Public Health, Past and Present: Stories from BHS Library and Archives
Julie Golia & Robin Katz
Brooklyn Historical Society
September 19, 2012
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
– Relationship between war, peace, 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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Primary Sources
• What is a primary source?
• Why use primary sources?
• Challenges of using primary sources
• Challenges of finding the right sources
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Native Americans & Disease
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Native Americans & Disease
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Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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.
Native Americans & Disease
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.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
War & Disease
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● 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.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
War & Disease
Brooklyn Industry and War
• Manufacturing weapons, manufacturing healing – Ether and Battleships
– Edward R. Squibb
– Brooklyn Navy Yard
• Brooklynites build machinery of death for battlefields far away
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Yellow Fever, Cholera & Urban Growth
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Yellow Fever, Cholera & 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, Cholera in Brooklyn and NYC
– 1822 Yellow Fever outbreak – hard to track #s
– 1832 Cholera hits New York: 5,000 dead
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Yellow Fever, Cholera & Urban Growth
Gabriel Furman: Amateur Epidemiologist
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Gabriel Furman papers, ARC.190, vol. 3, page 3-58; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Yellow Fever, Cholera & Urban Growth
Mapping the source of disease.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Gabriel Furman papers, ARC.190, vol. 3, page 3-58; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Yellow Fever, Cholera & Urban Growth
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
• Examples of student public health projects at BHS
• Comparisons of cholera/venereal disease
• 19th century natural cancer treatment vs. today’s pharmaceutical industry
• History of opium regulation in 19th century
• Recreations of 19th century cures and remedies
For more on the projects see: http://safa.brooklynhistory.org/fellowship2012
Parks & Wellness
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Parks & Wellness
Note the park’s proximity to Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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.
Online access to the Brooklyn Eagle (October 26, 1841 to December 31, 1902) through Brooklyn Public Library http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Selling Homes, Selling Health
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Selling Homes, Selling Health
Blythebourne, New Utrecht, Brooklyn
Property of Blythebourne
Improvement Co. at Bath Beach Junction, Kings Co., L.I. 1887? Brooklyn Historical Society map collection.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Selling Homes, Selling Health
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.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Selling Homes, Selling Health
Prospect Park fueled a real estate boom in neighboring areas like Park Slope and Flatbush.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Northrop, Henry Sanford, Entrance to Prospect Park, 1918; Works on Paper, M1975.295.21; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Dealing with Disease
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Dealing with Disease
• Twentieth-century epidemics
– Polio outbreak 1916: ~ 2,000 deaths NYC
– Spanish influenza 1918: ~ 30,000 deaths NYC
• As transportation lines link parts of New York closer together, it becomes easier for disease to spread
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● 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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Dealing with Disease
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.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Dealing With Disease
HEALTH 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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Dealing With Disease
Brooklyn and Long Island Sanitary 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; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Sewage and Sanitation
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Sewage and Sanitation
• Using and interpreting sources to understand sanitation-health relationship
• Pollution, health, land use: Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek
• Materials at BHS include: – Maps and atlases
– Government reports
– Archeological papers
– Bureau of Sewer records
– Sewer Construction photos
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Public Health & Civil Rights
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Public Health & Civil Rights Tracking neighborhoods
and disease
Maps and Charts prepared by the Slum Clearance Committee of New York, 1933-1934; Plate 40; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Public Health & Civil Rights
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.
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
General Resources at BHS
• Maps and atlases
• Common Council minutes
• Directories
• Brooklyn and Long Island scrapbooks (indexed newspaper clippings)
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Start Research at Home
• Library catalog (BobCat)
– individual, published items: books, maps, etc.
• Finding aids
– archival collections
• Catablog (Emma)
– library collections described as a whole
– subject guides
– also: archival collections
• Online image gallery
http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library/search.html
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Visit BHS
• Museum: Wednesday – Saturday, 12:00 – 5:00pm
Admission is free with LIU student/faculty/staff ID
• Library: Wednesday – Friday, 1:00 – 5:00pm
• 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
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
Thank You
Students and Faculty in the Archives ● Brooklyn Historical Society
• Julie Golia, Ph.D.
Public Historian
Co-Director, Students and Faculty in the Archives
• Robin M. Katz
Outreach & Public Services Archivist
Co-Director, Students and Faculty in the Archives
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