Thomas, Web Applications
[Young man with a pig], circa 1900, v1985.4.36; William Koch glass plate negatives, 1985.4; Brooklyn Historical SocietyThe image above is one of many images of rural and farm life from the William Koch glass plate negatives collection (also highlighted in a blog post from April 2013). This particular image shows a farmer with his pig in the neighborhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, circa 1900. The census indicates that there were 110 reported farms in Brooklyn in 1910, and a brief search through the Brooklyn City Directories from the early 1900s reveals that farming was a common profession in Brooklyn at the time, along with other now-rare city jobs like cigar-making, book-binding, and various types of metal-working and leather-working. Perhaps not typical for the period, but my personal favorites are sugar-burner and cotton-sampler. And then there are the carpenters, tailors, bartenders and people in liquor-related jobs that have always had and will always have work in Brooklyn. I wonder what I would have been doing if I’d lived in Brooklyn a century ago…
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-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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