What's in a Name Part 2: Looking for a community
Old directories have always seemed to me like snapshots of the past. Open one up and you are privy to all the people that lived for that period of time. The indexing of citizens: orderly, logical, alphabetical. From the early to mid 1800's the directories listed African-Americans in Brooklyn with "c" or "col" after their names, and I began to wonder how best to use this information. What about constructing a different snapshot--a snapshot of the African-American community during the civil war? The year 1863…
Church of the Atonement Ledger
A recent arrival on our shelves is the Ledger of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Atonement at 239 17th Street near Fifth Avenue. This once pretty and active church is now almost a ruin. The ledger documents meetings of the vestry from 1887 to 1907, twenty years of growth and optimism in the life of the congregation. During this period, a new building was erected, an organ by Reuben Midmer was installed, and the arrival of the elevated railroad on Fifth Avenue caused the church to sue for annoyance and depreciation of property. They won a settlement of $5000 from the…
John Manbeck Packs the House
Former Borough Historian John Manbeck gave a lively illustrated talk last night in the Brooklyn Collection's Reserve Room, before a packed house. Using photographs from his two recent books, Brooklyn Historically Speaking and Historic Photos of Brooklyn, John covered the borough from end to end and back again with the ease that can only come from deep knowledge of his subject. He also signed copies of his books.
Pigtown
Some new pictures of Pigtown by E.E. Rutter that have made their way to us, started me wondering where exactly Pigtown was. I am now in a position to answer that question: it was, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of April 6, 1921, and allowing for some flexibility of boundaries, "that part of Flatbush which is bounded on the north by Malbone st., on the south by Midwood st., on the east by Albany Ave and on the west by Nostrand ave." The images show tracts of wasteland, ash dumps, garbage piles, stark new dwellings fronting empty blocks defined by crudely…
New Photo Exhibit at the Brooklyn Collection!
The Brooklyn Collection recently acquired 29 photographs of the Steeplechase Park Circus in Brooklyn during the 1936-1937 season. Images include death-defying barrel jumps, performing horses and acrobats, and more. Visit the Brooklyn Collection at the Brooklyn Public Library, Central Branch to view this unique collection. .
So this is Brooklyn! An illustrated talk by John Manbeck. Wed, March 11 2009, 7 p.m.
Brooklyn's former borough historian will give an illustrated talk on Brooklyn's history, showing many photographs published in his recent books, Historic Photos of Brooklyn and Brooklyn: Historically Speaking. John B. Manbeck taught English and journalism at Kingsborough Community College for 32 years. He has lectured at the Smithsonian and for the New York Council for the Humanities. He will be available to sign copies of his books at the end of the talk. This event will take place in the Brooklyn Collection Reserve Room on the Second Floor of the Central Library.
It's Here: The Brooklyn Collection Teacher's Guide!
We are proud to present a new FREE resource for educators in Brooklyn - A Teacher's Guide: Student Projects at the Brooklyn Collection. Our new publication will help Social Studies teachers create exciting and rewarding projects for their students using the thousands of materials held right here in the Brooklyn Collection. In addition to basic information about our collection, the guide also provides... Worksheets and Lesson Plans: Sample Documents from Brooklyn's past: Example projects with step-by-step instructions:…
The Sheepshead Bay Race Track and the Birth of a Black Community. Illustrated talk, Wed Feb 25th, 20
Brooklyn Collection Librarian June Koffi and others will give an illustrated talk on the history of the race track, the founding of the First Baptist Church of Sheepshead Bay that welcomed many of its African American workers, and the community that grew around them. This program will take place at 7 p.m. in the Brooklyn Collection Reserve Room on the Second Floor of the Central Library.
Bath houses or Axel Hedman Part III
I am probably the only person alive in Brooklyn to have made regular use of a Scottish municipal bath house as well as a "steamie," a public laundry facility. In my student days in Edinburgh I lived for a year in a flat with a bath tub that filled so slowly that by the time you had enough water for a bath, it was stone cold. The solution was the bath house around the corner from James Thin Bookseller, which had big deep bathtubs with an enormously wide faucet that released a river of hot water, filling the tub in seconds. While some probably associate such places with poverty,…
On moving houses, and John Thatcher.
A print that is new to our collection got me thinking about buildings that have been moved, about things worth keeping, and exile, and all sorts of serious things. Single-pointed focus is not my strong point, and so the faithful reader--if you are still there, thank you--will just have to put up with reading several posts melded into one. This print shows the Brighton Beach Hotel being moved back from the beach to terra firma in 1888, after erosion brought the ocean to the very foundations of the building. No small structure, the hotel was…
Give a Man a Job!
Last week a teacher asked me to find evidence of the New Deal in Brooklyn. She is asking her students to complete a project on the Great Depression and compare it to the economic situation in Brooklyn today. As my research progressed, I stumbled upon the story of the NRA, or National Recovery Administration, a New Deal initiative with direct ties to Brooklyn's past. Started in 1933, the NRA (not to be confused with the Rifle Association), was one of President Roosevelt's first major efforts. It was designed to enforce strategies that were set forth in the…
I now pronounce you...
Olivia's post on minstrel shows got me wondering about cultural oddities that appear in our collection: No, this is not a photograph of a mysterious child wedding. It is a "Tom Thumb Wedding" hosted by All Souls Universalist Church, located on Ocean and Ditmas Avenues, in 1951. Tom Thumb weddings are not named after the folklore character. They are inspired by an actual event involving the famous General Tom Thumb, pictured here in 1844. At just under three feet tall, General Thumb, born Charles Sherwood Stratton, was one of the…
Change--Follow Up
While we are still in this post-inaugural glow I wanted to follow up on the Brooklyn Daily Eagle article about Oscar De Priest, the African-American congressman from Illinois. In January of 1934 he began his campaign to publicize the ban on African-Americans eating in the House restaurant. He obtained the 145 signatures necessary to force House consideration of his resolution to investigate the ban. This ban was issued by Representative Lindsay Warren of North Carolina who was chairman of the Accounts Committee controlling the restaurant. In June…
Brooklynology interviewed in Ephemera Blog
Check out the article in Ephemera. Exploring the World of Old Paper, entitled "Brooklyn Public Library Blog interview." That's us! http://www.ephemera.typepad.com
Axel Hedman Part II--I think
Back in November I posted a short article about the Brooklyn architect Axel Hedman. While researching that article I came across evidence that Hedman had designed a bath house on Hicks Street, but was unable to find any picture of it in our files and eventually gave up the search. (See http://tinyurl.com/bes7zm) I assumed that the bath house had been razed to make way for the BQE. Well, one thing has a way of leading to another. Following our interest in Brooklyn-related ephemera, we have just acquired an interesting group of old menus. Among them is one for a dinner given on…
Brooklyn Menus
I made some thrilling new discoveries in our ephemera files: Menus! We are lucky enough to have several of them and I am now on a crusade to expand the collection. These menus give us a fascinating glimpse of culinary history and menu design in New York City's most populous borough. Social clubs had great menus, not just for the food that was offered, but also for their artwork and general frivolity. Some menus were just that - a menu in its most common form, describing what the food for the evening would be. But…
Walking on Water
In my last entry, I alluded to my love for our print collection. With all of the snow and ice we have seen this winter, I thought I would share another favorite: Harper's Weekly published this print in March of 1871. Here we see a few ambitious souls walking across a frozen East River while others enjoy the unusual scene from the safety of the piers. Although it was not a regular occurrence, the East River did freeze from time to time, stopping all boat traffic and giving Brooklynites and New Yorkers (the two were still independent cities) the…
Jingle Bells
I have been told there has been too much death and gloom in my blog posts, and not enough color. Enough of cemeteries and disasters, they say. Despite any number of reasons I can see for continuing in that vein, I am determined to turn my face towards more cheerful subjects. Like for example...good grief, I am entirely at a loss. Here's something. Our volumes of the Williamsburgh Gazette were just returned to us after a sojourn elsewhere. That's good news. But somehow even the events of 170 years ago fail to ignite that fire of interest so…
The Visitor's Book
If there is one category of manuscript material that, for whatever reason, often sits for years unused and neglected, it is the visitor's book, with its close friend, the autograph collection. These single items, sometimes physically substantial in themselves but not a part of a group of letters or other materials relating to one subject, and often containing nothing but signatures, are hard to connect to substantive research projects. And yet, they do sometimes offer insights that enrich our knowledge of events and through the window of the locality offer an idiosyncratic view of…