CBH Talk | The Battle of Brooklyn Revisited: A Screening & Conversation
The Battle of Brooklyn, the largest battle of the American Revolution, unfolded across landscapes many of us pass every day without realizing the history beneath our feet. This screening of The Brave Man, directed by filmmaker Joseph M. McCarthy brings that pivotal moment vividly to life focusing on the dramatic stand at the Old Stone House, the soldiers whose actions shaped the course of the war, and the legendary leadership of William Alexander - Lord Stirling - whose bold defense helped delay British forces and enabled a crucial American retreat.
Following the film, McCarthy joins historian Barnet Schecter, one of the foremost interpreters of Revolutionary-era New York, for a conversation that deepens the story behind the film. Led in conversation by CBH Chief Historian Dominique Jean-Louis, they will explore the significance of the Battle of Brooklyn and how memory, place, and storytelling continue to shape our understanding of the Revolution.
This program is presented in conjunction with the Center for Brooklyn History’s current exhibition, The Battle of Brooklyn: Fought and Remembered, which traces how this defining conflict has been commemorated, contested, and reimagined over time.
Participants
A longtime resident of Brooklyn, Joseph M. McCarthy was given a copy of John Gallagher’s book, The Battle of Brooklyn, 1776, for Christmas in 1998. Something of a history buff, he was astounded to learn that the largest battle of the American Revolution had been fought, in a sense, in his backyard. Not quite three years later, on June 25, 2001, his film, The Brave Man, premiered at BAM.
Mr. McCarthy, a graduate of NYU film school, worked for many years as a producer, director and writer in corporate communications. His clients included IBM, AT&T, Xerox, Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont, The Big Apple Circus, Association François-Xavier Bagnod, and the Major League Baseball Players Association. He also published a short-lived magazine focused on Brooklyn titled BKLYN. For many years he has served on the board of The Old Stone House of Brooklyn, the historic house in the Gowanus that was the focus at the end of the Battle of Brooklyn.
Barnet Schecter, an independent historian, is the author of George Washington’s America: A Biography Through His Maps; The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America; and The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of New York City and various books on the Revolution and Civil War, including the three-volume Scribner’s Encyclopedia of the American Revolution and Landmarks of the American Revolution. In addition to lecturing and leading tours, he consults on books, exhibitions, and films and appears on the History Channel and C-SPAN.
Dominique Jean-Louis, Ph.D, is the Chief Historian of the Center for Brooklyn History at the Brooklyn Public Library. Among the exhibitions she has curated are The Battle of Brooklyn: Fought and Remembered, Trace/s: Family History Research and the Legacy of Slavery in Brooklyn, and a pop-up exhibition, Memories Matter, in the Euclid Avenue subway station as a collaboration with the MTA's Vacant Unit Activation Program. She received her Ph.D in US History from New York University, with her doctoral research focusing on race, ethnicity, and immigration in post-Civil Rights Era Brooklyn schools. Dominique regularly writes and lectures on Blackness in America, schools and education, and New York City history.
