You may not be old enough to remember when Brooklyn was its own city, but the Brooklyn Museum remembers. When it first came into being as a small library in 1821, not only had Brooklyn not yet been incorporated into the City of New York, but the Brooklyn Bridge hadn’t even been built, and would not be built for another 62 years. The Brooklyn Museum is unique, because unlike many other world-class institutions (it is the second biggest museum in the city and holds one of the world’s best collections of Egyptian art), it is very much grounded in its own local history.

You can come here to study American furniture, architecture, painting, and decorative arts. But you can also come here to study Brooklyn. Indeed, just tracing the history of the museum, which from its start has been an active member of the Brooklyn community, yields an amazing amount of information about the history and development of the borough. But whether you want to study the history of Brooklyn, the history of New York, or American history in general, the Brooklyn Museum is a great place to visit.

Don’t let the fact that this place is an art museum scare you away. While you will mainly examine different pieces of artwork, there is a great resource center available to you detailing all sorts of history behind the exhibits. A few topics you might come to the museum to study include art in or about Brooklyn or New York City, the development of New York City, the museum itself, social activism in the 19th century (building Prospect and Central parks), the role of the museum in American history and society, art from the Atomic Age, early colonial American artwork, and topics in Native American culture and history. And who knows what else you will find!

The majority of the American art on exhibit is part of the museum’s permanent collection and grouped together on its own, so it’s not hard to find. You should start on the fifth floor at the Luce Center for American Art, where you’ll find complimentary audio guides. The current long-term exhibit, “American Identities,” is a series mainly of paintings, but also of furniture and sculpture, that relate to the history of the United States. Each room has a designated period, and the rooms are arranged chronologically.

You'll see paintings by Gilbert Stuart, Charles Wilson Peale, Samuel B. Morse (the telegraph guy was a portrait painter too), and Durand. The East River Park portrait by William Glackens could be used as part of a paper on the importance of parks in an urban environment. Looking at it, you see how life in the park moves at a different pace, as the city’s businesses and pollution fade into the background. And be sure to look at “Winter Scene in Brooklyn c. 1819-1820” by Francis Guy. It depicts downtown Brooklyn from a second-story building facing Front Street.

Nearby is an encased anti-slavery medallion inscribed with the words “Am I not a man and a brother?” which abolitionists put on snuffboxes and made into jewelry. “Manifest destiny” ring a bell? Well, the progression moves quickly towards works of the Hudson River School and tantalizing depictions of the untamed, seemingly untapped, wilderness that was the West.

An entire room is dedicated to the black image in American art. A video explores works on display as well as other well-known images, such as Aunt Jemima. In the Civil War room, make sure to see “A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slave ca. 1862” by Eastman Johnson. This is a perfect example of how an artwork could be useful in your writing. Johnson traveled during the Civil War, recording his experiences in paintings that he sent to newspapers. This one depicts a black family on horseback pushing to make the Union line in early dawn. Though proud of this painting, Johnson never showed it publicly during his lifetime because the idea of a black man taking control of his own destiny was too controversial.

Other rooms include works by American artists influenced by Asian art, some Native American art, Plain art (folk art), and finally modern art. Probably you will find the last few rooms too abstract and contemporary to be extremely useful, but consider checking them out.

Recently, the Museum opened the state-of-the-art Luce Center for Visible Storage. In this gallery located adjacent to “American Identities,” you will find 1,500 objects, many of them on view for the very first time. How cool is it that you now have the opportunity to see these items? Documentation of the individual works in the Luce Center for American Art will be offered on computer kiosks within the Visible Storage.

If you want to escape from paintings, visit the fourth floor, where you can find all sorts of American furniture, architecture, and decorative arts. Here entire rooms, in some cases even entire parts of houses, have been reconstructed so that you can literally walk into the lives of people in different periods and places. Visit the Hall Jan Martense Schenk house, for example, a two-room house from Flatlands, Brooklyn, ca. 1675. The space you see would have acted as an all-purpose room in addition to a kitchen. The open hearth, brass, pewter, and earthenware all are typical of the period. Though the room is tidy, so much traffic would have brought in a lot of dirt. Aren’t you lucky that you weren’t the person who had to clean the floor? You would have scrubbed the entire thing with sand.

You can also visit the Henry Trippe House from c. 1730 in Secretary, Maryland, the Cupola House of Edenton, N.C. (c.1758), (the only known example of a Southern house with an overhanging second story), or drop in on John D. Rockefeller in his West 54th Street home.

Disappointed that you’re not spending a lot of time in the museum’s Egyptian collection? Well, even Egyptian art has influenced American furniture, from pianos, cups and saucers to lamps. Be surprised by what even furniture can tell you. If you are so inspired, you could write an entire paper on the development of styles of American furniture from interpretations of British styles. You could look at pieces of furniture made in the Federal style in 18th-century America and contrast them with their parent style, 18th-century English Chippendale.

If examining the past in houses and paintings isn’t enough for you, don’t despair. Though it is not currently on display, the museum also has a large collection of Native American artifacts and lots of information on them.

The changing exhibits may or may not be relevant to your research topic. To find out about them, check out the information on the museum’s website about current exhibitions [http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/].

Okay, so now you’ve got lots of ideas and questions and you’re ready to start some hard-core research. Make your way to the learning center, which is open to you free of charge. This place is great, and it was made especially with you in mind. Use it. You need to plan ahead, though, because visiting the center requires an appointment. If you are pretty sure that you will be doing a large part of your research at the museum, you may want to make an appointment for your first visit rather than having to come back a second time. The number for the learning center is 718-501-6230. There is also some information about the learning center online at http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/education/resources/learning-center. It is worth your while to click the link to the Brooklyn Expedition where you’ll find a free pass that might prove useful. The learning center is not your best general historical resource, but it’s great if you want specific information on objects in the museum’s collections.

You can also find information on old and new exhibits. One thing to note is that their inventories also include the text that accompanies each artwork when it is exhibited. So you don’t have to spend hours taking notes as you walk through the exhibits – you can just come to the learning center and photocopy the texts. Though there are computers in the learning center for Internet research and CD-ROMs, and photocopying (which is free) is really the best way to take information out of the museum with you, be sure to bring paper and pen – just in case.

In addition to books related to exhibits, you will find a lot of lesson plans and teacher preparations that will be helpful. The learning center staff may also direct you to the art reference library or a curatorial department, but you should not try to contact them on your own. If you are directed to them, you will have to make a request in writing and wait for staff to contact you before you can visit.

The museum runs many programs that you should consider taking advantage of: art classes for students in which you explore the museum’s holdings and learn how to view and create art; several teen programs; and a summer apprentice program where you learn about art by preparing to lead younger students through the museum. For information and fees, check the museum’s website.

Perhaps more helpful for doing research and more convenient for your schedule are “first Saturdays” programs. Although the museum lets you pay what you wish, on the first Saturday of every month it doesn’t ask for any admission fee and offers several special programs, including concerts, performances, artist talks, curator-led tours of exhibits, films, and even parties—all free. If you can’t make a first Saturday, don’t worry. Tours of the different galleries are given throughout the week and are free with admission. Special programs also occur on other weekend days other than the first Saturday.