Oral Histories

Black and white photograph of a woman holding a microphone and recording an older man as he's speaking.
Brooklyn Historical Society staff, circa 1990, photographic print, arc.202_box16_197; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History. 

Introduction

The Center for Brooklyn History provides this guide for researchers of oral history and of the many topics preserved in the ~1,400 interviews and counting. Subjects include: the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Hispanic communities, Muslims in Brooklyn, Sunset Park’s Chinese community, Jewish Brooklyn, East New York, business and industry, community activists, sports and leisure, veterans and wartime, the West Indian Day carnival, COVID-19, and much more. These recordings are available through the Brooklyn Public Library’s oral histories page and the former Brooklyn Historical Society’s oral history collections portal. In addition to these recordings, researchers are encouraged to search the archival collections and digital collections, for non-digitized oral histories, transcripts, photographs, letters, and related ephemera. Researchers are also encouraged to browse all collections and research guides for resources that may contextualize the oral histories. To create an appointment or ask a question, please contact cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.

About the Oral History Collections

The oral history collections preserve the lives of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Brooklyn residents, and reveal how diverse individuals and communities have sought to maintain vital social, political, religious, and cultural traditions as Brooklynites, New Yorkers, and Americans. The collections contain interviews conducted in English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin, with narrators born as early as 1880. The recordings have been incorporated into exhibitions, digital humanities projects, educational curricula, public programs, the retired podcast Flatbush + Main, and independent research.

History of the Oral History Collections

In 1973, the Long Island Historical Society (later renamed the Brooklyn Historical Society) began building its oral history collection with the Puerto Rican Oral History Project, 1973-1975. It was the first large-scale Puerto Rican studies project undertaken in the U. S. mainland. In 2013, the Brooklyn Public Library's departments of Outreach and Services for Older Adults launched its oral history program with the ongoing Our Streets, Our Stories project. In 2020, the historical society and the Brooklyn Public Library merged. Now, as the Center for Brooklyn History, these recordings are freely available to listeners online or onsite. The Center for Brooklyn History is the only cultural institution in Brooklyn that maintains a permanent oral history program.

Some highlights from the oral history collection include: the AIDS/Brooklyn Exhibition collection, 1992-1993, was begun the year that AIDS became the number one cause of death for U.S. men ages 25 to 44. The Crown Heights History Project collection, 1993-1994, explores the racial dynamics of the neighborhood of Crown Heights, barely two years after what became known as the Crown Heights riot in 1991. Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations Oral History collection, 2011-2014, examines the history and experiences of mixed-heritage people and families in Brooklyn and opens up space for racial justice dialogues. Listen to This: Crown Heights Oral History collection, 2010, returns to Crown Heights for an oral history project in partnership with the Weeksville Heritage Center and the activist organization Brooklyn Movement Center, to explore the neighborhood’s continued national significance in conversations on ethnic relations, racial justice, and urban renewal. Nearly 300 interviews have been conducted under the Our Streets, Our Stories project under a Creative Commons license on various subjects, including: the Brooklyn Jewish History Project, 2019-2022, the Greenpoint Environmental History Project, 2018-2019, and the Brooklyn COVID-19 Stories Project, 2020.

Oral History Collections

This research guide was updated April 2026.