About Archives & Special Collections
|
Crown Heights Oral History – Bridging Eastern Parkway, 1993-1994. Sound recordings: 40 cassettes (90 minutes each)
ArMs 1994.006
In 1993-1994, the Brooklyn Historical Society collected interviews with residents of the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. Thirty-three interviews were conducted by Craig Wilder, Jill Vexler, and Aviva Segall. The subtitle, Bridging Eastern Parkway, refers to racial tensions expressed during the 1991 Crown Heights riots. Narrators are of African American, Caribbean, Jewish, Polish, and Russian descent and include members of the Lubavitch community.
Transcripts of 24 interviews from this collection may be read in the library. Recordings are not currently available to researchers; we anticipate that recordings will be available for researchers to listen to in the library in the Spring of 2010.
The Amote Sias Papers, 1945-1993. 4 boxes (1 document box, 1 record carton, and 2 oversized flat boxes), 2.68 cubic feet.
ArMs 2008.017
Amote Sias was a resilient African American social activist who was an actively involved member in the Brooklyn community of Carroll Gardens during the 1970s-1980s. Sias is also a deeply committed educator and leader, having been a teacher at both the elementary and secondary level in the New York City Public School system as early as the 1970s. Sias went on to become a renowned principal at the Brooklyn Collegiate High School, a position she continues to hold as of 2008.
The Amote Sias Papers consist primarily of legal records, financial records, essays, social activist paraphernalia, ephemera, and clippings relating to all aspects of her career as a black activist. The main topic of these materials is her early involvement in local Brooklyn politics, with her campaign for the City Council in 1989, and other political activities. The collection also documents Sias’ involvement with grassroots social activist organizations.
Access Points:
Subject Topics
African Americans — Politics and government –20th Century
Black nationalism
Civil rights movements –(New York, N.Y.) –New York
Community activists
Voter registration-United States
Subject Places
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) — Social life and customs — 20th Century.
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) –Politics and government.
Subject Organizations
Congressional Black Caucus
Democratic National Committee (U.S.)
New York, N.Y.– City Council
Peace and Environmental Convention Coalition –San Francisco, California
MADRE (Organization)–New York, NY
United Nations
Other Names
Jackson, Jesse. 1941-
View Full Finding Aid
Patterson Family Collection, 1847-1956. 1.25 linear feet (3 document boxes, 1 oversize folder, 4 custom boxes).
AccNo. 1980.013
The Pattersons were a multi-generational family living in Brooklyn Heights, and its members worked in a variety of fields. William Patterson (c.1821-1890/1891) worked in construction, and his son, Stephen (1855-1905), worked as a lawyer, as did Stephen’s daughter, May (c.1879-1925). May Patterson holds the distinction of being the first female Assistant District Attorney to argue a case in a United States court. Stephen’s other daughter, Annie Louise (1883-1970), married Alexander Lassen Jones (c.1881-?), a theater manager and producer.
The Patterson Family Collection is comprised of the papers and photographs saved by the Patterson Family between 1847 and 1956. The collection includes financial documents, legal documents, correspondence, scrapbooks, diaries, photographs, post cards, and cartes de visite. The content of the collections varies based on date as different generations saved different types of material.
Access Points:
Personal Names
Elwell, Emily L. Jones (1921-?)
Jones, Annie L. Patterson (1883-1970)
Jones, Emily L. (1921-?)
Patterson, Annie L. Ames (1857-1931)
Patterson, Mary Anne (c.1826-1898)
Patterson, May (c.1879-1925)
Patterson, Stephen G. (1855-1905)
Patterson, William (c.1821-1890)
Subjects
District Attorney
Women’s Rights
Women-Suffrage
Women lawyers
Geographical Headings
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
Brooklyn Heights (New York, N.Y.)
View Full Finding Aid
Charles M. Higgins Papers, 1854-1929 (Bulk dates 1886-1929). 1 Oversize Box (.5 cubic feet).
ArMs 1978.114
Charles M. Higgins (1854-1929) was a prominent ink manufacturer and creator of “Higgins American India Ink”. He was the head of the Charles M. Higgins Company, manufacturers of the drawing ink he invented. Higgins was also active in many public service institutions, including the Anti-Vaccination League of America and the Brooklyn Ethical Culture Society, and he was a founding member of the Kings County Historical Society. Born in Ireland, Higgins’s family arrived in New York at the age of six and settled in Park Slope, where he continued to reside for the rest of his life.
The collection contains many papers, both pamphlets and typescripts (written mostly by Higgins), as well as photographs and clippings. Materials relate to Higgins’s position as a prominent ink manufacturer, as well as aspects of his activities in the Anti-Vaccination League of America, the Kings County Historical Society, and his interests in religious ethics and morality.
Access Points:
Personal Names
Higgins, Chas. M. (Charles Michael), b. 1854
Gavin, John E.
Higgins, Alexandra Fransioli, Mrs.
Higgins, Tracy
Topics
Vaccination
Vaccination — Complications
Tetanus
Businessmen — Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) — 19th century
Businessmen — Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) — 20th century
Prohibition
Long Island, Battle of, New York, N.Y., 1776
Corporate Names
Anti-Vaccination League of America
Higgins Ink Company, Brooklyn.
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences
Brooklyn Bank
Brooklyn Ethical Culture Society
Manufacturer’s Association, Brooklyn
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
Montauk Club of Brooklyn
Green-Wood Cemetery (New York, N.Y.)
Geographic Terms
Park Slope (New York, N.Y.)
United States-History-Revolution, 1775-1783-Campaigns
View Full Finding Aid
Junior League of Brooklyn Records, 1910-2002 (Bulk dates: 1930-1999). 41 cubic feet, 30 records boxes, 11 oversize boxes.
ArMs 2005.064, 2007.037
The first Junior League took shape in New York City in 1901, when women were finally able to take on greater responsibilities toward their communities. Young women were encouraged to actively volunteer and to find useful outlets for their skills and interests. The success of the New York League led to the creation of the thirty Leagues established in six U.S. regions by 1921. The Brooklyn Junior League formed in 1910 as a response to social and health problems facing certain Brooklyn communities, and presently remains an organization of women dedicated to voluntarism, social advocacy, and improving communities through the leadership and charitable action of trained members.
The collection consists of a variety of organizational records including meeting minutes, membership files, annual reports, board manuals, documents pertaining to the Junior League of Brooklyn’s relationship with the Court Appointed Special Advocates Program (CASA) of New York as well as the Association of Junior Leagues International, and printed material. In addition, a large volume of scrapbooks, photographs, committee and volunteer activity records illustrate the League’s involvement in recognizing and dealing with social issues of inequity and economic hardship.
Access Points:
Personal Names
Rumsey, Mary Harriman - 1881-1934
Laughlin, Dona
Montague, Neita Loy Blondeau
Nevins, Christine
Schlesinger, Karen
Smallwood, Debra
Corporate Names
Association of Junior Leagues International
Court Appointed Special Advocate Program (New York, N.Y.)
Junior League of Brooklyn
Subject Headings
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) - Social life and customs
Social action - New York (State) - New York - History - 20th century
Women - New York (State) - New York - Societies and clubs - History
Women in charitable work - New York (State) - New York - History
View Full Finding Aid
Records of the Women’s Alliance of the First Unitarian Church, 1922-2004 (Bulk dates: 1980-1998). 4 boxes: 3 record cartons, 1 flat box (4.3 cubic feet).
ArMs 2005.031
The Women’s Alliance of the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn began as the Female Samaritan Society in 1838, several years after the Church’s founding. Members of the group took responsibility for all the physical housekeeping of the church, ran the church’s annual fundraising fair, and helped with parish duties such as visiting the sick and cooking for the congregation. After periods of inactivity in the twentieth century, the group was resurrected in 1973 as the Women’s Alliance, a primarily issue-oriented group concerned with social action and women’s rights matters. The Alliance remains active today, and members continue to represent a broad spectrum of views that reflect the liberal beliefs and practices of Unitarian Universalism.
The collection mainly encompasses the period of the resurgence of the Women’s Alliance during the latter half of the twentieth century. The inclusive dates span from 1922 to 2004, with bulk dates ranging from 1980 to 1998. Records consist primarily of organizational material, including meeting minutes, correspondence, and financial documents. Church programs, transcripts of sermons, and copies of the Women’s Alliance’s newsletter are also included, as are photographs from Women’s Alliance events. A number of records also reveal the group’s relationships with other female-oriented and religious organizations.
Access Points:
- Anagnost, Loretta
- Brugnola, Orlanda
- Campobasso, Miriam
- Hoogenboom, Olive
- Lazarus, Katharine
- Odessky, Marjory
- First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.). Women’s Alliance
- Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) - Church history
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) - Religious life
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) - Social life and customs
- Feminism - Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Pro-choice movement - Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Religion and social problems - New York (State) - New York
- Social action - New York (State) - New York - History - 20th century
- Unitarianism - New York (State) - New York - History
- Women in religion - Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Women clergy
- Women’s rights and spiritualism - Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
View Full Finding Aid
Brooklyn, N.Y, U.S. Civil War Relief Associations Collection including “Women’s Sanitary Fair,” 1846-1964 (bulk 1858-1871). 10 boxes(5 manuscript boxes, 2 artifact boxes, and 3 oversized boxes), 2.5 linear feet plus oversized and artifact boxes (appx. 4.5 feet total).
AccNo. 1973.191, 1974.123, 1977.099, 1977.329, 1981.005.
This collection contains materials from Brooklyn organizations that functioned during the United States Civil War (1861-1865) in providing resources and relief to Union Army soldiers and their families, thereby rendering assistance to the federal government in the successful prosecution of the war. Materials primarily consist of ledgers, financial vouchers, minute books, printed material, subscription books, reports, clippings, pamphlets, poetry, speeches, and some correspondence.
Organizations represented include the War Fund Committee (WFC) of Brooklyn and two of its specific committees, the “Home Trust of the Volunteers” and the “Lincoln Monument Fund,” as well as the Women’s Relief Association (WRA) of Brooklyn, a local auxiliary of the United States Sanitary Commission. The greater part of the collection consists of records from the Brooklyn & Long Island Sanitary Fair (a fund-raising event sponsored by the WFC and WRA), but items also pertain to other relief organizations and events, such as sanitary fairs held in other cities, the Brooklyn & Long Island Christian Commission and the American Freedmen’s Friend Society.
View Full Finding Aid
Thomas N. Schroth and Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. Brooklyn Eagle Collection 1841-1976 (Bulk dates: 1952-1955). 4 boxes, 3.5 cubic feet.
ArMs 1989.007
This collection contains the records belonging to the last managing editor of the Brooklyn Eagle (formerly Brooklyn Daily Eagle), Thomas N. Schroth, the son of its last publisher and editor, Frank D. Schroth. While the inclusive dates span from 1841 to 1976, the bulk of Thomas Schroth’s records cover the final days of the Eagle (1952-1955), the period leading up to and culminating in a Newspaper Guild strike that led to the closing of the newspaper.
The materials in the collection include scrapbooks, bound first and centennial issues, photographs, and Eagle publications such as pamphlets and booklets. The labor struggle is documented through correspondence, internal memos, clippings, Newspaper Guild publications, Guild meeting bulletins and union contracts. A smaller portion of the collection is comprised of the papers of Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., first cousin to Thomas Schroth, and contains the notes for his doctoral dissertation in history on the Eagle, subsequently published as The Eagle and Brooklyn (1974). Raymond’s papers cover his correspondence with publishers, his notes, early drafts of the dissertation and portions of drafts of the book as well as reviews and correspondence with respondents to an author’s query he had published.
Access Points:
- Schroth, Thomas N.
- Schroth, Frank D.
- Schroth, Frank D., Jr.
- Schroth, Raymond A.
- Brooklyn Daily Eagle
- Brooklyn Eagle
- American Newspaper Guild
- American Society of Newspaper Editors
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)-Newspapers.
- New York (N.Y.)-Newspapers.
- Newspaper employees-New York (State)-New York.
- Labor relations-History-New York.
- Newspapers-History-20th century.
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)-Social life and customs-20th century.
View Full Finding Aid
Records of the Brooklyn Division of the Protestant Council of Churches, 1840-1979 (Bulk Dates: 1895-1974). 28 document boxes and 8 custom ledger boxes (15.5 cubic feet).
ArMs 1980.006 (also containing 1980.007)
The Records of the Brooklyn Division of the Protestant Council of Churches trace the history of the Brooklyn Division and its numerous predecessors over a period of nearly one hundred and fifty years. The records in this collection date back to the Brooklyn City Tract Society, the earliest predecessor of the Brooklyn Division of the Protestant Council of Churches. The organizations documented in this collection trace the history of Protestantism and missionary work in Brooklyn well into the twentieth century. In their missionary and evangelical work, the organizations represented here involved themselves in numerous aspects of Brooklyn’s growth as a city, promoting immigrant acculturation, aiding in social reform, supporting education, and facilitating interracial relations.
The bulk of this collection consists of office files dating from 1950 to 1974; however, much of the material in this collection concerns missionary work at the turn of the nineteenth century and the collection dates back to 1840. Included in the collection are minutes, subject files, publications, financial records, and newspaper clippings. The collection has been arranged functionally according to seven series: Related Organizations, Minutes and Reports, Financial Records, Publications, Subject Files, Scrapbooks, and Photographs.
Access Points:
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)- Religious life and customs
- Church and social problems- New York (State)- New York
- Church charities
- Church management
- Church Unity
- Clergy- New York (N.Y.)
- Evangelicalism and Christian Union
- Evangelistic work
- Interdenominational Cooperation
- Missions- Educational Work
- Missions- Societies, etc.
- Prisons- Missions and charities
- Protestant Churches- Missions
- Protestant Churches- Relations
- Protestant Reformation
- Protestantism
- Religious Education of Children
- Religious newspapers and periodicals
- Sunday Schools
- Theology
- United States- Religion- 19th century
View Full Finding Aid
Charles Henry Wenman Papers, 1832-1951. 6 boxes (6 cubic feet).
ArMs 1977.335
Charles Henry Wenman, Jr. was born in 1869. At nineteen, he secured a clerkship upon finishing school. Within a few years, Wenman became the General Book-Keeper of the Illinois Central Railroad after being introduced to acting President Stuyvesant Fish. By the time Wenman left the corporation in 1906, he had held various positions at the railroad, and after Fish’s forced retirement from the railroad, Wenman became his Secretary until Fish’s death in 1923.
Apart from Wenman’s work with Fish, he also ventured into the world of business on his own. In 1923, he formed the Stenciltype Company, which produced mimeograph stencil machines for advertising and duplication. The company dissolved in 1925. In addition, Wenman helped his cousin run the Crea-Mont Country Club in Culver Lake, NJ from 1925-1927. Besides investing in the Stencil type Company, Wenman also invested in a fraudulent motion picture company, Century Motion Picture Company, as well as several other fly-by-night business opportunities. Wenman died in 1957.
The Charles H. Wenman Papers have been arranged into six series: Personal Correspondence, Fish Family Records, Wenman Business Records, Wenman Legal and Real Estate Papers, Wenman Business and Personal Ledgers, and Wenman Personal Writings.
The Personal Correspondence series contains over 2,000 letters written mostly to Charles Wenman from his extended family members.
The Fish Family Records contain correspondence sent by Wenman on behalf of Fish, as well as personal business and genealogical correspondence. There are also balance sheets of income taxes paid by Fish, inquiries into business ventures, and copies of mortgages and deeds, as well as legal documents concerning the alliance made between Fish Family members after the death of the elder Fish. Finally, there are also records dealing with the Telautograph Corporation, a venture concerning the use of the telegraph system in a way as to reproduce handwritten messages, and records dealing with land that was rented or sold by the Fish family through the Petersfield Realty Firm.
The Wenman Business Records include correspondence, balance sheets and legal documents concerning several investments made by Wenman.
The Wenman Legal and Real Estate Papers consist of family estate papers of the Hamilton Family, Wenman’s aunt, Nellie Hilfers, papers from the estate of Peter Stuyvesant, and two lawsuits brought against Wenman because of his connections with the Fish business. Also included are chronicles of the construction and maintenance of Wenman’s brownstone located at 990 Park Place in Brooklyn, correspondence and building specifications of property owned by Wenman at Academy and Webster Streets in Long Island City, and records concerning Wenman’s business venture with his cousin’s wife, Mary Wenman, in the maintenance of a country club built by her on Culver Lake in New Jersey.
The Wenman Business and Personal Ledgers contain Wenman’s daily journals for the years 1925 and 1933-1935, and the Gulick Guards Book of Members, By-Laws, Constitution and Minutes. The Gulick Guards were an organization associated with Fire Engine Company #40 of Brooklyn.
The Wenman Personal Writings series contains writings by Wenman including some autobiographical notes, letters to various editors of New York newspapers, some historical research done by Wenman, and, of particular interest, Wenmans’ writings of protest concerning the United States’ system of taxation. Wenman vehemently protested what he termed as the ‘dogs of government’ feeding on the income of the people.
View Full Finding Aid
|
Recently Added Collections
|
