From art to politics, the women of Brooklyn have shaped its history, identity, and future.
Powerful, groundbreaking leaders like Shirley Chisolm and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as well as artists like Barbra Streisand and Carole King, are counted as Brooklyn natives.
Researchers should be aware that this guide is not necessarily comprehensive and is intended to be improved over time. This guide focuses primarily on sources relating to Brooklyn (Kings County) in particular and includes only select materials from the other Long Island counties or other areas of New York. Researchers may wish to explore the library catalogs further to identify other materials helpful to their research. Access to the search portals for all library collections may be found here.
This guide emphasizes text-based archival material unique to CBH, but also includes select materials from the Society’s collections of photographs, maps, and prints and drawings, as well as some selections from the library’s extensive collection of books. In addition to the material detailed in this guide, there are many other resources at CBH useful to research in Brooklyn’s agricultural history. Researchers can use CBH’s online catalog, Bobcat, for other relevant material such as books and other printed matter available in the library. Search the catalog here.
Collection materials are arranged by type in this guide. Within the format sections, collections or items are presented in rough chronological order according to the earliest date of the collection.
Each entry follows the format:
- Collection name, date range of the collection
- Call number, if applicable
- Link to more information about collection (if available).
- Brief description of relevant content in the collection.
Getting Started
Interested in learning more about Women’s History in Brooklyn, but don’t know where to begin? Here are some tips to get started.
Gather information: Since Women’s History is a very broad topic it’s best to start by identifying your interests. Are you looking at a particular historical figure? A particular protest or vote? A historical event? This early information gathering is also a good stage to determine how you are going to organize your research. Will you save your notes and documents digitally or physically? Where will you store them?
Identify research goals: What do you hope to learn in the course of your research? Are you interested in a single aspect of Women’s History in Brooklyn or charting the over-archiving narrative? Is this for a paper? What conclusions are you hoping to draw by the end of your research? Mapping out your goals will help guide your research.
Begin your research: Let your research goals determine where it will be most helpful for you to start. For example, if you want to know more about a historical figure, you can start with the digitized newspapers.
Let your research lead you: As you discover more information, use it to guide further research. If you discover something new, you may want to return to a resource you had previously searched or a collection you had previously visited to see if you can find more using the new information you uncovered. And of course, don’t hesitate to ask a librarian for assistance.
Digital Resources
Access from home without a library card
This collection contains over 30 local newspapers digitized in a partnership with Newspapers.com. Dates range from 1835-1899 and include Brooklyn wide titles such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and small neighborhood papers such as Greenpoint Weekly Star and the Bay Ridge Home Reporter. Researchers can use Newsstand to keyword search articles by keywords, name, organization or event. A tutorial can be found here.
Brooklyn High School Newspapers
Access from home without a library card
This collection contains digitized news publications from Brooklyn high schools. School news receives the most attention in the papers but community events, as well as matters of national and international interest, are reported on as well. The bulk of the papers in the collection span the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s
Keyword searching is available by entering search terms in the search bar and clicking “text contents.” Researchers can also browse by school or year.
Access from home without a library card
The Digital Collections portal hosts Brooklyn Public Library’s online catalog offering a selection of more than 20,000 historical photographs from the Brooklyn Collection and audio and video recordings created by the Brooklyn Public Library and other sources. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Photograph Collection (c. 1900-1955) is the source of many of these images. A tutorial can be found here. Advanced search tips here.
Additionally, the Center for Brooklyn History’s Digital Collections Portal contains historic photographs, architectural drawings, and artifacts which document Brooklyn and Long Island from the 1850’s to the present.
Suggested search terms:
· Women’s history
· Individual Names
· Suffrage
· Women’s Labor
· Women’s Organization
Please note that putting quotation marks around these terms will cause the optical character reader to look for both words together, thereby reducing the number of matches and honing the research.
Archival Resources
Access at the Brooklyn Collection
A collection of photographs, news clippings, and scrapbooks related to the dancer and choreographer Gertrude Hoffmann and her dance troupe the Gertrude Hoffmann Girls.
Access at the Brooklyn Collection
Brooklynite Ina Clausen co-founded a women’s collective print shop in the late 1960s. This collection consists of her personal papers as well as records from the Greenpoint Print Shop and copies of feminist writings and publications to which Clausen contributed.
Access at the Brooklyn Collection
A collection of letters addressed to turn-of-the-century author and journalist Mrs. Laura C. Holloway.
Access at the Brooklyn Collection
Various documents relating to the life, work, and activities of Martha Adina Gayle dating from 1902 -2001. Gayle was a Jamaican immigrant who came to the United States in 1924.
The Froebel Society Records: Brooklyn Chapter:
Access at the Brooklyn Collection
Minutes, yearbooks and other documents relating to the activities of The Froebel Society, a Brooklyn women’s club that promoted cultural activity among its members, who were originally drawn from the mothers of children attending The Froebel Academy.
Brooklyn Council for Social Planning Records:
Access at the Brooklyn Collection
This collection comprises the records of the BCSP from its founding in 1933 until its demise in 1957. The BCSP was founded by a group of prominent citizens, social workers, and representatives of civic organizations who saw a need for an organization to coordinate local social services. Many of these services were specifically geared toward helping women.
Photographs from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Access at the Brooklyn Collection
This collection comprises over 200,000 black and white photographs, almost entirely from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper’s photo morgue. This collection is not digitized and available in our Digital Collections, however researchers can search the collection guidefor names, business, and events and contact the Brooklyn Collection for access.
Brooklyn Society of New England Women records(1977.209)
Access at archival finding aid portal
This collection contains the Brooklyn Society of New England Women records which date from 1909 to 1958. The collection contains membership rolls, constitution and bylaws, yearbooks, and a scrapbook of programs and news clippings. The Brooklyn Society of New England Women, a local chapter of the National Society of New England Women, was organized in March of 1905.
Women’s Alliance of the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn records (2005.031)
Access at archival finding aid portal
This collection holds the records of the Women’s Alliance, an organization operating under the agency of the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn. The collection encompasses the period of the resurgence of the Women's Alliance during the latter half of the twentieth century as a socially conscious and active organization. The inclusive dates span from 1922 to 2004, with bulk dates ranging from 1980 to 1998. The Women's Alliance records consist primarily of organizational material, including meeting minutes, correspondence, and financial documents.
Hispanic Communities Documentation Project records and oral histories(ARC.032)
Access at archival finding aid portal
This collection consists of over fifty interviews which were conducted to document the experiences of Brooklyn residents who arrived from Puerto Rico, Panama, Ecuador, and several other Central and South American nations in the latter half of the twentieth century. This collection includes recordings and transcripts of interviews conducted between 1988 and 1989. The oral histories often contain descriptions of immigration, living arrangements, neighborhood demographics, discrimination, employment, community development, and political leadership.
Brooklyn charitable organizations for working women collection (1985.109)
Access at archival finding aid portal
The Brooklyn charitable organizations for working women collection consists of publications documenting women's organizations established in the mid-to-late 19th century, organized and headed by women to aid single working women, working widows and their children, and destitute and disabled women. The collection is mainly composed of annual reports issued by the organizations.
The Center for Brooklyn History’s oral history collections include over 1,200 interviews. The oral histories contain interviews whose audio, and in some cases transcripts, can be accessed online. Learn how to browse and search across the collections here.
Brooklyn Navy Yard oral history collection (ARC.003)
access at archival finding aid portal and oral history portal
This collection contains over fifty oral histories conducted between 1986 to 2010 with men and women who worked in or around the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the majority of the interviews are with people who worked in the Yard during World War II. While most of the interviews focus on work experiences in and around the Yard, some of the narrators describe gender, racial, and ethnic relations at the Yard and at various neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Many narrators also describe their lives after the Navy Yard.
Voices of Brooklyn oral histories (2008.031)
access at archival finding aid portal and oral history portal
This collection contains oral histories conducted between 1998 and 2017. The Voices of Brooklyn oral histories feature a broad range of narrators. Some are well-known public figures and others are well-known in their communities. Narrators include: jazz musicians, business leaders, civil rights activists, authors, artists, sports players, and longtime neighborhood residents who describe the changes they have observed in their neighborhoods over decades.This ongoing collection focuses on Brooklyn history and the experiences of these narrators document national and international history as well.
Muslims in Brooklyn oral histories (2018.006)
access at archival finding aid portal and oral history portal
This collection focuses on cultural and religious customs, practices, and gender roles within these communities; education and the arts; immigration from South Asia and the Middle East; the Nation of Islam; Islamophobia in the wake of the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center as well as after the 2016 presidential election; political activism and engagement; and community relations with law enforcement and government officials.
Books
Access at the Center for Brooklyn History online catalog
Gallagher, Julie A.Black Women and Politics in New York City. University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Keep, M. H.Directory of Women in Civic, Economic and Educational Affairs in Brooklyn Today, 1939: with original articles contributed by a few outstanding women. 1939.
Morris, Bonnie J.Women of Valor: Female Religious Activism and Identity in the Lubavitcher Community of Brooklyn, 1955-1987. U.M.I, 1990.
Stansell, Christine.City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860. Knopf, 1986.
Other Resources
The Barnard Center for Research on Women
New York Historical Society - Center for Women’s History
National Women’s History Museum - especially if you are researching historical figures, like Shirley Chisholm
New York City’s The Women Who Made NYC History guide
Prepared by Ally Malinenko, October 2021