, told BBC Mundo, after analyzing the vessel passenger record.

His #26698 visa had been broadcast on Glasgow on February 17, 1930, just three months before the trip.

The customs document indicates that Macleod did not plan to return to his country of origin, but was intended to reside permanently in the US and obtain citizenship.

“If from the moment she arrived she looked herself in the United States permanently, that is called immigrate. There is no doubt about it,” writer Gwenda Blair, author of the book, told BBC Mundo The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and A Presidential candidate (“The Trump: three generations of builders and a presidential candidate”).

The media in the US point out that Trump – the fourth of the five children that Mary Anne had- has always argued that his mother initially traveled to the country as a tourist and not with the intention of residing in him.

For some it is an important distinction, given the rhetoric against immigration -ilegal and even legal- that has characterized the magnate’s speech in both presidencies.

One of his first actions when assuming his second term was Constitution (for what experts believe it will be difficult to reverse it).

Originally from Tong, a town on the island of Lewis, north of Scotland, with 18 years Trump’s mother followed in the footsteps of three of his sisters who were already in the US: Christina, Mary Joan and Catherine.

The authorities pointed the name and address of the latter in Astoria (Queens) as the data of the person who was going to receive it in New York.

As for his trade or profession, the customs document registers Macleod as “domestic.”

“The domestic thing can mean several things: a person who worked at home; someone who works in a family house, cooking and cleaning for others; or someone who works in the domestic service of a house like a maid,” Moreno explained.

In that, Macleod also seemed to follow the path, at least, of her sister Mary Joan, who had worked in the domestic service when she met her husband, Victor Pauley.

Whatever the meaning that gave its definition of “domestic”, the truth is that Macleod reuses it again in September 1934, when he enters the port of New York for the second time from Scotland.

The customs document of this second trip, on board this time of the Cameronia ship, reveals other relevant aspects of its early years in US territory.

First, which remained in the country uninterruptedly from its arrival in May 1930 to June 1934 and pointed out as its permanent place of New York permanent residence.

Moreno points out that, before traveling to Scotland, Macleod processed a permit to re -enter the US, which would have facilitated customs procedures during his second entry.

“She came from a very poor family. There was a great emigration from the people where she proceeds because at the end of World War I most of the men of the town died when a ship brought them back,” he told him BBC Mundo Michael d’Anton Antonio, author of the book Never Enough: Donald Trump and The Pursuit of Success (“Never enough: Donald Trump and the search for success”).

“It was a great tragedy. Many women decided to emigrate when they saw that they would not have to marry. They went to Canada and the US,” he added.

D’Anton also mentions economic reasons to emigrate, because many farmers from Lewis Island were expelled from those lands and had to move to the people.

“They were very poor because they could no longer sow their own crops,” he said.

Judging by Macleod’s trip documents aboard Transylvania, Moreno believes that his economic situation was not totally precarious at that time.

“I had enough money to pay second class traveling in a cabin shared with another woman and avoid the third class. Obviously, she had some money, she was not poor, but she did come as an immigrant,” the historian told BBC Mundo.

Genealogist Bill Lawson, who has tracked Mary Anne Macleod’s family tree until the beginning of the 19th century, says her father, Malcolm, driving a post office and a small store in her last years, and that economically, the family would have been slightly better than the average of the municipality.

Lawson highlights that she “belonged to a very large family, with nine brothers”, and that on the island “there were not many perspectives for young people.”

“What else could you do?”

“Today, one might think of going to the continent, but at that time most people went to Canada. It was much easier to make a living in the United States and many people had relatives there.”

The descendants of the immigrants who arrived in the US by New York during the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentie La Libertad – Isla de Ellis.

However, although the US has historically been open to immigration, when Macleod emigrated from his native Scotland there were some restrictions for the entry of foreigners.

“At that time, quotas were assigned to admit only to a limited number of immigrants from each country. Between 1921 and 1955 there was a limited quota of immigrants from the United Kingdom. As Scottish, she entered into it,” Moreno said.

The historian indicated that Macleod must also request a visa to obtain the immigration permit.

In the control sheets of the passengers of the ships, called manifestos, all the data of each one were recorded, including their personal characteristics (eye color, hair, race, etc.).

Each passenger had to answer the question of whether it brought at least US $ 50 and show that he had them.

That was the exact amount that Macleod brought on each of his two trips.

“If you had less than US $ 50 there were doubts about whether you could survive in the United States while you had a job or you could meet with a relative who could welcome you,” Moreno explained.

Trump’s mother became an American citizen in 1942.

In her book “The art of negotiation”, Donald Trump refers to her as a “very traditional housewife who had full awareness of the world that was beyond her.”

The tycoon describes a scene in which his mother is absorbed by watching on television the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

“I was totally captivated by pomp and circumstance, for all that idea of ​​royalty and glamor,” he wrote.

D’Antonio refers to Macleod as a woman with a lot of spirit, very intelligent and ambitious.

“Trump told me about her, that she was very competitive and as ambitious as her father. The only thing is that I think she could not express it in the same way because she was a woman. At that time it was difficult for women to make a career and be As ambitious as they can be today, “he said.

Apparently, Macleod found in charitable activities that space to leave his mark in the world.

After his death in August 2000, at 88, the newspaper The New York Times He published an obituary in which he qualifies it as “philanthontrap.”

“Mrs. Trump was the main support of the Jamaica Women’s Auxiliary Hospital (in New York) and the Jamaica nursery,” says the text.

He adds that the Trump family also contributed to the Salvation Army and the Boy Scouts of America, among other organizations.

“A pavilion at the Jamaica Medical Center bears his name and also donated buildings to the National Foundation of the Kidney in New York/New Jersey,” adds the obituary.

Nothing negligible for an immigrant who arrived in the US with only 18 years and US $ 50 in his pocket.

*This story was originally published in BBC Mundo in 2016 and was updated in 2017 and now on the occasion of the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2025.

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