The Atlantic Yacht Club, located on the shores of Gravesend Bay in south Brooklyn, is perhaps best known for its contributions to New York sailing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many years, it was one of the largest and most prestigious yacht clubs in New York City. [Read more…] about Atlantic Yacht Club: A Brief History
Brooklyn
Anthropodermic Bibliopegy Skills of A Brooklyn Bookbinder
In early America, Boston was the main centre of the book trade (including bookbinding), followed by Philadelphia and, by a distance, New York. As most early bookbinders worked anonymously, it is difficult to put a timeline to developments. [Read more…] about Anthropodermic Bibliopegy Skills of A Brooklyn Bookbinder
Huguenot Pirates on the Barbary Coast and the Mapping of New Amsterdam
Huguenots were followers of Jean Calvin’s teachings for which they were persecuted in Catholic France. Many were forced to leave the country and settled in the Netherlands, Switzerland, England, and South Africa.
Nicolas Martiau was one of a number of refugees who made their way to America (Virginia) via England. A surveyor and engineer in the service of Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntington, he was an ancestor of George Washington. [Read more…] about Huguenot Pirates on the Barbary Coast and the Mapping of New Amsterdam
Garnet Douglass Baltimore: Troy’s Landscape Master
By the middle of the 19th century, Americans realized that parks provided a spot of nature and greenery amidst an increasingly busy and industrialized world. Many men, women and children worked six days a week, and never had the time or resources to get away.
Yes, parks were beautiful, but they were also very important for mental and physical health. Cities that wanted to thrive began looking for space and funding for public parks. [Read more…] about Garnet Douglass Baltimore: Troy’s Landscape Master
Brooklyn’s Monkey Trial of 1906
You may be familiar with the “Scopes Monkey Trial.” In 1925, teacher Thomas Scopes was brought into court for violating a Tennessee law that forbade the teaching of evolution. Scopes was defended by famed lawyer Clarence Darrow, who actually asked the jury to find his client guilty in order that the case could be appealed to a higher court.
In 1927, Scopes’ guilty verdict was reversed on a technicality, without addressing the issue of the law’s constitutionality. (That matter was not resolved until 1968, when the United States Supreme Court struck down – on First Amendment issues – a similar law in Arkansas.)
Years earlier, Brooklyn, New York had a monkey trial – but one that was entirely different. The Brooklyn case did not involve Darwin’s theory of evolution in any way – it concerned an actual living, breathing, in-the-flesh monkey. [Read more…] about Brooklyn’s Monkey Trial of 1906
Brooklyn Museum Reopening September 12th
The Brooklyn Museum is set to reopen to the public on September 12th.
The Museum’s first and fifth floor galleries will be open Wednesdays-Sundays, 11 am to 6 pm, with new extended hours on Fridays and Saturdays, to 8 pm.
A community day will be held September 9, with Member preview days following on September 10th and 11th. [Read more…] about Brooklyn Museum Reopening September 12th
Green-Wood Cemetery Digitizing 1840-1937 Burial Registry
The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded The Green-Wood Historic Fund a prestigious Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant to create a digitized and searchable database of the hand-written records of all interments at Green-Wood in its first century of operation. [Read more…] about Green-Wood Cemetery Digitizing 1840-1937 Burial Registry
Danny Kaye In The Catskills
It has often been said that the first play Danny Kaye ever saw, he was in.
That would have been in June 1929, at the White Roe Lake House in Livingston Manor, Sullivan County, NY, where the soon-to-be legendary performer got his professional start, and refined his trademark comedy routine. [Read more…] about Danny Kaye In The Catskills
Geographies of Gender at Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is set to celebrate their exhibit Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection during Women’s History Month on March 7th, as part of their First Saturday programs.
Throughout the evening, women and nonbinary artists from across Brooklyn explore how gender maps onto our bodies, our histories, and our political movements. Highlights include an artist talk with Naima Green, a Night Market, and music from Sammus. [Read more…] about Geographies of Gender at Brooklyn Museum
Collections Mystery: The Emancipator Newspaper in 1888
It has long been the conventional wisdom that the Irish in America trend Democratic in their voting tendencies. This was more true in the late 19th Century and in the 1880s, Republican Party election committees were hell-bent on mitigating that trend. [Read more…] about Collections Mystery: The Emancipator Newspaper in 1888