POTW: Typewriting Class

[Typewriting class], circa 1930, V1973.5.551; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection, ARC.202; Brooklyn Historical Society.

The photo of the week depicts a typewriting class in the Secretarial School at the Central Branch of the Young Women's Christian Association of Brooklyn in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, around 1930. A note handwritten on the back of the photograph indicates, “The number enrolled in educational classes at the Y.W.C.A. last year was 3,930.” This photograph shows an integrated pool of students, which is representative of the YWCA’s mission to provide educational opportunities for women and strive for racial equality around the turn of the 20^th century. Their non-profit mission statement today is still “to eliminate racism and empower women.”

This photograph comes from the Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection comprised of roughly 7,000 items dating from 1900 to 1950. The collection provides a comprehensive documentation of the borough of Brooklyn with images of neighborhoods, homes, buildings, and infrastructure. To see more photographs from this collection, check out this gallery. We recently digitized about 7,000 photographs from this collection and will make more available on the online image gallery soon.

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