Merry Christmas

[Xmas gift drive for children.] 1973, v1989.2.2.6; Hispanic Communities Documentation Project records and oral histories, ARC.032; Brooklyn Historical Society.

This photo was taken during a 1973 Christmas party at 22 Cambridge Place, a brownstone in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn, and donated to BHS as part of a collection of photographs by Sarah Anesta Samuel, the woman standing on the very far left.

Ms. Anesta Samuel was born in Panama and in the early 1950s settled in Brooklyn, where she founded Las Servidoras, later The Dedicators, a renowned scholarship fund for Panamanian students.

According to the caption, the trove of holiday-wrapped gifts before which the group is posing had been donated “for children/of Brooklyn Assn. Mental Health.”

The Brooklyn Association for Mental Health, Inc. (BAMH), a membership supported non-profit founded in 1950 with headquarters in the YWCA building at 30 Third Avenue, was described in its 1972 Winter Bulletin newsletter as “a citizen’s organization governed by a representative volunteer board of directors… that works to prevent mental illness and to secure adequate treatment facilities for emotionally disturbed children and adults."

BAMH raised funds, supported community educational programs, and ran a “professionally staffed” Information and Retrieval Service, which, in 1972, fielded over 2,000 requests for “treatment resources.”  The Bulletin noted that 40% of the queries regarded the psychological problems of children and teenagers, “up 15 percent over the previous year,” and that BAMH "seeks more adequate treatment resources and specialized education for children who have been ‘forgotten’…”

BHS archives includes a collection of BAMH newsletters from 1960-1972, one of the many institutions featured in the library’s Brooklyn Hospitals and Health Services Organizations collection.

Happy Holidays and good tidings in the new year...

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our new website here.  To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Fri, 1:00-5:00 p.m.

Sources:

Brathwaite, Kwame. New York Amsterdam News, “The Dedicators Honor Three Outstanding Artists.” Oct 27, 2 005. Vol. 96 Issue 44, p.8.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  “To Fight Mental Illness.” Mar. 4, 1950.

Brooklyn Association of Mental Health, Inc. "Winter Bulletin" (1972). Brooklyn hospitals and health services organizations collection, ARC.141, Box 9, Folder 40; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Jackson, Kenneth T. Encyclopedia of New York. CT: Yale University Press. 1995.