Happy Thanksgiving

[Thanksgiving dinner tables], 1910, V1981.284.53; Emmanuel House lantern slide collection, ARC.136; Brooklyn Historical Society.

In light of the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, the photo of the week depicts a Thanksgiving dinner table at the Emmanuel House in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, sometime around 1910. Emmanuel House was a civic center and place of outreach run by the Young Men’s League of the Emmanuel Baptist Church. They offered Sunday school, kindergarten, and recreational classes to neighborhood children.

This photograph comes from the Emmanuel House lantern slide collection, which includes 87 slides from 1900-1914. The majority of the images in the collection are group portraits of clubs and classes at the Emmanuel House, but also included are interior and exterior photographs of the building. To see more photographs from this collection, check out this gallery.

Before the holiday begins, I leave you with these final thoughts from a Brooklyn Daily Eagle article from 1910, published the week before Thanksgiving: “So, take it all in all, the Brooklynite has much for which to give thanks next Thursday. Now, let us give these thanks heartily, sincerely in acknowledgement of the blessing of the past year and for the blessing that are to come.” Have a safe, relaxing, and enjoyable holiday!

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 Brooklyn Visual Heritage 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. library@brooklynhistory.org