The week’s photo of the week shows an unidentified man standing in front of our landmark building located at 128 Pierrepont Street. Designed by architect George B. Post and built in 1878-81, the four-story Queen Anne-style building features ornamentation made from locally produced terra cotta. For over 150 years, staff in this building have worked to preserve, provide access to, and promote the study of Brooklyn History. Now, we're opening the pocket doors, which are neatly tucked away in this photo, and putting the spotlight on our own history.
With generous funding from the Leon Levy Foundation, the Center for Brooklyn History recently began processing the Brooklyn Historical Society’s Institutional Records. Founded in 1863 as the Long Island Historical Society (LIHS), the institution's mission was to collect and preserve the “history of the United States, the State of New York, and, more particularly, of the counties, cities, towns, and villages of Long Island” (The Long Island Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 1, Jan. 1939, p. 27.). Over time, the institutional mission and collection policy narrowed to focus on Brooklyn history, and in 1985 LIHS changed its name to Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS). With these changes came an emphasis on showcasing Brooklyn's diversity, specifically through community-centered exhibitions and educational programming. In 2020, BHS merged with the Brooklyn Collection at the Brooklyn Public Library to form the Center for Brooklyn History.
The Brooklyn Historical Society Institutional Records chronicle the topics, events, and departmental activities that are part of the Society's 157-year history. Materials in this collection provide information regarding the landmark building, exhibits, special projects, the library and archives, public programming, education, the Board of Directors, and much more. In addition to documenting how BHS operated, this collection shows how the Society's mission and policies changed over time, as well as the institution's impact on Brooklyn's history and people.
Over the next year and a half, we'll explore our institutional history, share some of the interesting items we discover, and describe the work we're doing to make these records accessible. Stay tuned for future posts about this project!
The Brooklyn Historical Society Institutional Archive Project is generously funded by the Leon Levy Foundation.
Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal of Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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