General Information

The Othmer Library

The Brooklyn Historical Society Library was one of only a handful of cultural organizations in the fast-growing City of Brooklyn in the mid-nineteenth century.  Founded in 1863, the library has a premier collection of research materials on the history of Brooklyn, that today includes over 100,000 bound volumes, 60,000 graphic images, 2,000 linear feet of manuscripts, and over 2,000 maps and atlases. The library also holds family histories and genealogies, rare books, periodicals, serials, journals, personal papers, institutional records, and oral histories that document Brooklyn's many different ethnic groups and neighborhoods. The collection was designated a major resource library by the U.S. Department of Education and has been used by countless students, teachers, genealogists, researchers and scholars.

Collection highlights include: historic maps and atlases of Brooklyn and New York City, numerous individual family histories in the genealogy collection, a microfilm collection of Brooklyn and Long Island newspapers from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, an important collection of microfiche pamphlets on slavery and abolition, the papers of abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, the Pierrepont Papers, the Brooklyn Firefighting Collection, and the Brooklyn Council of Churches.

Donald F. and Mildred T. Othmer were avid collectors of rare books and historic maps and possessed great affection for the Society's Library.  Donald Othmer, a BHS Trustee for ten years, donated $500,000 for the preservation and rehabilitation of the library. The generous gift enabled planning to begin for a much needed renovation of the building, and the Library was named in honor of the Othmers in 1992.

A brief list of online resources is found under Collection Guides.

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