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Prior to the establishment of the Brooklyn Public Library by an Act of Legislature of the State of New York in 1892, Brooklyn was served by a number of independently operated libraries that were open to the public, but which in many cases required a membership fee to use. In 1857, the Mercantile Library Association of the City of Brooklyn was established, and the Mercantile Library of Brooklyn subsequently opened in a building shared by the Brooklyn Athanaeum and Reading Room. In 1865, the Brooklyn Library Association of the Eastern District was established for the purpose of establishing a library in Brooklyn's Eastern District, and in 1868, the Law Library in Brooklyn was established.

In 1888, the Pratt Institute established the first free public library in Brooklyn. This was followed by the opening of several more free public libraries, including the Bay Ridge Free Library and the Long Island Free Library on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Following the New York State Assembly's approval of the establishment of the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Common Council passed a resolution approving its establishment in 1896, and the development of the library system continued throughout the 20th century with the help of a $1.6 million donation from Andrew Carnegie to build 21 branch locations.

Pratt Institute was founded in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Clinton Hill in 1887 by wealthy oil merchant and philanthropist Charles Pratt. Originally from New England, Pratt moved to New York in early adulthood and later established his own successful oil business, Charles Pratt and Company, in 1867. He soon expanded his interests and acquired the Astral Oil Works refinery in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. In 1874, Pratt partnered with John D. Rockefeller, head of Standard Oil, and became co-owner of a consortium of petroleum refineries along the Brooklyn waterfront. Though he was highly successful, Pratt always lamented his limited amount of formal education, and established Pratt Insititute in order to provide young people with hands-on educational opportunities in industrial trades and engineering. Likely modeled after Cooper Union, the school founded in Manhattan by businessman and inventor Peter Cooper in 1859, Pratt Institute granted admission to both men and women regardless of race, and supplemented its core curriculum with courses in science and art. It also featured Brooklyn's first free library, aptly named the Pratt Institute Free Library, which served both students and faculty at Pratt as well as the general public. Since its founding, Pratt has achieved national recognition as one of New York City's distinguished educational institutions, and its main building and library were landmarked in 1981. As of 2010, Pratt functions as a private arts college, having discontinued its industrial and engineering programs in 1993. Pratt offers courses at its original Brooklyn campus as well as its satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica in Central New York, and grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture, art and design, the liberal arts, and library and information science.