117-566: The Center for Brooklyn History ( CBH , formerly known as the Brooklyn Historical Society ) is a museum, library, and educational center founded in 1863 that preserves and encourages the study of Brooklyn 's 400-year history . The center's Romanesque Revival building, located at Pierrepont and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights , was designed by George B. Post and built in 1878–1881 by David H. King Jr. ,
234-496: A Pakistani enclave. Brooklyn's most populous racial group, white, declined from 97.2% in 1930 to 46.9% by 1990. The borough attracts people previously living in other cities in the United States. Of these, most come from Chicago , Detroit , San Francisco , Washington, D.C. , Baltimore , Philadelphia , Boston , Cincinnati , and Seattle . Given New York City's role as a crossroads for immigration from around
351-567: A humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ), with partial shielding from the Appalachian Mountains and moderating influences from the Atlantic Ocean . Brooklyn receives plentiful precipitation all year round, with nearly 50 in (1,300 mm) yearly. The area averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually, and averages 57% of possible sunshine annually, accumulating 2,535 hours of sunshine per annum. Brooklyn lies in
468-555: A "Gospel of Love" that emphasized God's absolute love rather than human sinfulness, and doubted the existence of Hell . He also rejected his father's prohibitions against various leisure activities as distractions from a holy life, stating instead that "Man was made for enjoyment". Henry Ward Beecher became involved in many social issues of his day, most notably abolition. Though Beecher hated slavery as early as his seminary days, his views were generally more moderate than those of abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison , who advocated
585-535: A 14-block area in 1890. On the southwestern waterfront of Kings County, railroads and industrialization spread to Sunset Park (then coterminous with the city's sprawling, sparsely populated Eighth Ward) and adjacent Bay Ridge (hitherto a resort-like subsection of the Town of New Utrecht ). Within a decade, the city had annexed the Town of New Lots in 1886; the Towns of Flatbush , Gravesend and New Utrecht in 1894; and
702-541: A Presbyterian preacher from Boston . His siblings included author Harriet Beecher Stowe , educators Catharine Beecher and Thomas K. Beecher , and activists Charles Beecher and Isabella Beecher Hooker , and his father became known as "the father of more brains than any man in America". Beecher's mother Roxana died when Henry was three, and his father married Harriet Porter, whom Henry described as "severe" and subject to bouts of depression. Beecher also taught school for
819-457: A Smyrna Greek. They attended Amherst College together, where they signed a contract pledging lifelong friendship and brotherly love. Fondolaik died of cholera after returning to Greece around October 1848, and Beecher named his third son after him. During his years in Amherst, Beecher had his first taste of public speaking, giving his first sermon or talk in 1831 about four miles southeast, in
936-541: A board of inquiry from March 9 to 29, 1874, to investigate the disfellowshipping of Tilton, and censured Plymouth Church for acting against Tilton without first examining the charges against Beecher. As of June 27, 1874, Plymouth Church established its own investigating committee which exonerated Beecher. Tilton then sued Beecher on civil charges of adultery. The Beecher–Tilton trial began in January 1875, and ended in July when
1053-483: A chance to get even no matter the cost, she published a story titled "The Beecher–Tilton Scandal Case" in her paper Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly on November 2, 1872; the article made detailed allegations that America's most renowned clergyman was secretly practicing the free-love doctrines that he denounced from the pulpit. Woodhull was arrested in New York City and imprisoned for sending obscene material through
1170-583: A collection that includes historic maps and atlases of Brooklyn and New York City, individual family histories in the genealogy collection, a microfilm collection of Brooklyn and Long Island newspapers from the 19th and early 20th century, a collection of microfiche pamphlets on slavery and abolition, the papers of abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher , the Pierrepont Papers, the Brooklyn Firefighting Collection, and
1287-688: A competition between 14 architects. The building's design utilizes terra cotta ornamentation made by the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company, and has architectural sculptures by Olin Levi Warner , including busts of Michelangelo , Beethoven , Gutenberg , Shakespeare , Columbus , Benjamin Franklin , a Viking and a Native American . The building has been described as "one of the City's great architectural treasures", and
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#17327731320731404-757: A delegate to the New York Constitutional Convention of 1867–1868 on a suffrage platform, and in 1869, was elected unanimously as the first president of the American Woman Suffrage Association . In the Reconstruction Era , Beecher sided with President Andrew Johnson 's plan for swift restoration of Southern states to the Union. He believed that captains of industry should be the leaders of society and supported Social Darwinist ideas. During
1521-423: A five-year engagement. Their marriage was not a happy one; as Applegate writes, "within a year of their wedding they embarked on the classic marital cycle of neglect and nagging", marked by Henry's prolonged absences from home. The couple also suffered the deaths of four of their eight children. Beecher enjoyed the company of women, and rumors of extramarital affairs circulated as early as his Indiana days, when he
1638-548: A highly publicized scandal, Beecher was tried on charges that he had committed adultery with a friend's wife, Elizabeth Tilton. In 1870, Elizabeth had confessed to her husband, Theodore Tilton , that she had had a relationship with Beecher. The charges became public after Theodore told Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others of his wife's confession. Stanton repeated the story to fellow women's rights leaders Victoria Woodhull and Isabella Beecher Hooker. Henry Ward Beecher had publicly denounced Woodhull's advocacy of free love . Seeing
1755-458: A hill near the west end of present-day Atlantic Avenue , was reported to have emotionally exclaimed: "What brave men I must this day lose!". The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, leaving the British in control of New York Harbor . While Washington's defeat on the battlefield cast early doubts on his ability as
1872-488: A hung jury and was one of the most widely reported trials of the century. After the death of his father in 1863, Beecher was unquestionably "the most famous preacher in the nation". Beecher's long career in the public spotlight led biographer Debby Applegate to call her biography of him The Most Famous Man in America . Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut , the eighth of 13 children born to Lyman Beecher ,
1989-508: A land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km ) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km ), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area. Brooklyn was founded by the Dutch in the 17th century and grew into a busy port city on New York Harbor by the 19th century. On January 1, 1898, after a long political campaign and public-relations battle during
2106-748: A longstanding cultural lineage include Canarsie , Sea Gate , and Crown Heights , home to the Chabad world headquarters. Neighborhoods with largely defunct yet historically notable Jewish populations include central Flatbush, East Flatbush, Brownsville, East New York, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay (particularly its Madison subsection). Many hospitals in Brooklyn were started by Jewish charities, including Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park and Brookdale Hospital in East Flatbush. According to
2223-568: A major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War . The best-known regiment to be sent off to war from the city was the 14th Brooklyn "Red Legged Devils" . They fought from 1861 to 1864, wore red the entire war, and were the only regiment named after a city. President Abraham Lincoln called them into service, making them part of a handful of three-year enlisted soldiers in April 1861. Unlike other regiments during
2340-668: A minister in Lawrenceburg, Indiana , and later in Indianapolis 's Second Presbyterian Church when the congregation resided at Circle Hall at Monument Circle . In 1847, Beecher became the first pastor of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York . He soon acquired fame on the lecture circuit for his novel oratorical style in which he employed humor, dialect, and slang. Over the course of his ministry, he developed
2457-547: A novel; the subsequent novel, Norwood, or Village Life in New England , was published in 1868. Beecher stated his intent for Norwood was to present a heroine who is "large of soul, a child of nature, and, although a Christian, yet in childlike sympathy with the truths of God in the natural world, instead of books." McDougall describes the resulting novel as "a New England romance of flowers and bosomy sighs ... 'new theology' that amounted to warmed-over Emerson ". The novel
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#17327731320732574-455: A previously uncatalogued, and rare copy of a c. 1770 map by Bernard Ratzer that has been restored and is now accessible to the public. As part of the construction of Empire Stores at Brooklyn Bridge Park , BHS was selected to operate a 3,200-square-foot (300 m) museum to celebrate Brooklyn's industrial history. The BHS Dumbo exhibition space, as it was called, opened in May 2017. In 2020,
2691-489: A separate mayor, elected a Borough President . In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, transportation to Manhattan was no longer by water only, and the City of Brooklyn's ties to the City of New York were strengthened. The question became whether Brooklyn was prepared to engage in the still-grander process of consolidation then developing throughout the region, whether to join with the county of Richmond and
2808-523: A speaking tour of Europe to build support for the Union cause. Beecher's speeches helped turn European popular sentiment against the rebel Confederate States of America and prevent its recognition by foreign powers. At the close of the war in April 1865, Beecher was invited to speak at Fort Sumter , South Carolina , where the first shots of the war had been fired; Lincoln had again personally selected him, stating, "We had better send Beecher down to deliver
2925-467: A stroke and died in his sleep on March 8. Still a widely popular figure, he was mourned in newspapers and sermons across the country. Henry Ward Beecher is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn , New York . Beecher's grandson Harry Beecher was a college football player who was the subject of the first American football card , printed in 1888. In assessing Beecher's legacy, Applegate states that At his best, Beecher represented what remains
3042-565: A theology emphasizing God's love above all else. He also grew interested in social reform, particularly the abolitionist movement . In the years leading up to the Civil War , he raised money to purchase slaves from captivity and to send rifles—nicknamed " Beecher's Bibles "—to abolitionists fighting in Kansas . He toured Europe during the Civil War, speaking in support of the Union . After
3159-513: A time in Whitinsville, Massachusetts . The Beecher household was "the strangest and most interesting combination of fun and seriousness". The family was poor, and Lyman Beecher assigned his children "a heavy schedule of prayer meetings, lectures, and religious services" while banning the theater, dancing, most fiction, and the celebration of birthdays or Christmas. The family's pastimes included story-telling and listening to their father play
3276-509: A variation of the place name " Canarsie ". Bands were associated with place names, but the colonists thought their names represented different tribes. The Breuckelen settlement was named after Breukelen in the Netherlands ; it was part of New Netherland . The Dutch West India Company lost little time in chartering the six original parishes (listed here by their later English town names): The colony's capital of New Amsterdam , across
3393-592: A variety of Jewish businesses. Adjacent to Borough Park, the Kensington area housed a significant population of Conservative Jews (under the aegis of such nationally prominent midcentury rabbis as Jacob Bosniak and Abraham Heller) when it was still considered to be a subsection of Flatbush; many of their defunct facilities have been repurposed to serve extensions of the Borough Park Hasidic community. Other notable religious Jewish neighborhoods with
3510-441: A water meter magnate and close friend of President Grover Cleveland ), with nearby Crown Heights gradually fulfilling an analogous role for the city's Jewish population as development continued through the early 20th century. Northeast of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick (by now a working class, predominantly German district) established a considerable brewery industry; the so-called "Brewer's Row" encompassed 14 breweries operating in
3627-569: Is a National Historic Landmark and part of New York City's Brooklyn Heights Historic District . The CBH houses materials relating to the history of Brooklyn and its people, and hosts exhibitions which draw over 9,000 members a year. In addition to general programming, the CBH serves over 70,000 public school students and teachers annually by providing exhibit tours, educational programs and curricula, and making its professional staff available for instruction and consultation. The Center for Brooklyn History
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3744-523: Is called Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations. It is a public programming series and oral history project about mixed-heritage families, with historical perspective. Notes Brooklyn Brooklyn is a borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the State of New York . Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County , one of twelve original counties established under British rule in 1683 in
3861-566: Is derived from the original Dutch town of Breukelen . The oldest mention of the settlement in the Netherlands is in a charter of 953 by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I as Broecklede . This form is made up of the words broeck , meaning bog or marshland , and lede , meaning small (dug) water stream, specifically in peat areas. Breuckelen on the American continent was established in 1646, and the name first appeared in print in 1663. Over
3978-444: Is water (27%); the borough is the second-largest by land area among the New York City's boroughs. However, Kings County, coterminous with Brooklyn, is New York State's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area. Brooklyn lies at the southwestern end of Long Island, and the borough's western border constitutes the island's western tip. Brooklyn's water borders are extensive and varied, including Jamaica Bay ;
4095-617: The Atlantic Ocean ; The Narrows , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Staten Island in New York City and crossed by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ; Upper New York Bay , separating Brooklyn from Jersey City and Bayonne in the U.S. state of New Jersey ; and the East River , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Manhattan in New York City and traversed by the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel ,
4212-617: The Brighton Beach Line in 1878 heralded the end of this isolation. Sports in Brooklyn became a business. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms played professional baseball at Washington Park in the convenient suburb of Park Slope and elsewhere. Early in the next century, under their new name of Brooklyn Dodgers, they brought baseball to Ebbets Field , beyond Prospect Park. Racetracks, amusement parks , and beach resorts opened in Brighton Beach , Coney Island , and elsewhere in
4329-682: The Brooklyn Bridge , the Manhattan Bridge , the Williamsburg Bridge , and numerous routes of the New York City Subway . To the east of Brooklyn lies the borough of Queens, which contains John F. Kennedy International Airport in that borough's Jamaica neighborhood, approximately two miles from the border of Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood. Under the Köppen climate classification , Brooklyn experiences
4446-481: The Brooklyn Fire Department (BFD) also gave way to the new Metropolitan Fire District. Throughout this period the peripheral towns of Kings County, far from Manhattan and even from urban Brooklyn, maintained their rustic independence. The only municipal change seen was the secession of the eastern section of the Town of Flatbush as the Town of New Lots in 1852. The building of rail links such as
4563-601: The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 , he preached strongly against the strikers whose wages had been cut, stating, "Man cannot live by bread alone but the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live," and "If you are being reduced, go down boldly into poverty". His remarks were so unpopular that cries of "Hang Beecher!" became common at labor rallies, and plainclothes detectives protected his church. Influenced by British author Herbert Spencer , Beecher embraced Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution in
4680-583: The Kansas Territory , known as " Bloody Kansas ", Beecher raised funds to send Sharps rifles to abolitionist forces, stating that the weapons would do more good than "a hundred Bibles". The press subsequently nicknamed the weapons " Beecher's Bibles ". Beecher became widely hated in the American South for his abolitionist actions and received numerous death threats. In 1863, during the Civil War , President Abraham Lincoln sent Beecher on
4797-549: The Middle Colonies of nascent British America . On November 1, 1683, Kings County was partitioned from the West Riding of York Shire, containing the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island, as one of the "original twelve counties" . This tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of a Brooklyn identity. Lacking
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4914-646: The New Netherland colony in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War . New Netherland was taken in a naval action, and the English renamed the new capture for their naval commander, James, Duke of York , brother of the then monarch King Charles II and future king himself as King James II . Brooklyn became a part of the West Riding of York Shire in the Province of New York , one of
5031-451: The USDA plant hardiness zone 7b . Brooklyn's neighborhoods are dynamic in ethnic composition. For example, the early to mid-20th century, Brownsville had a majority of Jewish residents; since the 1970s it has been majority African American. Midwood during the early 20th century was filled with ethnic Irish , then filled with Jewish residents for nearly 50 years, and is slowly becoming
5148-510: The automobile and commuter rail -driven vogue for more remote prewar suburban communities, such as Garden City, New York and Montclair, New Jersey . The rapidly growing population needed more water, so the City built centralized waterworks, including the Ridgewood Reservoir . The municipal Police Department, however, was abolished in 1854 in favor of a Metropolitan force covering also New York and Westchester Counties. In 1865
5265-406: The fourth most populous American city after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles , and Chicago . Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, Brooklyn shares a border with the borough of Queens . It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River , and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge . With
5382-522: The patroon and tenant farmer system established along the Hudson River Valley , this agricultural county unusually came to have one of the highest percentages of slaves among the population in the "Original Thirteen Colonies" along the Atlantic Ocean eastern coast of North America . On August 27, 1776, the Battle of Long Island (also known as the 'Battle of Brooklyn') was fought,
5499-684: The " Little Fuzhou ( 小福州 )" of Brooklyn. Many Chinese restaurants can be found throughout Sunset Park, and the area hosts a popular Chinese New Year celebration. Since the 2000s going forward, the growing concentration of the Cantonese speaking population in Brooklyn have dramatically shifted to Bensonhurst/Gravesend and Homecrest creating newer Chinatowns of Brooklyn and these newer Brooklyn Chinatowns are known as "Brooklyn's Little Hong Kong/Guangdong" due to their Chinese populations being overwhelmingly Cantonese populated. Henry Ward Beecher Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 – March 8, 1887)
5616-553: The 'h' from its name. By 1841, with the appearance of The Brooklyn Eagle, and Kings County Democrat published by Alfred G. Stevens, the growing city across the East River from Manhattan was producing its own prominent newspaper. It later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19, 1842, and the paper was renamed The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat on June 1, 1846. On May 14, 1849,
5733-460: The 1880s, identifying as a "cordial Christian evolutionist". He argued that the theory was in keeping with what Applegate called "the inevitability of progress", seeing a steady march toward perfection as a part of God's plan. In 1885, he wrote Evolution and Religion to expound these views. His sermons and writings helped to gain acceptance for the theory in America. Beecher was a prominent advocate for allowing Chinese immigration to continue to
5850-842: The 1883 poem, " The New Colossus " by Emma Lazarus , which appears on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty . The poem calls New York Harbor "the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame". As a twin city to New York, it played a role in national affairs that was later overshadowed by decades of subordination by its old partner and rival. During this period, the affluent, contiguous districts of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill (then characterized collectively as The Hill) were home to such notable figures as Astral Oil Works founder Charles Pratt and his children, including local civic leader Charles Millard Pratt ; Theosophical Society co-founder William Quan Judge ; and Pfizer co-founders Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart . Brooklyn Heights remained one of
5967-422: The 1890s and despite opposition from Brooklyn residents, Brooklyn was consolidated in and annexed (along with other areas) to form the current five-borough structure of New York City in accordance to the new municipal charter of " Greater New York ". The borough continues to maintain some distinct culture . Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves . With Jews forming around a quarter of its population,
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#17327731320736084-536: The 19th century and two-thirds of the 20th century. The first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan , which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1816. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a commuter town for Wall Street . Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York . Town and Village were combined to form
6201-630: The 19th century and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and the Bronx ), the remaining rural areas of Kings County, and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island , to form the modern City of New York. The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Long Island's western edge, which was then largely inhabited by the Lenape , an Algonquian-speaking American Indian tribe often referred to in European documents by
6318-596: The 19th century. The waterfront from Gowanus to Greenpoint was developed with piers and factories. Industrial access to the waterfront was improved by the Gowanus Canal and the canalized Newtown Creek . USS Monitor was the most famous product of the large and growing shipbuilding industry of Williamsburg. After the Civil War , trolley lines and other transport brought urban sprawl beyond Prospect Park (completed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1873 and widely heralded as an improvement upon
6435-541: The American Civil War, the 14th wore a uniform inspired by the French Chasseurs , a light infantry used for quick assaults. As a seaport and a manufacturing center, Brooklyn was well prepared to contribute to the Union's strengths in shipping and manufacturing. The two combined in shipbuilding; the ironclad Monitor was built in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is referred to as the twin city of New York in
6552-570: The American Jewish Population Project in 2020, Brooklyn was home to over 480,000 Jews. In 2023, the UJA-Federation of New York estimated that Brooklyn is home to 462,000 Jews, a large decrease compared to the 561,000 estimated in 2011. The predominantly Jewish, Crown Heights (and later East Flatbush)-based Madison Democratic Club served as the borough's primary "clubhouse" political venue for decades until
6669-646: The BHS made an agreement to merge with the Brooklyn Public Library . As of October 2020, the organization is now part of Brooklyn Public Library and is known as the Center for Brooklyn History. The center's headquarters building, on the corner of Pierrepoint and Clinton Streets, was built in 1878–81 and was designed by George B. Post in the Renaissance revival style . Post was selected as a result of
6786-637: The Brooklyn Council of Churches. The Center for Brooklyn History possesses a collection of historical maps spanning the years ca. 1562–2011. The geographic coverage of the collection includes the five boroughs of New York City, Long Island, New York State, New Jersey, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Eastern United States. The Oral History Collections contain interviews with over 300 narrators. A 2013 Oral History Project
6903-404: The CBH include education programs, which are organized around a central educational concept of encouraging students to understand that history is connected to their lives. CBH programs link the study of American history to events and sites in the students’ own communities by introducing the investigation of primary source documents and neighborhood histories. CBH's education programs largely focus on
7020-524: The East River, obtained its charter in 1653. The neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North America's first tide mill . It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today. But the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furman 's 1824 compilation. Present-day Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the English captured
7137-459: The Heights, the less exclusive South Brooklyn was home to longtime civic leader James S. T. Stranahan , who became known (often derisively) as the " Baron Haussmann of Brooklyn" for championing Prospect Park and other public works. Economic growth continued, propelled by immigration and industrialization , and Brooklyn established itself as the third-most populous American city for much of
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#17327731320737254-819: The New York metropolitan area's most august patrician redoubts into the early 20th century under the aegis of such figures as abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher , Congregationalist theologians Lyman Abbott and Newell Dwight Hillis (who followed Beecher as the second and third pastors of Plymouth Church , respectively), financier John Jay Pierrepont (a grandson of founding Heights resident Hezekiah Pierrepont ), banker/art collector David Leavitt , educator/politician Seth Low , merchant/banker Horace Brigham Claflin , attorney William Cary Sanger (who served for two years as United States Assistant Secretary of War under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt ) and publisher Alfred Smith Barnes . Contiguous to
7371-612: The Synod to retain him as its pastor, the poverty that followed the Panic of 1837 caused him to look for a new position. Banker Samuel Merrill invited Beecher to visit Indianapolis in 1839, and he was offered the ministry of the Second Presbyterian Church there on May 13, 1839. Unusually for a speaker of his era, Beecher would use humor and informal language including dialect and slang as he preached. His preaching
7488-490: The Town of Flatlands in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural municipal boundaries at the ends of Kings County. Low's time in office from 1882 to 1885 was marked by a number of reforms: Brooklyn elected a mayor from 1834 until 1898, after which it was consolidated into the City of Greater New York , whose own second mayor (1902–1903), Seth Low, had been Mayor of Brooklyn from 1882 to 1885. Since 1898, Brooklyn has, in place of
7605-419: The US, helping to delay passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act until 1882. He argued that as other American peoples, such as the Irish, had seen a gradual increase in their social standing, a new people was required to do "what we call the menial work", and that the Chinese, "by reason of their training, by the habits of a thousand years, are adapted to do that work." Beecher married Eunice Bullard in 1837 after
7722-543: The ability of students to “read” primary source documents, including works of art, maps, photographs, and other artifacts. Each year exhibitions are presented by the CBH, ranging from retrospectives and historical surveys to more focused presentations that explore specific themes and topics. Installations from the collection have included a gallery of family portraits and another of landscape paintings. These installations rotate over time, providing visitors with greater access to CBH's fine arts collections. The Othmer Library has
7839-407: The address on the occasion of raising the flag because if it had not been for Beecher there would have been no flag to raise." (See Raising the Flag at Fort Sumter .) Beecher advocated for the temperance movement throughout his career and was a strict teetotaler . Following the Civil War, he also became a leader in the women's suffrage movement . In 1867, he campaigned unsuccessfully to become
7956-436: The area, and afterward the British generally enjoyed a dominant Loyalist sentiment from the residents in Kings County who did not evacuate, though the region was also the center of the fledgling—and largely successful— Patriot intelligence network , headed by Washington himself. The British set up a system of prison ships off the coast of Brooklyn in Wallabout Bay . More American patriots died there than in combat on all
8073-424: The area. It is called "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and originally it was a small Chinese enclave with Cantonese speakers being the main Chinese population during the late 1980s and 1990s, but since the 2000s, the Chinese population in the area dramatically shifted to majority Fuzhounese Americans , which contributed immensely to expanding this Chinatown, and bestowing the nicknames " Fuzhou Town ( 福州埠 ), Brooklyn" or
8190-795: The ascendancy of Meade Esposito 's rival, Canarsie-based Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in the 1960s and 1970s, playing an integral role in the rise of such figures as Speaker of the New York State Assembly Irwin Steingut ; his son, fellow Speaker Stanley Steingut ; New York City Mayor Abraham Beame ; real estate developer Fred Trump ; Democratic district leader Beadie Markowitz; and political fixer Abraham "Bunny" Lindenbaum. Many non-Orthodox Jews (ranging from observant members of various denominations to atheists of Jewish cultural heritage) are concentrated in Ditmas Park and Park Slope , with smaller observant and culturally Jewish populations in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island. Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live throughout
8307-558: The battlefield engagements of the American Revolutionary War combined. One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City , which was celebrated by New Yorkers into the 20th century. The first half of the 19th century saw the beginning of the development of urban areas on the economically strategic East River shore of Kings County, facing the adolescent City of New York confined to Manhattan Island. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay (border between Fort Greene and Williamsburg) during
8424-464: The borough has been described as "the most Jewish spot on Earth". Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the borough seal and flag , is Eendraght Maeckt Maght , which translates from early modern Dutch as ' Unity makes strength '. Educational institutions in Brooklyn include the City University of New York 's Brooklyn College , Medgar Evers College , and College of Technology . In
8541-629: The break between "New School" and "Old School" Presbyterianism, which were split over questions of original sin and the slavery issue; Henry's father Lyman was a leading proponent of the New School. Because of Henry's adherence to the New School position, the Old School-dominated presbytery declined to install him as the pastor, and the resulting controversy split the western Presbyterian Church into rival synods. Though Henry Beecher's Lawrenceburg church declared its independence from
8658-536: The breakup of the Union if it would also mean the end of slavery. A personal turning point for Beecher came in October 1848 when he learned of two escaped young female slaves who had been recaptured; their father had been offered the chance to ransom them from captivity, and appealed to Beecher to help raise funds. Beecher raised over two thousand dollars to secure the girls' freedom. On June 1, 1856, he held another mock slave auction seeking enough contributions to purchase
8775-524: The commander, the tactical withdrawal of all his troops and supplies across the East River in a single night is now seen by historians as one of his most brilliant triumphs. The British controlled the surrounding region for the duration of the war, as New York City was soon occupied and became their military and political base of operations in North America for the remainder of the conflict. The Patriot residents largely fled or were cleared from
8892-479: The controversy, sympathetic to the radical students but unwilling to defy his father. He graduated in 1837. On August 3, 1837, Beecher married Eunice Bullard, and the two proceeded to the small, impoverished town of Lawrenceburg, Indiana , where Beecher had been offered a post as a minister of the First Presbyterian Church. He received his first national publicity when he became involved in
9009-417: The day shift and another 12 on the night shift. Every time a rash of burglaries broke out, officials blamed burglars from New York City. Finally, in 1855, a modern police force was created, employing 150 men. Voters complained of inadequate protection and excessive costs. In 1857, the state legislature merged the Brooklyn force with that of New York City. Fervent in the Union cause, the city of Brooklyn played
9126-535: The earlier Central Park ) into the center of the county, as evinced by gradual settlement in the comparatively rustic villages of Windsor Terrace and Kensington in the Town of Flatbush. By century's end, Dean Alvord 's Prospect Park South development (adjacent to the village of Flatbush) would serve as the template for contemporaneous " Victorian Flatbush " micro-neighborhoods and the post-consolidation emergence of outlying districts, such as Midwood and Marine Park . Along with Oak Park, Illinois , it also presaged
9243-505: The fiddle. Beecher had a childhood stammer. He was also considered slow-witted and one of the less promising of the brilliant Beecher children. His poor performance earned him punishments, such as being forced to sit for hours in the girls' corner while wearing a dunce cap. At 14, he began his oratorical training at Mount Pleasant Classical Institute , a boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts , where he met Constantine Fondolaik Newell,
9360-467: The first decades of the 21st century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as a destination for hipsters , with concomitant gentrification , dramatic house-price increases, and a decrease in housing affordability. Some new developments are required to include affordable housing units. Since the 2010s, parts of Brooklyn have evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship, high-technology startup firms , postmodern art , and design. The name Brooklyn
9477-575: The first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared , and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the modern sites of Green-Wood Cemetery , Prospect Park , and Grand Army Plaza . Washington , viewing particularly fierce fighting at the Gowanus Creek and Old Stone House from atop
9594-501: The first three annual courses. After the heavy expenses of the trial, Beecher embarked on a lecture tour of the West that returned him to solvency. In 1884, he angered many of his Republican allies when he endorsed Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland for the presidency, arguing that Cleveland should be forgiven for having fathered an illegitimate child. He made another lecture tour of England in 1886. On March 6, 1887, Beecher suffered
9711-412: The first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. In a parallel development, the Town of Bushwick, farther up the river, saw the incorporation of the Village of Williamsburgh in 1827, which separated as the Town of Williamsburgh in 1840 and formed the short-lived City of Williamsburgh in 1851. Industrial deconcentration in the mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to
9828-501: The freedom of a young woman named Sarah. In his widely reprinted piece "Shall We Compromise", Beecher assailed the Compromise of 1850 , a compromise between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces brokered by Whig Senator Henry Clay . The compromise banned slavery from California and slave-trading from Washington, D.C., at the cost of a stronger Fugitive Slave Act ; Beecher objected to the last provision in particular, arguing that it
9945-550: The hen, just for that, Laid an egg in his hat, And thus did the Hen reward Beecher. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. offered his own limerick on Beecher: The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher Called the hen a most elegant creature. The hen, pleased with that, Laid an egg in his hat, And thus did the hen reward Beecher. Christopher J Barry, Canadian published songwriter, offered this alternative limerick: The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher Said of hens: "some are elegant creatures". Of
10062-545: The hens pleased with that, Some laid eggs in his lap. What will judgement day hatch for the preacher? In 2022, New Hampshire Historical Marker no. 274 was unveiled in Carroll, New Hampshire , commemorating Beecher and his open-air sermons in the town. Henry Ward Beecher was a prolific author as well as speaker. His public writing began in Indiana, where he edited an agricultural journal, The Farmer and Gardener . He
10179-518: The human skull, and he befriended Orson Squire Fowler who became the theory's best-known American proponent. Beecher graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and then attended Lane Theological Seminary outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Lane was headed by Beecher's father, who had become "America's most famous preacher". The student body was divided by the slavery question, whether to support a form of gradual emancipation, as Lyman Beecher did, or to demand immediate emancipation. Beecher stayed largely clear of
10296-628: The inside as "one of New York's great 19th-century interiors." It is part of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission 's Brooklyn Heights Historic District , designated in 1966, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 1991. In October 1999, BHS began a full-scale restoration of the building, supervised by architect Jan Hird Pokorny, and reopened in 2003. Principal activities of
10413-548: The jurors deliberated for six days but were unable to reach a verdict. In February 1876, the Congregational church held a final hearing to exonerate Beecher. Stanton was outraged by Beecher's repeated exonerations, calling the scandal a "holocaust of womanhood". French author George Sand planned a novel about the affair, but died the following year before it could be written. In 1871, Yale University established "The Lyman Beecher Lectureship", of which Henry taught
10530-411: The lecture circuit, becoming one of the most popular speakers in the country and charging correspondingly high fees. In the course of his preaching, Henry Ward Beecher came to reject his father Lyman's theology, which "combined the old belief that 'human fate was preordained by God's plan' with a faith in the capacity of rational men and women to purge society of its sinful ways". Henry instead preached
10647-399: The loss of Brooklyn's separate identity as a city was met with consternation by some residents at the time. Many newspapers of the day called the merger the "Great Mistake of 1898", and the phrase still elicits Brooklyn pride among old-time Brooklynites. Brooklyn is 97 square miles (250 km ) in area, of which 71 square miles (180 km ) is land (73%), and 26 square miles (67 km )
10764-609: The mail. The scandal split the Beecher siblings; Harriet and others supported Henry, while Isabella publicly supported Woodhull. The first trial was Woodhull's, who was released on a technicality. Subsequent hearings and trial, in the words of Walter A. McDougall , "drove Reconstruction off the front pages for two and a half years" and became "the most sensational 'he said, she said' in American history". On October 31, 1873, Plymouth Church excommunicated Theodore Tilton for "slandering" Beecher. The Council of Congregational Churches held
10881-520: The most lovable and popular strain of American culture: incurable optimism; can-do enthusiasm; and open-minded, open-hearted pragmatism ... His reputation has been eclipsed by his own success. Mainstream Christianity is so deeply infused with the rhetoric of Christ's love that most Americans can imagine nothing else, and have no appreciation or memory of the revolution wrought by Beecher and his peers. In 1929, First Presbyterian Church in Lawrenceburg
10998-410: The name that its origin has been debated; some have claimed breuckelen means "broken land". The current name, however, is the one that best reflects its meaning. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island , grew to be a sizeable city in
11115-470: The name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ; on September 5, 1938, it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle . The establishment of the paper in the 1840s helped develop a separate identity for Brooklynites over the next century. The borough's soon-to-be-famous National League baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers , also assisted with this. Both major institutions were lost in the 1950s:
11232-454: The nation. Brooklyn contains dozens of distinct neighborhoods representing many of the major culturally identified groups found within New York City. Among the most prominent are listed below: Over 600,000 Jews , particularly Orthodox and Hasidic Jews , have become concentrated in such historically Jewish areas as Borough Park , Williamsburg , and Midwood , where there are many yeshivas , synagogues , and kosher restaurants, as well as
11349-494: The northern part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems. However, the East River shore was growing too fast for the three-year-old infant City of Williamsburg; it, along with its Town of Bushwick hinterland, was subsumed within a greater City of Brooklyn in 1855, subsequently dropping
11466-498: The paper closed in 1955 after unsuccessful attempts at a sale following a reporters' strike, and the baseball team decamped for Los Angeles in a realignment of Major League Baseball in 1957. Agitation against Southern slavery was stronger in Brooklyn than in New York, and under Republican leadership, the city was fervent in the Union cause in the Civil War . After the war the Henry Ward Beecher Monument
11583-511: The past two millennia, the name of the ancient town in Holland has been Bracola , Broccke , Brocckede , Broiclede , Brocklandia , Broekclen , Broikelen , Breuckelen, and finally Breukelen . The New Amsterdam settlement of Breuckelen also went through many spelling variations, including Breucklyn , Breuckland , Brucklyn , Broucklyn , Brookland , Brockland , Brocklin , and Brookline/Brook-line . There have been so many variations of
11700-475: The schoolhouse at a village then called Logtown, today known as Dwight . He was in his second year at Amherst College , and he soon thereafter resolved to join the ministry, setting aside his early dream of going to sea. He met his future wife Eunice Bullard , the daughter of a well-known physician, and they were engaged on January 2, 1832. He also developed an interest in the pseudoscience of phrenology , an attempt to link personality traits with features of
11817-638: The southern part of the county. Toward the end of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn experienced its final, explosive growth spurt. Park Slope was rapidly urbanized, with its eastern summit soon emerging as the city's third "Gold Coast" district alongside Brooklyn Heights and The Hill; notable residents of the era included American Chicle Company co-founder Thomas Adams Jr. and New York Central Railroad executive Clinton L. Rossiter. East of The Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant coalesced as an upper middle class enclave for lawyers, shopkeepers, and merchants of German and Irish descent (notably exemplified by John C. Kelley,
11934-537: The southern parts of Brooklyn, primarily concentrated in Sunset Park , Bensonhurst , Gravesend , and Homecrest . Brooklyn is the borough that is home to the highest number of Chinatowns in New York City . The largest concentration is in Sunset Park along 8th Avenue, which has become known for its Chinese culture since the opening of the now-defunct Winley Supermarket in 1986 spurred widespread settlement in
12051-451: The then Province of New York . As of the 2020 United States census , the population stood at 2,736,074, making it the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, the most populous county in the state. Brooklyn, at 37,339.9 inhabitants per square mile (14,417.0/km ), is the second most densely populated county in the U.S. after Manhattan (New York County), as of 2022. Had Brooklyn remained an independent city, it would now be
12168-604: The war, Beecher supported social reform causes such as women's suffrage and temperance . He also championed Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution, stating that it was not incompatible with Christian beliefs. He was widely rumored to be an adulterer, and in 1872 the Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly published a story about his affair with Elizabeth Richards Tilton , the wife of his friend and former co-worker Theodore Tilton . In 1874, Tilton filed charges for " criminal conversation " against Beecher. The subsequent trial resulted in
12285-560: The western portion of Queens County , and the county of New York , which by then already included the Bronx , to form the five boroughs of a united City of New York. Andrew Haswell Green and other progressives said yes, and eventually, they prevailed against the Daily Eagle and other conservative forces. In 1894, residents of Brooklyn and the other counties voted by a slight majority to merge, effective in 1898. Kings County retained its status as one of New York State's counties, but
12402-421: The world, Brooklyn has evolved a globally cosmopolitan ambiance of its own, demonstrating a robust and growing demographic and cultural diversity with respect to metrics including nationality, religion, race, and domiciliary partnership . In 2010, 51.6% of the population was counted as members of religious congregations. In 2014, there were 914 religious organizations in Brooklyn, the 10th most of all counties in
12519-481: Was a Christian's duty to feed and shelter escaped slaves. Slavery and liberty were fundamentally incompatible, Beecher argued, making compromise impossible: "One or the other must die". In 1856, Beecher campaigned for Republican John C. Frémont , the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party ; despite Beecher's aid, Frémont lost to Democrat James Buchanan . During the pre-Civil-War conflict in
12636-426: Was a major success, building Second Presbyterian into the largest church in the city, and he also led a successful revival meeting in nearby Terre Haute . However, mounting debt led to Beecher again seeking a new position in 1847, and he accepted the invitation of businessman Henry Bowen to head a new Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York . Beecher's national fame continued to grow, and he took to
12753-716: Was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery , his emphasis on God's love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His rhetorical focus on Christ's love has influenced mainstream Christianity through the 21st century. Beecher was the son of Lyman Beecher , a Calvinist minister who became one of the best-known evangelists of his era. Several of his brothers and sisters became well-known educators and activists, most notably Harriet Beecher Stowe , who achieved worldwide fame with her abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin . Henry Ward Beecher graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and Lane Seminary in 1837 before serving as
12870-579: Was believed to have had an affair with a young member of his congregation. In 1858, the Brooklyn Eagle wrote a story accusing him of an affair with another young church member who had later become a prostitute. The wife of Beecher's patron and editor, Henry Bowen, confessed on her deathbed to her husband of an affair with Beecher; Bowen concealed the incident during his lifetime. Several members of Beecher's circle reported that Beecher had had an affair with Edna Dean Proctor , an author with whom he
12987-440: Was built downtown to honor a famous local abolitionist . A great victory arch was built at what was then the south end of town to celebrate the armed forces; this place is now called Grand Army Plaza . The number of people living in Brooklyn grew rapidly early in the 19th century. There were 4,402 by 1810, 7,175 in 1820 and 15,396 by 1830. The city's population was 25,000 in 1834, but the police department comprised only 12 men on
13104-505: Was collaborating on a book of his sermons. The couple's first encounter was the subject of dispute: Beecher reportedly told friends that it had been consensual, while Proctor reportedly told Henry Bowen that Beecher had raped her. Regardless of the initial circumstances, Beecher and Proctor allegedly then carried on their affair for more than a year. According to historian Barry Werth , "it was standard gossip that 'Beecher preaches to seven or eight of his mistresses every Sunday evening.'" In
13221-778: Was founded in 1863 by Henry Pierrepont (1808–1888) as the Long Island Historical Society , with a charter from the New England Historical Society in Boston . In 1985, the society changed its name to the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS). In 2005, the BHS was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $ 20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation , which
13338-437: Was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg . In December 2007, BHS opened the first gallery in the United States devoted to oral history . The first exhibition installed in the gallery was an installation of oral histories, photographs, documents, and artifacts called "In Our Own Words: Portraits of Brooklyn's Vietnam Veterans". In 2010 while cataloging the map collection, BHS staff discovered
13455-611: Was moderately well received by critics of the day. In 1964 sculptor Joseph Kiselewski created a bronze medal depicting Henry Ward Beecher for the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at the Bronx Community College in New York City. The sculptor John Massey Rhind created the Hall's bust of Beecher. Beecher Cascades on Crawford Brook in Carroll, New Hampshire , is named for him. It is rumored that he slipped and fell into
13572-633: Was one of the founders and for nearly twenty years an editorial contributor of the New York Independent , a Congregationalist newspaper, and from 1861 till 1863 was its editor. His contributions to this were signed with an asterisk, and many of them were afterward collected and published in 1855 as Star Papers; or, Experiences of Art and Nature . In 1865, Robert E. Bonner of the New York Ledger offered Beecher twenty-four thousand dollars to follow his sister's example and compose
13689-546: Was renamed Beecher Presbyterian. A Henry Ward Beecher Monument created by the sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward was unveiled on June 24, 1891, in Borough Hall Park, Brooklyn, and was later relocated to Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn in 1959. A limerick written about Beecher by poet Oliver Herford became well known in the USA: Said a great congregational preacher To a hen, "You're a beautiful creature." And
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