Brooklynology
Fascinating Brooklyn stories from our local history archivists.
Caretakers as Changemakers
A Mother's Rights
Pandemics in Brooklyn: a view from 1918
It’s hard to know which of these things is more unexpected: that, in a time of health crisis and desperate need for accurate information, my first instinct is to read the newspaper from 100 years ago; or that said news coverage has proved oddly comforting. If either of these instincts resonates with you as well, check out what the Brooklyn Daily Eagle shared about the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Hidden Ephemera in the Clippings Files
Beyond the stanchions, in the center of the Brooklyn Collection, sit two rows of cabinets. Clocking in at 110 drawers, they contain a collection of newspaper clippings that are finally getting some much-needed attention. The clippings files include folders with obscure labels such as "Local Color" and "Brooklyn Spirit", and the subjects they cover—the aforementioned included—are cataloged in a 447-page Word document. It is also one of our best-kept secrets.
Brooklyn Women Rule the Road
Emily Roebling's Bridge
Hunterfly Road and Brooklyn's Weeksville
New recordings from the Packer Collegiate Institute now online!
This post was written by Aliki Caloyeras, Brooklyn Historical Society Digitization Intern. Brooklyn Historical Society is pleased to announce the availability of over 175 newly digitized audio recordings, films, and videos from the Packer Collegiate Institute records (2014.019).
Williamsburg families
From Castle Keeps to Community Spaces: The Evolution of Brooklyn’s Armories
Desegregating Brooklyn's Classrooms
A Leather Pocketbook
A Souvenir Bell Cast from the Fire
Brooklyn Historical Society's Statement in Support of our Colleagues at the Museum of Chinese in America
A statement from BHS President and CEO Deborah Schwartz The staff and Board of Brooklyn Historical Society are devastated by the news of the fire at 70 Mulberry Street, where MOCA stored its invaluable collections. We share MOCA’s commitment to the importance of local history, and we are prepared to help in any way we can as our colleagues establish their path to recovery. From its founding, MOCA has been a bold and creative voice in the museum field, never shrinking from the next challenge in telling the resilient stories of community.
Alfred Steers's commemorative medals
Revolutionary-era cannonball
A Ceremonial Firefighter's Helmet
Happy New Year!
I, Asimov in Brooklyn: How the Library Shaped a Writer’s Mind
I'll write as I please and let the critics do the analyzing. — Asimov, 1973
Cozy up for the holidays!
It's Christmastime in Brooklyn!
Manhattan Bridge
A Child’s Christmas in South Brooklyn (with apologies to Dylan Thomas)
When I was a boy growing up in South Brooklyn, no one was concerned about keeping Christ in Christmas. That was a given. Even my uncles who never set foot in church went to the standing room only midnight mass on Christmas Eve.
Winter is coming...
Thanksgiving Day
Teaching with Primary Sources: History Mystery!
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection. It focuses on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom.
G. Frank Edgar Pearsall
John Yapp Culyer
Caring for Brooklyn’s Digital History
Erica López, BHS Digital Preservation Fellow, writes about the joys and challenges of preserving legacy media. We experience, understand and interact with Brooklyn’s rich history in so many different shapes and forms. At Brooklyn Historical Society’s Othmer Library, this history is documented in manuscripts, photographs, moving images, oral histories and artifacts. In today’s increasingly digital world, our history can also be found on floppy disks, CDs, hard drives, and smart phones. Digital materials are at risk for a number of reasons, but the biggest risk is obsolescence.
On Native Land
On October 7th, I attended a convening of Brooklyn based cultural institutions, hosted by Brooklyn Museum in partnership with the Lenape Center. It was a 2-day workshop to discuss Living Land Acknowledgements and develop ongoing collaborative projects between Lenape-Delaware Nations and cultural institutions in Brooklyn.
The Elephantine Colossus
The Carroll Street Bridge
Lucille Fornasieri Gold Photographs
The Frank J. Trezza Seatrain Shipbuilding Collection
Teaching with Primary Sources: School History in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula.
A Voice from the Past
Preserved in Brooklyn Historical Society’s collections is a wax audio cylinder from 1927 with a big story to tell.Intent listeners will just make out the soft voice of a woman identified as “Mrs. Hunt.” She thanks the congregation of Plymouth Church for inviting her to Brooklyn Heights to celebrate “the memory of one whose name always seems to me to be the complement of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.”
For Every Reader, Their Book
As soon as I tell anyone I’m a librarian, inevitably one of the first questions people ask is, “Can you recommend a good book?!” The short answer is: Yes! S. R. Ranganathan created five principles of librarianship (and yes, this is the kind of thing you learn in library school). One of these principles is, “Every reader, their book” and “Every book, their reader.” Connecting patrons to books that match their interests and needs is one of my favorite parts of being a librarian. We in “the biz” refer to this as Readers’ Advisory.
The Sharon Hall Hotel
Zig Zag Records, Sheepshead Bay
Bliss Estate, Owl's Head Park
Altar to Liberty, Green-Wood Cemetery
An End of Summer Tribute: Coney Island and the Wonder Wheel
Imagine this: It’s a cool summer day and you are the first in line with your friends for the Ferris wheel on Coney Island. The operator opens the gate and you hop on a blue passenger car and sit facing the beach. Your pod slowly rises and starts to shake; the higher and higher you get, the more clearly you can see the boats floating on the horizon, and as you sit behind your friends you see a wonderful view of the Verrazano Bridge, then the pod…drops! The wind blows heavy as you swing in the air.
Ocean Parkway Bike Path
A (Not So) Brief History of Red Hook
Shipyards, dry docks, and machine shops. The place with the IKEA and the Fairway. Home of the fabled wild dogs on Beard St. and the abandoned grain elevator. Former home of the Dell's Maraschino Factory and the Snapple Factory. A Brooklyn neighborhood with a "small town" feel, cobbled streets, and limited public transit. It's possible that no other section of the borough has been so readily defined by single facets of its complex character.
Teaching with Primary Sources: Food in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula.
The Ralph Irving Lloyd Lantern Slides
Clay Lancaster
Teaching with Primary Sources: Environmentalism in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection, focused on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula.