public health, past and present: stories from brooklyn historical society

Public Health, Past and Present:Stories from Brooklyn Historical Society

Julie Golia & Robin Katz,

Brooklyn Historical Society

September 12, 2011

History & Public Health

• Tracing the history of public health through BHS materials– Changing approaches to sickness and sanitation– Impact of urban growth on public health– Changing role of health institutions– Organizing and activism

• How historical forces affect health today

Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society

A Different Kind of Library


A Different Kind of Library

• Collecting Focus– History of Brooklyn and Long Island

• Policies and Procedures• Special Collections and Archives

– Primary and secondary sources

• Research at our library also requires the LIU Library, other sources


Primary Sources

• What is a primary source?• Why use primary sources?• Challenges of using primary sources• Challenges of finding the right sources


Brooklyn’s Diverse History

• Native American and Dutch origins• British-occupied during Revolution• Robust agricultural economy• Growth of neighborhoods and industrial

waterfront• Immigration and diversity• 20th century decline and regeneration


Native Americans & Disease



• Lenape Indians, Dutch settlers, and land dispossession

• 1636, first land transaction between Dutch settler and Canarsee Indians

• Biological transactions: smallpox• By early 18th century, decimated Lenape

population



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During his 1679 visit to New York, Jasper Danckaerts recorded in his diary that smallpox had greatly reduced the populations of Native Americans in Brooklyn.

Drawing of Native American Woman, 1679; Jasper Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter Journals, 1974.024; Brooklyn Historical Society.


BHS libraries chronicle land transactions between European settlers and Native Americans. A 1909 typescript deed documenting the 1665 sale of land in present-day Brooklyn.

Deed, 1665 (copy 1909); American Indians and English settlers Gravesend Deed, 1977.594; Brooklyn Historical Society.


War & Disease


War & Disease

• Revolutionary War: 8,000 Americans die in battle; upwards of 18,000 of disease– Deplorable conditions of prisons– Prison ships like the “Jersey”– 11,500 die in NYC and Brooklyn

• Civil War: Andersonville prison• Roots of wartime disease: supply lines,

facilities, bureaucracy, personnel


War & Disease

Old Jersey Prison Ship

Old Jersey Prison Ship / Wallabout bay, Brooklyn, N.Y., circa 1888; Prints collection, V1973.6.555; Brooklyn Historical Society.


War & Disease

“The next disgusting object which met my sight was a man suffering with the small pox; and in a few minutes, I found myself surrounded by many others, labouring under the same disease, in every stage of its progress.”

Greene, Albert. Recollections of the Jersey prison ship : from the manuscript of Capt. Thomas Dring prisoner. Bedford, MA: Applewood Books; Chester, CT: Distributed by the Globe Pequot Press, 1992.


War & Disease

Andersonville Prison, Andersonville, Georgia, 1864

“500 prisoners for weeks suffering of disease in almost every form evident to man …

Nakedness, in many instances mental depression and in many instances melancholy.”

“Surrounding circumstances positively preclude the possibility of rendering thus efficient

services demanded by suffering humanity …”

Daily Medical Officer Report, August 12, 1864; Civil War collection, 1977.200, Box 1, Folder 3; Brooklyn Historical Society.


Yellow Fever & Urban Growth



• Early 19th century urban growth in Brooklyn and NYC– Importance of waterways bringing in people,

goods, and disease

• Increasing population density, growing sanitation problems, epidemic disease

• Yellow Fever in Brooklyn and NYC


Yellow Fever & Urban GrowthGabriel Furman: Amateur Epidemiologist?


Gabriel Furman papers, ARC.190, vol. 3, page 3-58; Brooklyn Historical Society.


Mapping the source of disease.


Gabriel Furman papers, ARC.190, vol. 3, page 3-58; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Parks & Wellness


Parks & Wellness

• Role of immigration in population growth• 1855: 47% of Brooklynites foreign born• How to ameliorate population density in

urban space? • Public parks as “a breathing place”• 1847: Washington Park (Ft. Greene Park)• 1867: Prospect Park


Parks & Wellness

Note the park’s proximity to Brooklyn Navy Yard.


J. B. Beers & Co., Farm Line Maps of the City of Brooklyn, from Official Records & Surveys. New York: J. B. Beers, 1874; Atlas 8, Brooklyn Historical Society.

Parks & Wellness

“Of course no man, with a clear eye to things, can deny the immensely sanative influence, in a city, of plentiful open grounds …. The extensive class of diseases called epidemics and endemics are both ameliorated (perhaps would be prevented, in many cases,) by a free circulation of air – and the absence of the clattered up buildings and structures that thrift … crams into great cities.”

Walt Whitman, editor

Brooklyn Eagle, June 20, 1846, page 2.


Selling Homes, Selling Health



• Brooklyn: agricultural roots– As late as 1890s: Brooklyn 2nd largest supplier

of produce to NYC

• Decline of agriculture: real estate boom• Marketing Brooklyn against the evils of

Manhattan• Growth of transportation infrastructure



Blythebourne, New Utrecht, Brooklyn

Property of Blythebourne Improvement Co. at Bath Beach Junction, Kings Co., L.I. 1887? Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.



Map versos offer great evidence about real estate marketing.

Property of Blythebourne Improvement Co. at Bath Beach Junction, Kings Co., L.I. 1887? Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.



The Lefferts family: farmland and transportation infrastructure.Flatbush Plank Road Company stock certificate, January 10, 1863; Lefferts family

papers; ARC.145, Box 3, Folder 11; Brooklyn Historical Society.



Prospect Park fueled a real estate boom in neighboring areas like Park Slope and Flatbush.


Northrop, Henry Sanford, Entrance to Prospect Park, 1918; Works on Paper, M1975.295.21; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Dealing with Disease



• Creating institutions, infrastructures to deal with health and disease

• Hospitals• Charities and reform movements

– Women play important role

• Professionalization of medicine• Invention and production of penicillin



Penicillin Production in Brooklyn: the Pfizer Collections

Founded in Brooklyn in 1849, Pfizer is now one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Over 20 past and current employees of the Brooklyn plant –where mass production of penicillin was first discovered were interviewed on the occasion of the closing of this historic manufacturing plant. On June 12, 2008, Pfizer's Brooklyn plant was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the New York Section of the American Chemical Society for its breakthrough developments in Deep-Tank Fermentation that made the mass production of penicillin possible.

Pfizer Brooklyn Oral History collection, 2008.029; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Pfizer Inc. collection, ARC.084; Brooklyn Historical Society.


Dealing With DiseaseHEALTH CARE FACILITIES• Brooklyn hospital records, ARC.225• Brooklyn hospitals and health services organizations collection, ARC.141• Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital records, 1985.005• Long Island College Hospital collection, ARC.139• Methodist Episcopal Hospital annual reports and ephemera collection, ARC.155• Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses' Home and Hospital annual reports and receipts, ARC.246• Viscount and Viscountess Halifax photographs of Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn, 1974.017• Brooklyn Home for Consumptives Annual Report, 1985.099

MEDICAL SOCIETY• Medical Society of the County of Kings collection, 1985.116

CHARITIES• Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities collection, 1985.097• Brooklyn charitable organizations for the aged publications, 1985.105• Church Charity Foundation of Long Island publications, 1985.113


Dealing With Disease

Brooklyn Sanitation Fair

Through the Women’s Relief Association of Brooklyn, middle-class women played a major role in raising money for the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Their 1864 Sanitary Fair raised $400,000 – more than any other organization in the country.

Collection of Brooklyn, N.Y., Civil War relief associations ARC.245, Box and Folder number; Brooklyn Historical Society.


Sewage and Sanitation


Sewage and Sanitation

• Using and interpreting sources to understand sanitation-health relationship

• Gowanus Canal: pollution, health, land use• Materials at BHS include:

– Maps and atlases– Government reports– Archeological papers– Photographs and works on paper


Public Health & Civil Rights



• 20th c. Brooklyn: deindustrialization, urban flight

• Diversification of Brooklyn– Changing immigration patterns– African Americans & the Great Migration

• Public Housing• Civil Rights Movement in the North:

equitable city services


Public Health & Civil RightsTracking neighborhoods and disease

Maps and Charts prepared by the Slum Clearance Committee of New York, 1933-1934; Plate 40; Brooklyn Historical Society.



Activism in Brooklyn: Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation

• First community development corporation (CDC) in US (1967)• Affordable Housing• Employment • Economic Development• Arts and Culture

BHS Collections • Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation Publication and Photograph

collection, ARC.124; Brooklyn Historical Society.• Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation Oral History collection, 2008.030;

Brooklyn Historical Society.



“The State of the Community,” Restoration vol. 4. no. 1, January/February 1974; Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation Publication and Photograph collection, ARC.124; Brooklyn Historical Society.



Photograph of Gates & Lewis Avenues, September 1962; Arnie Goldwag Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) collection, ARC.002, Box 1, Folder 5; Brooklyn Historical Society.



North Star newsletter, October 1, 1962; Arnie Goldwag Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) collection, ARC.002, Box 5, Folder 9; Brooklyn Historical Society.


“FIVE DAY PICK-UP ACHIEVED”

Operation Clean Sweep, 1962 - 1963

General Resources at BHS

• Maps and atlases• Common Council minutes• Directories• Brooklyn and Long Island scrapbooks

(indexed newspaper clippings)


Start Research at Home

• Library Catalog (BobCat) – individual, published items: books, maps, etc.

• Catablog (Emma)– library collections– archival collections– subject guides

• Online Image Gallery

http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library/search.html


http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library/search.html

Visit BHS

• Museum: Wednesday – Sunday, 12:00 – 5:00

Admission is free with LIU student/faculty/staff ID• Library: Wednesday – Friday, 1:00 – 5:00• Make appointments one week before library visit at

http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library/ask.html

to use archival material or rare books and maps

128 Pierrepont St.

Brooklyn, NY 11201

718-444-2111


http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library/ask.html

Thank You


• Julie Golia, Ph.D.

Public Historian

[email protected]

• Robin M. Katz

Outreach & Public Services Archivist

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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