Are you interested in finding national history on local streets? What about developing a personal relationship to national and local history? Or increasing your understanding of geography, immigration, industrialization, urbanization, economics, labor issues, and the role of the port in the growth of New York City? And what if you can do all that while learning how to use primary source documents to draw your own conclusions about history, which will also help you prepare for document-based questions on Regents and AP exams? Oh yeah, and all while having fun too!

Well, at the Brooklyn Historical Society, you can do all this. In fact, the above phrases were taken almost verbatim from one of their History Hunters packets, which you (and/or your teacher) can use as you prowl the streets of Brooklyn for traces of Americana. Each kit provides a brief history of the community on which it focuses, including general historical information to put the growth of the community within a larger, national context. It also provides primary document sources such as maps, testimonies, poems, newspaper clippings, and locally published articles, to explore how national politics played out in the lives, businesses, and hobbies that made up the fabric of community life.

The History Hunters packet I looked through was about Greenpoint. I learned that, though Greenpoint is now home to the country’s largest Polish-American community, it started out as a rural town that didn’t see mass immigration until the 1800s, when it grew to support a busy waterfront. Before getting oil refineries in the industrial age, it was home to the largest number of rope factories in the nation. Local artisans also produced large quantities of glass, porcelain, and iron. In the late 1800s this place had one of the world’s largest shipping industries, so you can only imagine its impact on the role of ports in U.S. history.

Now, you might not expect something like the history of the pencil to teach you about Brooklyn, economics, capitalism, urbanization, industrialization, or immigrants’ and women’s labor issues, but check out the kit’s information on the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company. Eberhard, the first pencil company in the states, transplanted itself to Greenpoint in 1872, and until 1893 this pencil monopoly grew and grew and grew. Its story includes health care for workers (a doctor actually came to the factory) but also lower wages and less job security for women.

Not to give away all of the folder on Greenpoint, but you can learn about the industrialization of rope making, read the Rope Walk Poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and read an oral history about Thomas F. Mudy, a rope worker. You can also learn about Astral Apartments, built by Charles Pratt (founder of the Pratt Institute)—concerned with the social welfare of his kerosene oil workers, he built them a nice, affordable apartment complex, complete with its own kindergarten and library. And these are just a few of the items in the History Hunter’s Greenpoint kit, and that is just one of several Brooklyn cities with its own History Hunter kit, and History Hunters is just one of the many programs the Brooklyn Society has that you can take advantage of!

The Society has also published several neighborhood guides with the theme of the working waterfront, including Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Dumbo, Red Hook, and Bay Ridge. These guides are full of history. For example, in the Williamsburg guide you can find out about the Lenape, the original inhabitants of the Williamsburg area; who Jonathan Williams was (the city was named after him—but he never lived in it); local businesses and factories; the shipping industry; the development of the ferry service; the struggle for abolition and the education of blacks (e.g., Willis Hodges—a great person to research); the Williamsburg Bridge; public housing; Pfizer, the company that made history by being the first to mass produce penicillin; or the Saint Nicolas Neighborhood Preservation Corporation, which renovates apartments and provides health care and job training programs.

Another resource put together by the Brooklyn Historical Society is Picture This, a three-part classroom series that looks at Brooklyn on the move, Brooklyn at work, and of course our favorite bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, which alone could be a great research topic.

Okay, so you’re doing your research but you’re so tired of reading more stuff. What do you do? Well, at the Brooklyn Historical Society you can take a break from your reading, but not necessarily from your research, by looking through their Image Database [http://www.brooklynhistory.org/photo_database.html](you’ll need an appointment to use it, though). Although particularly strong in 19th and early 20th century images, the database includes images from as early as the 17th century, including some from the Revolutionary War battles of Brooklyn and Long Island. Mostly photographs, but also including maps and sketches, these images depict such subjects as Brooklyn towns, streets, family histories, factories, workshops, monuments, and bridges. I found pictures of Grand Army Plaza, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, my buddy Eberhard Faber, a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, a ropewalk, the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Prospect Park and the Litchfield Mansion, the Coney Island Railroad, Jackie Robinson in the 1965 World Series, and Atlantic Avenue in 1922. Searching is very easy, and printing is free.

Now in addition to all of this wonderful stuff, the Society also has a library [http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library_collections.html]. Its collection [http://www.brooklynhistory.org/museum_collections.html] provides the basis for its exhibits[http://www.brooklynhistory.org/exhibitions.html], such as one on photographs by Louis Hine that primarily depict children working from the Eastman House in Rochester. The Society also has information on the restoration of their building, a National Landmark by the famous architect George B. Post. (Research Post. He was renowned not just for his aesthetics but also for his ability to challenge the norm. He was, after all, the first to use elevators in a building, and two of his buildings were the tallest in the city at the time they were built.)

Many of the exhibits contain primary sources like diaries, memos, cartoons, photographs, and personal objects, making them a great place to do some research. They are especially strong on dolls, toys, Dodgers memorabilia and Coney Island. (You could research theme parks if you want!) The collection also includes such varied items as slave deeds, push carts, love letters, and tool boxes.

The library contains over 150,000 bound volumes. Besides books, that figure includes, maps, atlases, manuscripts, images, newspapers, periodicals, institutional records, and oral histories. Highlights include the Henry Ward Beecher Papers, the Pierrepont Papers, and various slavery and abolitionist materials. Be aware that you’ll need an appointment to use the library, so be sure to call ahead and mention what kind of research material you’re interested in.