Blog posts by Maggie Schreiner

Summer Archives Internship Reflection from Sophia Terry

Maggie Schreiner

Schwarren, Litchfield VIlla, circa 1880, arc.202.box17.113; Photograph and illustration collection, ARC 202, Brooklyn Historical Society.
I’m both lucky and thankful to have gotten the opportunity to intern at the Brooklyn Historical Society this past summer. 2020 has been unique in its challenges, and at the end of a disjointed spring semester, I was left without a real plan for the summer. When I came across a notice for a remote internship through the Brooklyn Historical Society that seemed to fit my area of interest, I decided to apply, despite having never physically…

Summer Archives Internship Reflection from Fiona Wu

Maggie Schreiner

BHS staff with exhibition model

POTW: Sorting Mail at the Post Office

Maggie Schreiner

Men sorting mail at Vanderveer Post Office, circa 1925, V1973.5.630; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection (ARC.202); Brooklyn Historical Society.
Happy (recent) Labor Day! This photograph of workers sorting mail was taken at the Vanderveer Post Office, located on Nostrand Ave near Avenue I.The photo depicts the process of manual mail sorting, from the workers standing at the large wooden tables, to those putting mail onto shelves and into slots. Over time, the process of sorting mail has become increasing mechanized, and as a result, the workforce of the post office…

POTW: Building NYC's Water Infrastructure

Maggie Schreiner

Profile of lower part of Croton Aqueduct: compiled under the direction of John B. Jervis by Theophilus Schramke. Ground plan of the lower part of Croton Aqueduct; [1846], Map Collection, M-[1846].Fl.Folio; Brooklyn Historical Society.
This week we’re taking Photo of the Week on a journey uptown.This 1846 map shows a cross-section of the southern portion of the Old Croton Aqueduct, from the Harlem River to the Distribution Reservoir (at the present-day location of Bryant Park), and resulting flow of water to the southern tip of Manhattan at the Battery. Construction of the Old…

Announcing the Launch of the BHS Map Portal!

Maggie Schreiner

Map of land of … situate[d] in the town of New Utrecht

POTW: Quarantine Summer

Maggie Schreiner

Otto Dreschmeyer, Sunset, Coney Island, August 23, 1966, v1988.12.92, Otto Dreschmeyer Brooklyn slides, v1988.12, Brooklyn Historical Society.
Now that it is July, Brooklynites are truly in our quarantine summer. Though we may not have our usual bevy of pastimes to look forward to, beaches reopened with lifeguards yesterday, and we are continually entertained (and sometimes annoyed) by fireworks in neighborhoods across the borough and city. This image brings these two pastimes together, showing a view of the sunset behind the Coney Island shoreline with a double exposure of…

POTW: Black Lives Matter

Maggie Schreiner

bhs_V1989.22.7_a-1Bob Adelman, Civil rights demonstration, circa 1962, v1989.22.7; Bob Adelman photographs of Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) demonstrations v1989.022, Brooklyn Historical Society.
This image comes from our collection of photographs from the Brooklyn Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). In the spirit of the work that CORE and similar organizations have done over many decades, today we are using this space to highlight campaigns, organizations, resources, and books where you can learn more, donate, and get involved with the movement for racial justice…

POTW: Cleaning Up in Brooklyn

Maggie Schreiner

Operation Clean Sweep Demonstration, circa 1962, v1989.22.2; Bob Adelman photographs of Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) demo, v1989.22, Brooklyn Historical Society.
This week we’re honoring our borough’s cleaners and sanitation workers. To the people who are cleaning hospital rooms, grocery stores, buses and subways, and picking up garbage and recycling, thank you for doing this important work to keep us safe and healthy! The above image from 1962 shows a Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) demonstration called “Operation Clean Sweep” and illustrates the…

POTW: Cooking for Brooklyn

Maggie Schreiner

Pilgrim Laundry CookPilgrim Laundry cook, circa 1910, v1989.003.3; Pilgrim Laundry photographs, v1989.003, Brooklyn Historical Society.
For the next several weeks we will be honoring Brooklyn’s essential workers: the people who keep us fed, provide us with groceries and other essentials, clean our homes and workplaces, and take care of us when we’re sick.This week we’re honoring our borough’s hard-working food service workers, who are cooking meals for delivery-only restaurants, providing grab-and-go lunches for school children, and sustaining our frontline medical workers at…

New recordings from the Packer Collegiate Institute now online!

Maggie Schreiner

This post was written by Aliki Caloyeras, Brooklyn Historical Society Digitization Intern. Brooklyn Historical Society is pleased to announce the availability of over 175 newly digitized audio recordings, films, and videos from the Packer Collegiate Institute records (2014.019). This project has been made possible by a generous digitization grant from the Metropolitan Library Council (METRO), and follows up on our previous work with METRO to preserve quickly-deteriorating magnetic media and provide the public with easy access to our audio, video, and film collections.  

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Caring for Brooklyn’s Digital History

Maggie Schreiner

Erica López, BHS Digital Preservation Fellow, writes about the joys and challenges of preserving legacy media. We experience, understand and interact with Brooklyn’s rich history in so many different shapes and forms. At Brooklyn Historical Society’s Othmer Library, this history is documented in manuscripts, photographs, moving images, oral histories and artifacts. In today’s increasingly digital world, our history can also be found on floppy disks, CDs, hard drives, and smart phones. Digital materials are at risk for a number of reasons, but the biggest risk is obsolescence. For…

Newly Digitized Historic Video Now Available!

Maggie Schreiner

We are excited to announce that Brooklyn Historical Society has arrived on the Internet Archive!We will be using this new account to provide access to historic films, movies, and audio recordings from our collections. You can currently explore over 40 newly digitized movies and 6 audio recordings from a variety of our collections, ranging from 1920s home movies to 1970s radio commercials. fig-17918] Our digitization project revealed some lovely surprises! We digitized videos of BHS exhibitions from the late 1980s and early 1990s, including “Not Forgotten: AIDS at the Brooklyn…

Emma, the Catablog

Maggie Schreiner

By Julie May and Maggie Schreiner Today, we announce the retirement of Emma, an interactive catalog of the archives and special collections held in the Othmer Library at Brooklyn Historical Society. For the last ten years, the staff at BHS have held Emma in high regard for the function it offered and the stepping stone it represents. Emma included basic records that described individual archival and special collections, and linked out to fuller, more complete descriptions such as finding aids and inventories when they were available. It was built using WordPress blogging software, hence…

Ronald Shiffman collection is open for research!

Maggie Schreiner

The Ronald Shiffman collection on the Pratt Center for Community Development (2013.023) is now open for research at Brooklyn Historical Society!  

Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, the country's first community development corporation.  
Building Hope: The Community Development Corporation Oral History Project.” Funded by the Ford Foundation, this project conducted interviews with leaders from nineteen community development corporations across the country. In addition to audio recordings and transcripts of many of the interviews, the collection includes…

Increasing Access to Vertical Files

Maggie Schreiner

IMG_5808“The Good News

Brooklyn For Peace and the Defense of Civil Liberties

Maggie Schreiner

By Library and Archives assistant Laura Juliano The papers of Brooklyn For Peace, which date from 1983 to the present, and consist of over 25 linear feet of organizational records, event ephemera and recordings, and subject files, are now available for research at Brooklyn Historical Society. The collection reveals both the history of the organization as well as the broader grassroots response to a wide variety of significant social and political issues at the local, regional, and national levels from the late twentieth century to the present. Brooklyn For Peace (BFP) was founded in 1984 as…