About Archives & Special Collections
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Brooklyn Voter Registries (1872-1897, 1930-1937)
The Brooklyn Historical Society’s collection of voter registries represents the voting population in Brooklyn both before and after its consolidation as part of the City of New York. Registries reflecting Brooklyn as an independent city prior to consolidation span the period 1872-1897, while post-consolidation registries only cover the years 1930-1937. Currently, all registries are available to researchers in their original physical format.
The organization of the voter registries is mainly a numerical scheme, with the broadest level of arrangement being contingent on ward number (or, in the case of the post-consolidation registries, assembly district number). Each ward or assembly district is further broken down numerically by election district, then alphabetically by street. Finally, within each street listing, individual voters are listed by their residence numbers. Some registries, particularly those dating from the earlier periods, are also accompanied by an alphabetical index to street numbers, as well as a description of election district boundaries.
Each registry also contains specific personal information regarding every registered voter that may be helpful to researchers. For example, all registries include such details as a voter’s age; how long each voter has lived in the state, county, and district; as well as any special remarks deemed useful by the Board of Elections, such as whether a voter is an African American, and whether a voter is illiterate or disabled. Some registries include further descriptive information, such as a voter’s height, weight, hair color, and distinguishing features.
This collection is an especially excellent resource for researchers interested in Brooklyn’s housing history and/or genealogy. While there is no appointment necessary to view the collection, please be advised that the majority of the registries are in extremely fragile condition and should be handled with the utmost care.
New York City and Brooklyn Directories
The Brooklyn Historical Society’s collection of city directories includes copies of both New York City and Brooklyn directories, available to researchers on microfilm and/or microfiche, with a very small portion of the collection available in print. The New York City directories include information pertaining to the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, spanning the years 1786-1934, and are largely available only on microfilm (76 reels). The collection does include physical copies of New York City directories for the years 1915-1917 and 1925.
Brooklyn city directories are available on 28 microfilm reels for the period 1847-1913, or on microfiche for the period 1822-1861. The collection also includes one physical copy of a Brooklyn city directory covering the years 1933-1934, as well as four Brooklyn classified telephone directories spanning the years 1932-1938. Finally, the collection also includes separate directories for the city of Williamsburgh prior to its annexation as a part of the City of Brooklyn, which are available on microfiche and cover the years 1847-1854.
The collection of directories serves as a valuable resource of information pertaining to residential, municipal, and commercial life in both New York City and Brooklyn during from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Directories are quite extensive and regularly include features such as registers of public departments and institutions, street and avenue directories, purchaser’s guides, general directories (including occupations and businesses of local residents), and advertising indexes, while also occasionally featuring illustrated city plans, maps of transit lines, and information pertaining to public parks, ward boundaries, freight depots, locations of piers, cabs and taxicabs, and borough histories.
There is no appointment necessary to view this collection.
Brooklyn Historical Atlases, 1846-1932
The Brooklyn Historical Society possesses a collection of historical atlases of Brooklyn spanning the years 1846-1932. The atlases included in the collection were generated for various purposes, i.e., for insurance purposes, for use by real estate brokers and/or lawyers, for the mapping of farm lines, or for the use of government officials. The intended purpose of each atlas reflects which features of the surveyed area are emphasized.
As the atlases advance chronologically, so too do they advance in technical sophistication. Depending on the level of detail, atlases can include information such as the material content of every building, house and block numbers, content and condition of pavement, street status and usability, locations of sewers and water mains, locations of subway and rail lines, plate boundaries, section and ward division lines, and original farm lines, among further information.
This collection is an excellent historical resource for researchers looking to map the changes that have occurred to the neighborhoods of Brooklyn over time. Collectively, the atlases present a nearly exhaustive survey of the borough of Brooklyn as it existed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Most atlases are physically represented in the collection, but some are only available on microfiche. The collection is accompanied by a navigational index. For each atlas, the index lists the atlas number (and location within the collection); microfilm reel; date of publication; author/surveyor; title, including the townships and/or wards surveyed; and neighborhoods included.
Click here to view the atlas index.
There is no appointment required to view this collection.
Brooklyn and Long Island Scrapbooks, ca. 1860-1960
This collection is an accumulation of clippings from numerous Brooklyn and Long Island newspapers and magazines during the period ca. 1860-1960. The original clippings were assembled by staff members of the Brooklyn Historical Society. Due to the deterioration of the original clippings, they now exist only on microfilm. The collection numbers a total of 168 volumes, and its exhaustive scope makes it an excellent account of daily life in Long Island and Brooklyn from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.
The collection is accompanied by a navigational card index, which is separated into two sections, one dedicated to Long Island, the other to Brooklyn. Within each major division, the catalog is organized alphabetically by subject, individual, or business/organization. Each card lists the volume and page numbers on which its described contents can be found.
Newspapers and magazines represented in the collection include The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, The Brooklyn Times, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper’s Weekly, Suffolk County News, The Long Island Forum, The Long Island Press, The World-Journal Tribune, and The New York Mirror, among many others.
There is no appointment necessary to view this collection.
Terhune-Wyckoff Family Papers (1747-1932). 10 linear inches.
ArMs 1977.192
Albert Terhune (1715-1806) was a supervisor of the town of Gravesend, a member of the Gravesend Dutch Reformed Church (ca.1766) and an elder of that church (ca.1795). Upon his death, he left a sizable estate to his six surviving children (three sons and three daughters). One of his sons, John (1767-1842), was a judge in Gravesend and a supervisor of that town during the 1810’s and 20’s, and a founder of the Gravesend & Coney Island Road & Bridge Company. Before his death, he wrote but failed to execute a will, and upon his passing his estate was administered by the sons of his sister Margaret, Albert Wyckoff and Jacob V.D. Wyckoff (1805-57), a New York hardware merchant.
The Terhune-Wyckoff Papers span the years 1747-1932. They are primarily the records of family finances and estates administration for the period 1800-58. The bulk of the material in the collection is in the form of bills, receipts and promissory notes issued by or to the Terhune brothers, and notes or records kept by administrators of the estates of several Terhunes and Wyckoffs.
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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.
Isaac & Silas Ludlam Papers (1744-CA. 1870’s). 1 box (0.75 linear feet).
ArMs 1973.226
The Ludlam Family has a long history of serving as Surveyors for the Village and City of Brooklyn. Stephen Ludlam was the first, being appointed in 1809. He was followed by his son Silas in 1834, his grandson Austin in 1880 and his greatgrandson Ralph in 1911. Silas Ludlam (1806-1892) began working as a surveyor in 1927. In the 1834 New York City directory he is listed as a City Surveyor alongside one Isaac Ludlam, and the two share the same address. Their family and business relationship is unknown. Silas Ludlam was an authority on old Brooklyn, and the present Ludlam Place in Brooklyn is named in his honor.
The Isaac & Silas Ludlam Papers document the surveying activities of the Ludlams in Brooklyn. Although the collection contains 73 items from 1744 to 1880, the bulk of it consists of 69 letters received by the Ludlams between 1826 and 1839, requesting that the Ludlams provide surveying services. The writers of these letters include many prominent citizens of nineteenth-century Brooklyn, both public officials and private citizens.
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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-
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8th Avenue - Sunset Park Oral History, 1993-1994. Sound recordings: 38 cassettes (90 minutes each)
1994.007
In 1993-1994, the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Chinatown History Museum (now Museum of the Chinese in America), collected interviews regarding Brooklyn’s Chinese community in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. 28 interviews were conducted in English, Mandarin, or Cantonese. Narrators include recent Chinese immigrants as well as people of Italian and Puerto Rican heritage who live in the neighborhood.
Transcripts of these interviews may be read in the library. Some but not all of the recordings of these interviews may be listened to in the library; we anticipate the full collection will be available for researchers to listen to in Fall 2010.
Independence Community Bank Oral History, 2006-2007. Sound recordings: 18 wav files
2008.032
Independence Community Bank was founded in 1850 as The South Brooklyn Savings Institution and in 2006, it was bought out by a larger bank (Sovereign Bancorp, itself owned by Banco Santander). The Brooklyn Historical Society, with the support of the Independence Community Foundation (now Brooklyn Community Foundation), conducted 16 extended interviews with past and present employees of Independence Community Bank to document the end of the Bank’s 155 years based in Brooklyn.
Recordings of these interviews may be listened to in the library. An index of these interviews may be read in the library.
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