About Archives & Special Collections
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Long Island Historical Society Quarterly, 1939-1942; The Journal of Long Island History, 1961-1969 and 1973-1982
From 1939-1942, 1961-1969, and 1973-1982, the Brooklyn Historical Society (known then as the Long Island Historical Society) published a periodic journal, called the Long Island Historical Society Quarterly in 1939-42 and, in the later years, The Journal of Long Island History. The journals include articles on historical topics concerning Kings, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk counties. Many of the articles, especially in the 1939-1942 volumes, include full or partial transcriptions of account books, correspondence, deeds, tombstone inscriptions, and other manuscripts from the BHS collection and elsewhere. While there is a wide range of subject matter, perhaps best-represented in the journal are articles concerning the colonial period through the 19th century, American Revolution, Civil War, and African-American history. No appointment is necessary to use the journals in the BHS library.
Historic Newspapers Collection, Nineteenth - Mid-Twentieth Centuries
The Brooklyn Historical Society possesses a vast collection of historic newspapers published in the metropolitan New York area during the greater part of the nineteenth century and the early-to-mid-twentieth century, with the latest represented decade being the 1960s. The entire collection is available to researchers on microfilm only. The link below provides a full listing of the newspapers included in the collection, as well as each newspaper’s place of publication and the year(s) for which it is available. As researchers will note, some newspapers are available in their full run, while others are only available for certain date ranges.
View a full listing of available newspapers.
This collection is an excellent resource for researching historic events and individuals, of both local and national prominence, as they were depicted in the city’s regular news sources. The collection also offers valuable insight into the print culture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Finally, the collection may also be of use to genealogy researchers. There is no appointment necessary to view this collection.
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.
New York World’s Fair Collection, 1939-1940, 1964-1965. 14 boxes (1 oversize box, 2 artifact boxes), 5.5+ linear feet.
AccNo. 1977.302 and 1977.276
The New York World’s Fair Collection includes materials from the 1939 and the 1964-65 World’s Fairs. Both took place in Queens at Flushing Meadows Park, a site that was extensively redesigned and landscaped in preparation for the 1939 Fair.
Two manuscript boxes contain material about the 1964 World’s Fair while the other nine relate to the 1939 Fair. The 1964 material includes preliminary reports and planning documents detailing the work to be done on the Fair site in Flushing Meadows Park; the maps and photographs in these reports provide valuable documentation of the extent of the planning and improvements made to the park.
Much of the 1939 material consists of travel brochures to individual American states and to countries around the world. Other material includes brochures from many of the Fair’s exhibitions. Memorabilia and artifacts in this collection are varied and range from restaurant menus to invitations to opening-day ceremonies to packets of souvenir Fair tickets.
Visual material exists for the 1964 World’s Fair, consisting of 92 color slides, ten color postcards, and two copies of a 35 mm. film reel entitled “Come to the Fair.” These materials are stored with the Image Collection.
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