The Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS)

Collections: Brooklyn Historical Society houses a world-renowned archives and special collections library on The second floor of its landmark building. The othmer library's magnificent reading room, with its stained-glass windows and carved wooden columns, transports The visitor to an earlier era. Brooklyn Historical Society is The only cultural institution in Brooklyn that maintains a permanent oral history program. Begun in 1973, Brooklyn Historical Society's oral history collections now include over 1,200 interviews. Through an integrated description program with The library & archives, these oral histories bring The voices of history to broad audiences. The collections provide a wealth of Historical evidence about The lives of twentieth and twenty-first-century Brooklyn residents and reveal how diverse individuals and communities have sought to preserve vital social, political, religious, and cultural traditions as brooklynites, new yorkers, and americans. The collections contain interviews conducted in english, spanish, cantonese, and mandarin, with narrators born as early as 1880.