Collections: Libraries and Archives

close

Recent Archival Accessions

Tara Cuthbert on November 13, 2009

New York City is getting ready once again for the annual 5 Dutch Days event! This five-day celebration encompasses the five boroughs of New York City, and celebrates the continuous influence of Dutch arts and culture in NYC. Numerous institutions participate in this event; see the 5 Dutch Days website for more information on Dutch themed activities such as walking tours, lectures, concerts and more.

Dismantling of the Schenck House. Records of the Department of Decorative Arts. Objects. Installation: Schenck House, [11] press and photographs (1933-1964).

Dutch culture has had its fair share of influence on us here at the Brooklyn Museum. One of the largest objects in our collection, the Schenck House features prominently in our connections to Dutch-American history. This month the Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives are reflecting on the ways Dutch history has influenced our collections, we are currently highlighting published and archival materials documenting the ongoing influence of the Dutch.



Sunday News clipping on Schenck House restoration, May 12, 1963. Records of the Department of Decorative Arts. Objects. Installation: Schenck House, [11] press and photographs (1933-1964).

In celebration of the ongoing influence of Dutch arts and culture, the Museum Libraries and Archives are highlighting a recent archival accession, a collection of documents regarding the Jan Martense Schenck House. These documents have recently been processed and are now available [pdf] to the public for research. Included in this collection are images of the Schenck House on its original location in Brooklyn; letters from numerous Schenck family descendents who have visited and supported the Schenck House over the years; and newspaper clippings from the 1964 Museum installation. We have also produced a list of published resources [pdf] on the Schenck House and Schenck family genealogy in the Museum Libraries. If you would like to schedule a visit to see any of these materials, please send us an e-mail. We are open to the public for research on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Schenck descendant Edith Schenck DeLozier visiting the Schenck House in 1964. Records of the Department of Decorative Arts. Objects. Installation: Schenck House, [07] corresp: A-G (1961-1974).

If you are a Schenck descendant please let us know, as we always enjoy hearing from Schenck family members!

go to the original blog post...

close

close

Common Ground 2009: A Flickr Meetup with NYPL and the Brooklyn Museum

Shelley Bernstein on September 30, 2009

If you are a fan of the The Commons on Flickr and live in the NYC area, come to our Common Ground meetup this weekend to celebrate—we've got tons and tons of neato stuff to give away!  The folks from the NYPL are going to be joining us to meet and greet and answer questions about the fantastic images being uploaded to The Commons.  We'll be running a really big slideshow curated by the Flickr community in the lobby, so come find us this Saturday October 3rd, 6-9:30 pm!  That's smack dab in the middle of a fabulous opera-inspired Target First Saturday, so there will be lots to do here that evening.

Don't forget, this is a global meetup, check out these other venues if you live closer to these areas:

Sydney, Australia. A bit jealous of our colleagues over at the Powerhouse Museum who have been making preparations all week for an outdoor slideshow on the facade of their building.  The Powerhouse peeps are teaming up with the State Library of New South Wales for a joint event.

Brisbane, Australia.  The State Library of Queensland is also presenting the slideshow outdoors on their Queensland Terrace—one of my personal favorite buildings in all of Australia is the Queensland Library, so that should be an amazing event in a great location!

Canberra, Australia.  The Australian War Memorial is also taking part with a projection in their orientation gallery.

Safety Harbor and Tallahassee, Florida.  The State Archives of Florida are running two events in the area.

Rochester, New York.  George Eastman House is hosting an event in their theatre and that means you can meet Ryan...he's the one we have to thank for the slideshow because he did a ton of work programming the voting tool and the slideshow via the Flickr API.  Thanks, Ryan!

Corvalis, Oregon.  Don't miss the photograph on this event listing—these Oregon peeps have a sense of Flickr-humor and we love them for it.

...but perhaps the Swedish National Heritage Board has us all beat!   They are hosting their event in the Medieval St. Karin Church ruin in central Visby on the island of Gotland, Sweden.  That very same church ruin is actually pictured in one of the photographs they've uploaded to The Commons.  It kind of doesn't get more meta than that!

Coming to a meetup?  Tweet using the #CommonGround hashtag and if you upload photos to Flickr, tag them CommonGround2009 and we'd love to see them added to The Commons group.  Hope to meet you there!

go to the original blog post...

close

close

1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration Illuminations

Tara Cuthbert on September 17, 2009

One hundred years ago the Brooklyn Museum participated in the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, a city-wide event organized by New York State. The 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration honored two significant historical moments—the centennial of Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat; and the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s entry into New York Harbor, laying the foundation for Dutch colonization in New York.



View of the Brooklyn Museum's Eastern Parkway façade, showing the museum lit up for Hudson Fulton Centennial, 1909. B/w copy negative, 5 x 7in (12.7 x 17.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum building. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, S06_BEEi014.jpg)

The 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration illuminated New York City in hundreds of thousands of electric lights. This idea can’t quite have the same impact as it did one hundred years ago. In 2009, events such as Earth Hour are celebrated to turn off electric lights and lessen our impact on global warming. However, to understand how the Illuminations were perceived in 1909, it may help to consider that electric lighting was slowly making its way into residential homes, and at that point in time only three out of every ten homes in New York City had electricity. This 1909 advertisement for home electricity highlights the benefits of bringing electric light into homes.



Advertisement for Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brooklyn, at the time of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. Printed in the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences Bulletin, Volume 3, no. 16, December 25, 1909.

The 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration Illuminations throughout the city were unprecedented, “the result was an electrical display of great variety and wonderful beauty which excited the admiration of everyone and make a spectacle which had never been presented in New York before on so grand a scale.” The Brooklyn Museum participated in the celebrations by covering the building in 7,200 lights as seen in the first photograph of this post.

In addition to the Illuminations, the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration included art exhibitions, concerts, street and water parades, attracting visitors from all over the world and the Museum Libraries hold many published historical resources [pdf] on the Hudson-Fulton Celebration.  2009 also marks the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival, and a huge range of Dutch themed events scheduled throughout the year can be found through the NY400 website.

go to the original blog post...

close