In Episode 36 of Flatbush + Main, Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia say farewell to Brooklyn Historical Society by revisiting their favorite segments from the podcast’s history.

Thank you so much for being such loyal and passionate listeners. It has been a joy to make Brooklyn history with you. Please keep in touch and follow us on Twitter @JuliethePH and @zaheerali.

And keep an eye out for exciting new history projects at Brooklyn Historical Society!

Index01:04:03 Histories and Ideas (Ep. 15: Welcome to BHS Dumbo)00:23:45 Into the Archives (Ep. 28: The New York City Draft Riots)00:42:45 Voices of Brooklyn (Ep. 35: Wandering Brooklyn with Walt Whitman)

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our podcast! Be sure to revisit your favorite episodes and share the experience of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 36: Making Brooklyn History appeared first on Center for Brooklyn History.

In Episode 35 of Flatbush + Main, we celebrate the 200th birthday of Brooklyn’s bard, Walt Whitman. Whitman was a journalist, a poet, a lover, a wanderer, and a Brooklynite. We consider his experiences walking Brooklyn’s streets and the inspiration he drew from the places and people he encountered.

Index00:02:28 Histories and Ideas00:13:16 Into the Archives00:27:00 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you use. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

For our first segment, Zaheer and Julie partnered with our friends at BackStory.  They talked with historian and BackStory cohost Joanne Freeman about Walt Whitman the Brooklynite, and the places and forces that shaped his life. You can listen to BackStory’s full episode on Walt Whitman here.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

Walt Whitman kept over 100 journals, which are now held at the Library of Congress. Inside of these commonplace books, Whitman recorded diary entries, drafts, literary notes, names and addresses, sketches and drawings, and trial titles. Among the entries, Whitman would also list the names of the men he met and had romantic attachments with along Brooklyn’s waterfront. In this segment, Zaheer and Julie discuss the significance of these entries, and what we can learn about the Brooklyn stomping grounds that defined Whitman’s personal and professional life.

You can learn more about the Walt Whitman collections held at the Library of Congress here, and explore digitized images of the journals here.

Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

In this segment, Julie and Zaheer listen to clips from the oral history of poet Suheir Hammad, from BHS’s Muslims in Brooklyn oral history collection.

Segment 4: Endorsements

Zaheer endorsed “The Tea on Brooklyn’s Prismatic LGBTQ Nightlife,” a public program at BHS’s Pierrepont St. headquarters on Monday, June 24, 2019 at 6:30pm. Brooklyn has been home to LGBTQ gatherings for decades. The program will feature clips from We Came to Sweat, the documentary on the storied Starlite Lounge that was home to a queer black community Crown Heights, and a panel featuring Calvin Clark of the former Club Langston; curator, writer, and social activist Kimberly Drew; Mohammed Fayaz of the queer POC dance party collective Papi Juice; and Ryann Holmes of the collective Bklyn Boihood. Tickets are $10 and $5 for members; reserve them here.

Julie endorsed “Getting the History of HIV/AIDS Right,” a public program at BHS’s Pierrepont St. headquarters on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 6:30pm. The program will feature University of Illinois at Chicago professor Jennifer Brier, author of Infectious Ideas: U,S. Political Response to the AIDS Crisis, in conversation with Northwestern University professor and journalist Steven Thrasher, whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian and Esquire. Brier and thrasher will debunk historical myths about HIV/AIDS in America and push the audience to reconsider why particular narratives about the disease persist to this day. The conversation will touch on gender, race, sexuality, political and social history, and the tension between complacency and urgency today. This program is presented in connection with the exhibition, Taking Care of Brooklyn: Stories of Sickness and Health, which opened on May 31. Tickets are $10 and $5 for members; reserve them here.

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 35: Wandering Brooklyn With Walt Whitman appeared first on Center for Brooklyn History.

In Episode 34 of Brooklyn Historical Society’s podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss Brooklyn’s long farming history, and the complex interplay of power, land, and labor in Kings County.

Index00:02:16 Histories and Ideas00:17:51 Into the Archives00:32:57 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you use. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

In this segment, Zaheer and Julie discuss a surprising topic: how farms persisted in Kings County well into the 20th century. The look at the essential role that slavery played in Brooklyn’s farming economy before emancipation in 1827. And they consider the impact of new transportation technologies on land use in Kings County.

To learn more about Brooklyn’s agricultural origins, check out our digital exhibition An American Family Grows in Brooklyn: Tee Lefferts Family Papers.

For an in-depth look Brooklyn’s market farms in the early 20th century, check out the book Of Cabbages and Kings County: Agriculture and the Formation of Modern Brooklyn.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

To bring agricultural Brooklyn to life, Julie and Zaheer look at photographs and documents from the Lefferts family papers at Brooklyn Historical Society.

Photo of a Dutch farm house, circa 1890

Photo of a Brooklyn farm, circa 1880

Photo of James Lefferts, circa 1900s

On the Vanderveer Farm, circa 1920

The village of Flatbush as it was in the year 1870, 1943

You can explore these documents and more in the image gallery associated with BHS’s digital exhibition, An American Family Grows in Brooklyn.

Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

In this segment, Zaheer and Julie listen to clips from the oral histories of Gregg Todd and Sophie Johnson, both from the Voices of Crown Heights oral histories collection.

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 34: Land and Labor in Agricultural Brooklyn appeared first on Center for Brooklyn History.

In Episode 33 of Brooklyn Historical Society’s podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia explore Coney Island’s queer history.

Guest Hugh Ryan joins Julie and Zaheer this episode. Hugh is the author of the new book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, and the co-curator, with Avram Finkelstein, of BHS’s newest exhibition, On the (Queer) Waterfront.

Index00:02:34 Histories and Ideas00:20:39 Into the Archives00:39:09 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you use. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

In this segment, Zaheer, Julie, and Hugh explore the history of Coney Island through the lens of queer history. Hugh highlights the ways that Coney Island, with its public baths, amusement parks, and attractions, was an ideal place for queer communities to thrive and for people to push the boundaries of traditional sexuality. The three also discuss how the city’s social and economic transformations in the 1950s and 1960s let to the decline of Coney Island as a queer haven.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

Julie, Zaheer, and Hugh examine Coney Island’s decline and rebirth as a center of queer life through the lens of photography. Amalyzing images by photographers Anders Goldfarb and Lucille Fornasieri Gold, they discuss the destruction of institutions like Stauch’s Baths, and the regeneration of queer experience through Coney Island’s famous Mermaid Parade, launched in 1983.

You can look at more photographs by Goldfarb and Gold in BHS’s online gallery.

Stauch's Baths, Anders Goldfarb, Stauch's Baths, 1984, V1992.48.1; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Mermaid Parade attendees, Lucille Fornasieri Gold, Mermaid Parade attendees, circa 2005, V2008.013.15; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

In this segment, Zaheer, Julie, and Hugh listen to selections from an oral history of Mabel Hampton taken by the Lesbian Herstory Archives. You can listen to several different interviews with Mabel Hampton on the LHA’s website.

Segment 4: Endorsements

This has been a busy few weeks at BHS – we just launched our new website (check it out)! As we’ve ironed out the kinks of our new system, we posted this episode later than planned, so some of the endorsements we made when we recorded have already passed.

That said, everyone should come to the event endorsed by Hugh. On Monday, April 15, BHS will host “George Chauncey on Gay Male Culture in Post-War NYC.” George Chauncey’s trailblazing book Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, shattered the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed only in the closet. In this presentation, Chauncey, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, picks up where he left off, examining NYC’s post-war gay culture and politics. The event starts at 6:30, and tickets are $10 for general admission, $5 for members. You can purchase tickets here.

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 33: Queer Coney Island appeared first on Center for Brooklyn History.

In Episode 32 of Brooklyn Historical Society’s podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia examine the history of Muslims in Brooklyn, drawing on BHS’s groundbreaking public and oral history project that launched in 2017.

Index00:02:04 Histories and Ideas00:16:34 Into the Archives00:27:35 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you use. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

In this segment, Julie and Zaheer talk about the Muslims in Brooklyn project, and the project’s goals to convey the long, diverse, and dynamic histories of Muslims in Brooklyn and New York City. For well over a century, Muslims have lived, worked, and prayed in Brooklyn, making it a major center of Muslim life not just in New York City, but the nation. They provide an overview of the histories of Muslims in New York City, and some of the themes that have informed those histories, including physical and spiritual migrations, community formations, neighborhood change, civic engagement, and the arts. They also reflect on the import of the project at a time when anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

Julie and Zaheer analyze a marketing brochure for the Al-Karim school, an Afrocentric school that opened in Crown Heights in the early 1970s, and tease out the cultural influences of Islam on this school and other aspects of Brooklyn culture.

The document is from the Eastern Parkway Coalition records (2007.016); you can explore the finding aid here.

As Zaheer mentions in the segment, you can learn more by listening to the oral histories of one of the founders of the Al-Karim school, Ora Clark, and her son Karim Camara, who attended the school.

Marketing brochure for the Al-Karim school, circa 1970s

Marketing brochure for the Al-Karim school, circa 1970s

Marketing brochure for the Al-Karim school, circa 1970s

Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

In this segment, Julie and Zaheer listen to clips from the oral history of Brooklyn artists Mohammed Fayaz and Alsarah Abunama-Elgadi. You can hear their full interviews, as well as others that are part of the Muslims in Brooklyn oral histories collection on our Oral History portal.

Segment 4: Endorsements

Zaheer endorsed “Beauty, Media, Money and More: A Conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom,” a public program on Monday, February 25, 2010 at 6:30pm. In her new book Thick and Other Essays, Cottom — award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed — opens up about her role as a scholar and public figure. She is joined in conversation by Harlem-based writer, Morgan Jerkins, author of the New York Times bestseller This Will Be My Undoing. Tickets are $10 and $5 for members; reserve them here.

Julie endorsed a book talk given by Kellie Carter Jackson about her new book, Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, on Tuesday, February 26, 2019 at 6:30pm. Jackson, assistant professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College (and former Columbia colleague of Julie and Zaheer!), examines the political and social tensions preceding the American Civil War and the conditions that led some black abolitionists to believe that slavery might only be abolished by violence. Tickets are $5 and free for members; reserve them here.

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 32: Muslims in Brooklyn appeared first on Brooklyn Historical Society.

In Episode 32 of Brooklyn Historical Society’s podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia examine the history of Muslims in Brooklyn, drawing on BHS’s groundbreaking public and oral history project that launched in 2017.

Index00:02:04 Histories and Ideas00:16:34 Into the Archives00:27:35 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you use. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

In this segment, Julie and Zaheer talk about the Muslims in Brooklyn project, and the project’s goals to convey the long, diverse, and dynamic histories of Muslims in Brooklyn and New York City. For well over a century, Muslims have lived, worked, and prayed in Brooklyn, making it a major center of Muslim life not just in New York City, but the nation. They provide an overview of the histories of Muslims in New York City, and some of the themes that have informed those histories, including physical and spiritual migrations, community formations, neighborhood change, civic engagement, and the arts. They also reflect on the import of the project at a time when anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

Julie and Zaheer analyze a marketing brochure for the Al-Karim school, an Afrocentric school that opened in Crown Heights in the early 1970s, and tease out the cultural influences of Islam on this school and other aspects of Brooklyn culture.

The document is from the Eastern Parkway Coalition records (2007.016); you can explore the finding aid here.

As Zaheer mentions in the segment, you can learn more by listening to the oral histories of one of the founders of the Al-Karim school, Ora Clark, and her son Karim Camara, who attended the school.

Marketing brochure for the Al-Karim school, circa 1970s

Marketing brochure for the Al-Karim school, circa 1970s

Marketing brochure for the Al-Karim school, circa 1970s

Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

In this segment, Julie and Zaheer listen to clips from the oral history of Brooklyn artists Mohammed Fayaz and Alsarah Abunama-Elgadi. You can hear their full interviews, as well as others that are part of the Muslims in Brooklyn oral histories collection on our Oral History portal.

Segment 4: Endorsements

Zaheer endorsed “Beauty, Media, Money and More: A Conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom,” a public program on Monday, February 25, 2010 at 6:30pm. In her new book Thick and Other Essays, Cottom — award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed — opens up about her role as a scholar and public figure. She is joined in conversation by Harlem-based writer, Morgan Jerkins, author of the New York Times bestseller This Will Be My Undoing. Tickets are $10 and $5 for members; reserve them here.

Julie endorsed a book talk given by Kellie Carter Jackson about her new book, Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, on Tuesday, February 26, 2019 at 6:30pm. Jackson, assistant professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College (and former Columbia colleague of Julie and Zaheer!), examines the political and social tensions preceding the American Civil War and the conditions that led some black abolitionists to believe that slavery might only be abolished by violence. Tickets are $5 and free for members; reserve them here.

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 32: Muslims in Brooklyn appeared first on Center for Brooklyn History.

In Episode 31 of Brooklyn Historical Society’s podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss the infamous Blackout of 1977, the economic and social context that led up to the event, its impact on many Brooklyn neighborhoods, and its enduring legacy.

Index00:02:15 Histories and Ideas00:20:58 Into the Archives00:30:42 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us at brooklynhistory.org/fm-apple. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

Zaheer and Julie lay out the chronology of the blackout, which took place from July 13 to July 14, 1977. They contextualize the event in the context of 1970s New York City – deindustrialization, the financial crisis, white flight, red lining, declining city services, and the crowding and segregation present in many of the borough’s neighborhoods. They also discuss the loaded and racialized language used around the blackout – and how its use endures today.

For a great read on New York in the 1970s, check out Kim Phillips-Fein’s Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

Julie and Zaheer examine evocative slides capturing the aftermath of the blackout – including the destruction of houses and widespread fires – in the 1977 Blackout Slide Collection (2007.042). Explore the finding aid here. You can find images from the collection online here.

Extinguishing a fire in the Ruth Sam Book Shop building, 1977; v2007.042.56; BHS.

Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

In this segment, Julie and Zaheer listen to the experiences of Rudy Suggs during the 1977 Blackout. You can access his full interview on BHS’s Oral History portal here.

Destroyed building next to Ruth Sam Book Shop, 1977; v2007.042.33; BHS.

Segment 4: Endorsements

Julie and Zaheer did a joint endorsement of “Black-Owned Businesses: A History of Enterprise and Community in Brooklyn,” an event on Monday, February 11. Explore the rich history and social impact of businesses owned by and serving black communities in Brooklyn. Historian Jason Bartlett is joined by Cynthia Gordy Giwa, editor-in-chief of the online publication Black-Owned Brooklyn, and Jyll Hubbard-Salk, founder of Crown Heights yoga studio Urban Asanas, to discuss the challenges and triumphs of the network of black business owners then and now, and how growing economic empowerment has tied directly to the struggle for equality. Moderated by Digital Editor at Black Enterprise and host of What’s Eating Harlem?, Selena Hill. The event starts at 6:30 and there’s a public reception beforehand, provided by TD Bank, that starts at 5:15. Tickets are $5 and free for members; buy them here.

Flatbush + Main tackled this very topic last year – check out the episode here!

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 31: The Blackout of 1977 appeared first on Brooklyn Historical Society.

In Episode 31 of Brooklyn Historical Society’s podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss the infamous Blackout of 1977, the economic and social context that led up to the event, its impact on many Brooklyn neighborhoods, and its enduring legacy.

Index00:02:15 Histories and Ideas00:20:58 Into the Archives00:30:42 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us at brooklynhistory.org/fm-apple. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

Zaheer and Julie lay out the chronology of the blackout, which took place from July 13 to July 14, 1977. They contextualize the event in the context of 1970s New York City – deindustrialization, the financial crisis, white flight, red lining, declining city services, and the crowding and segregation present in many of the borough’s neighborhoods. They also discuss the loaded and racialized language used around the blackout – and how its use endures today.

For a great read on New York in the 1970s, check out Kim Phillips-Fein’s Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

Julie and Zaheer examine evocative slides capturing the aftermath of the blackout – including the destruction of houses and widespread fires – in the 1977 Blackout Slide Collection (2007.042). Explore the finding aid here. You can find images from the collection online here.

Extinguishing a fire in the Ruth & Sam Book Shop building, 1977; v2007.042.56; BHS.

Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

In this segment, Julie and Zaheer listen to the experiences of Rudy Suggs during the 1977 Blackout. You can access his full interview on BHS’s Oral History portal here.

Destroyed building next to Ruth & Sam Book Shop, 1977; v2007.042.33; BHS.

Segment 4: Endorsements

Julie and Zaheer did a joint endorsement of “Black-Owned Businesses: A History of Enterprise and Community in Brooklyn,” an event on Monday, February 11. Explore the rich history and social impact of businesses owned by and serving black communities in Brooklyn. Historian Jason Bartlett is joined by Cynthia Gordy Giwa, editor-in-chief of the online publication Black-Owned Brooklyn, and Jyll Hubbard-Salk, founder of Crown Heights yoga studio Urban Asanas, to discuss the challenges and triumphs of the network of black business owners then and now, and how growing economic empowerment has tied directly to the struggle for equality. Moderated by Digital Editor at Black Enterprise and host of What’s Eating Harlem?, Selena Hill. The event starts at 6:30 and there’s a public reception beforehand, provided by TD Bank, that starts at 5:15. Tickets are $5 and free for members; buy them here.

Flatbush + Main tackled this very topic last year – check out the episode here!

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 31: The Blackout of 1977 appeared first on Center for Brooklyn History.

In Episode 30 of Brooklyn Historical Society’s podcast Flatbush + Main, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia discuss Brooklyn Historical Society’s Puerto Rican Oral History Project (1973-1975), the institution’s first oral history collection, which resulted in over 80 interviews with narrators born as early as the 1880s. They situate this landmark undertaking in the social and intellectual developments of the 1960s and 1970s, from the Civil Rights Movement to the rise of Ethnic Studies programs.

Index 02:35 Histories and Ideas 20:30 Into the Archives 36:28 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us at brooklynhistory.org/fm-apple. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

In this segment, Zaheer and Julie discuss the genesis of the Puerto Rican Oral History Project in 1973, including the roles of pioneer Puerto Rican studies scholar John D. Vazquez and community leader Jesús Colón. Zaheer and Julie also provide an overview of the migration history of Puerto Ricans to Brooklyn in the early 20th century. Finally they explore the meaning of the project in context of the emergence of ethnic studies.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

The Puerto Rican Oral History Project records include extensive documentation of this multi-year project. Zaheer and Julie examine some of the documents in the collection, including a letter dated 1971 written by then-Long Island Historical Society’s Executive Director John H. Lindenbusch to Jesús Colón that broaches the idea of doing an oral history project. Zaheer and Julie also examine a poster celebrating Colón, as well as a flyer describing Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños (popularly known as Centro)–the Center for Puerto Rican Studies that was founded in 1973, the same year the Puerto Rican Oral History Project commenced. Lastly, they read a letter from Centro’s Oral History Task Force to the Society’s Librarian offering to transcribe the oral histories that had been largely unaccessible for almost a decade.

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Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

Zaheer and Julie listen to excerpts from an interview with Celia Maria Vice. You can listen to her complete interview on the online Oral History Portal here.

Segment 4: Endorsements

Zaheer endorsed “Elections in the Age of Trump” on Monday, November 5, with FiveThirtyEight‘s Senior Political Writer Clare Malone John Sides, professor of political science at George Washington University and coauthor of the new book, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America. You can get more information and tickets here.

Julie endorsed “Tales from the Vault: Brooklyn for Peace” on Wednesday, November 7, with two members of our library staff, Maggie Schreiner and Laura Juliano, who examine archival materials from Brooklyn for Peace, an organization founded amid the tensions of the Cold War. You can get more information and tickets here.

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 30: Listening to Puerto Rican Brooklynites appeared first on Center for Brooklyn History.

In Episode 29 of Brooklyn Historical Society’s podcast Flatbush + Main, host Zaheer Ali and guest-host Erin Wuebker, fellow BHS historian, discuss the impact of cholera on Brooklyn, which led to the illness and death of thousands of residents in the 19th century. Zaheer and Erin consider how epidemics of cholera were both symptoms of the city’s tremendous growth and change in this era, and catalysts for Brooklyn to develop basic infrastructure we associate with a modern city.

Index 02:49 Histories and Ideas 22:29 Into the Archives 45:59 Voices of Brooklyn

For complete show notes, go to brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main.

We hope you’re enjoying our podcast! Please subscribe, rate, and review us at brooklynhistory.org/fm-apple. And share the news of Flatbush + Main far and wide using the hashtag #FlatbushandMain.

Support for this episode was provided by the Wellcome Trust’s Contagious Cities project, which supports local conversations around the global challenges of epidemic preparedness.

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Segment 1: Histories and Ideas

In this segment, Zaheer and Erin discuss epidemics of cholera that reached the shores of Brooklyn in the mid-19^th century in the context of the city’s transformation from a small farming town of 6,000 residents to the third largest city in America and a global center of trade and manufacturing. They detail why working-class Brooklynites were the most likely to contract cholera and the challenges in telling their histories. Zaheer and Erin also reflect on how these epidemics pushed Brooklyn to modernize, resulting in new roles for government and the city’s first hospitals, sewers, and more.

For more on 19^th-century cholera epidemics in the US and New York City, see Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866.

For details on continuing challenges controlling cholera across the globe, see the World Health Organization.

Segment 2: Into the Archives

Zaheer and Erin delve into the prolific journals of Gabriel Furman, Brooklyn lawyer, politician, and amateur historian, who closely documented an 1832 outbreak of cholera. Furman’s journals reveal the different ways people understood cholera specifically and disease more broadly in this era – religion, morality, miasmas, climate – as well as the fear and uncertainty that many Brooklynites had as they waited for cholera to reach their city or heard contrasting advice on how to stay healthy. Zaheer and Erin also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Furman’s journals as a source on cholera. Though well versed in the politics and medical knowledge of the time, as a wealthy resident who never contracted the illness, there are some parts of the story of cholera in Brooklyn that are absent from his accounts.

You can access the finding aid to this manuscript collection here (ARC.190). Below are images of Furman’s journals that we discuss:

Segment 3: Voices of Brooklyn

Zaheer and Erin listen to an excerpt from the oral history of Albert Johnson from the Voices of Crown Heights oral histories. In this selection, Johnson speaks about his experience with different physicians when he was diagnosed with HIV in the 1990s. You can listen to his entire oral history on BHS’s Oral History Portal.

Segment 4: Endorsements

Erin endorsed the program, “Immigrant Women, Labor, and the Quest for Gender Justice,” which takes place on Wednesday, October 10 at 6:30 pm at BHS’s Pierrepont building. Bernice Yeung, ProPublica reporter and author of In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers, shares the harrowing experiences she chronicles in her book. She is joined by Rachel Isreeli of the Center for Family Life’s Cooperative Development Program in Sunset Park, which organizes cooperatives in the traditionally exploitative domestic work industry. Joanna Morales, a home care worker, will share her perspective as a worker-owner of Golden Steps Elder Care Cooperative. Tickets are $5, free for members, reserve them here.

Zaheer endorsed “The Not-So-Sweet History of Sugar,” a public program on Tuesday, October 16 at 6:30 pm at BHS’s Pierrepont building. Join social historian, York College professor, and author of Sugar: The World Corrupted, From Slavery to Obesity, James Walvin, as he uncovers the fraught history of one of our most prevalent ingredients: sugar. From its role in catalyzing colonialism and slave trading, to its current contributions to health crises, Walvin delivers this history without any sugar coating. Tickets are $5, free for members, reserve them here.

The post Flatbush + Main Episode 29: Cholera in Brooklyn appeared first on Center for Brooklyn History.