About the Library Collections
The following items make up the library collections and focus on the history of Brooklyn, its diverse neighborhoods, and many ethnic groups, and to a lesser extent Long Island, New York City, and its environs. Historically the library collected materials, like many historical societies, donated by its members. The collection largely consisted of genealogies, biographies, church sermons, histories of New England, and war histories.
Our Historic Brooklyn Directories consist of several different types of Brooklyn directories:
By Name -- Our collection, available on microform, spans from 1820 to 1913 (and one bound one from 1933). These directories work just like phone books, only instead of listing phone numbers they list in addition to a person's address, their occupation and sometimes the address of where they worked.
By Address -- "Elite Directories" (their name, not ours). Our collection of these run from 1873 to 1913. These are particular helpful when trying to do the social history of a particular building. Once you have clear all of the addresses a particular place might have had, you can consult these. Once you have gathered names, you can go back to the "by name" directories and find out what a particular resident did for a living.
Blue Books -- As suggested by the name of these directories, these are a collection of social directories. However they do have a "by address" look up in the back, again helpful when trying to get to who might have lived at a particular address.
All of our directories have been cataloged and can be searched on our online catalog.
Map and Atlas Collection
With over 2,000 flat maps and 200 bound atlases, our map collection includes both manuscript and published maps. Geographic focus is on Queens, and Brooklyn, however there are also maps and atlases on Nassau, Suffolk, and New York counties as well as early maps of the United States.
Brooklyn & Long Island Scrapbooks are a collection of newspaper clippings from the 1860s to the 1960s available on microfiche. It is searchable by a subject card index. Most of the clippings are from the 1940s and 1950s and came from a variety of Brooklyn and Long Island papers covering a host of subjects.
Newspapers & Periodicals
Currently only our newspapers on microfilm are available to researchers. Our newspaper collection consists primarily of early Brooklyn and Long Island dailies. Titles include: Long Island Star/Brooklyn Evening Star (1809-1863); Brooklyn Citizen (1888-1899); The Shipworker, newspaper for Brooklyn Navy Yard employees (1941-1966); Brooklyn Times (1859-1911); Long Islander (1843-1888); Long Island Weekly Star (1884-1916) . All of our microfilmed newspapers have been cataloged, and can be searched on our online catalog.
The Slavery Pamphlets Collection consists of 960 pamphlets published in the 19th Century by individuals expressing both pro-and anti-slavery sentiment on topics such as slavery, African colonization, and emancipation. Notable authors include Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher; noted abolitionist Lewis Tappan; and Presbyterian Pastor and former slave James W.C. Pennington. All of the holdings are rare, and some are believed to be unique to BHS.
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