Brooklyn Historical Society (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)

The Hispanic Communities Documentation Project was an archival initiative based at the Brooklyn Historical Society in the late 1980s and directed by Morton Marks. The project sought to capture the cultural ethos of the Hispanic community in Brooklyn through printed ephemera (e.g. handouts, fliers, clippings, restaurant menus) and through the voices of community members themselves. At the heart of this collection stands a series of oral histories in which men and women of varying nationalities (Puerto Rican, Mexican, Ecuadorian, etc.) rendered the stories of their lives from birth to their experience as immigrants in the United States.

Though an official administrative history of the project does not exist, it seems to have been carried out as an expansion of the Puerto Rican Oral History Project, which the Society (then the Long Island Historical Society) initiated in 1973 and completed in the mid-1970s. Like the Puerto Rican project before it, the Hispanic Communities Documentation Project provides a substantial body of source material on the immigrant experience in late 20th century America.

From the guide to the Hispanic Communities Documentation Project records and oral histories, Bulk, 1986-1991, 1924-1992, (Brooklyn Historical Society)

The West Indian Carnival tradition in New York stems from private gatherings and parties held in Harlem in the 1920s, typically in February. An outdoor street festival began taking place on 7th Avenue in Harlem in the 1940s, organized by Trinidadian Jessie Wattle. In 1967, the Carnival was moved to Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn following a disturbance that led to its street permit being revoked. At this same time, the West Indian American Day Carnival Association (WIADCA) was founded. The Association was run by Trinidadian Carlos Lezama from 1967 until 2001, and is currently headed by his daughter, Yolanda Lezama-Clark. The West Indian Carnival in Brooklyn is now one of the largest outdoor street festivals in North America.

Carnival activities begin on the Thursday before Labor Day and continue through Monday, concluding with the parade itself. Other events and activities include a steel band competition and a Kiddie Carnival. The parade itself takes months of preparation from each masquerade camp or “mas,” which designs its own elaborate and colorful costumes around a central theme and competes for prizes with the others camps. Parade participants are accompanied by various musical groups and styles, as well as food vendors, brought together to celebrate pan-Caribbean culture.

The Brooklyn Historical Society launched The West Indian Carnival Documentation Project in 1994 in cooperation with the West Indian American Day Carnival Association and the Brooklyn Museum with a goal of supplementing existing photographs and histories of the event with personal narratives and life histories of Carnival participants. Those involved with the project attempted to get different viewpoints within the hierarchy of Carnival organization and participation. The oral histories, photographs and resources that make up this collection were compiled by a team including two community researchers, photographers from local Caribbean publications, graduate student assistants, scholarly advisors and a community advisory committee primarily made up of WIADCA members. Staff for this project included Dwandalyn Reece King (Chief Curator), Michael Roberts (Interviewer), Joyce Quamina (Research Assistant), Megan McShea (Project Assistant), Maureen Mahon (Project Fieldworker) and Kristen Elmquist (Project Fieldworker).

From the guide to the The West Indian Carnival Documentation Project Records, Bulk, 1993-1996, 1993-1996, (Brooklyn Historical Society)

Pfizer Inc. was founded in 1849 by cousins Charles Pfizer, a chemist, and Charles Erhart, a confectioner. Recent immigrants to Brooklyn, N.Y. from Germany, the cousins opened their business under the name Charles Pfizer & Company in a red-brick building in the Town of Williamsburgh, now the neighborhood of Williamsburg in the borough of Brooklyn. Their first successful product was a form of santonin covered in an almond toffee flavoring that was used to treat intestinal worms. During the Civil War, Pfizer supplied vital medical treatments (namely tartaric acid and cream of tartar) to the Union Army, which propelled a period of unprecedented growth and success for the company. In 1881 Pfizer moved its headquarters to a post-Revolutionary-era building at 81 Maiden Lane in Manhattan, and in 1882 it expanded to the Midwest, opening offices in Chicago, IL. By 1899 Pfizer was an established leader in the American chemical industry, producing such products as citric acid, borax, cream of tartar, and iodine.

The 20th century saw further innovation in Pfizer's product base. In 1919, Pfizer chemists James Currie and Jasper Kane developed a method of mold fermentation that allowed the company to mass-produce citric acid from sugar. In 1936, Pfizer became the world's leading producer of vitamin C, and by the late 1940s the company was the world leader in the production of all vitamins. In 1941, in response to an appeal from the United States Government, Pfizer began producing penicillin (commonly referred to at the time as "the miracle drug") for the treatment of Allied Soldiers during World War II, and was the only company to do so by utilizing the fermentation techniques developed by Currie and Kane. By 1944, Pfizer had developed a method of producing penicillin on a mass scale, and the company became an instrumental player in the worldwide treatment of many previously untreatable bacterial infections. Through this contribution to medicine, Pfizer cemented its position as one of the world's most distinguished leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, a reputation it would continue to uphold throughout the rest of the 20th century.

While Pfizer built upon its international growth in the latter half of the 20th century, it was also locally active in the Brooklyn community from which it emerged. Since its founding in Williamsburgh in 1849, Pfizer had served as one of the major employers of the Brooklyn labor force, and when the area surrounding its plant fell into a period of decline in the 1970s and 1980s, the company formed a public-private partnership with the city that resulted in increased jobs, housing, and education: unused lots were converted into low- and middle-income housing, apartment buildings were refurbished for the homeless, and a vacant four-story building was converted into the Beginning with Children Charter School. In 2007, Pfizer announced it would be phasing out operations at its Brooklyn plant, with the closing of the plant taking effect in 2009. However, the company still operates the Beginning with Children Charter School, and plans to convert the red-brick building that served as its original headquarters into the Charles Pfizer Community Education Center.

As of the first decade of the 21st century, Pfizer continues to be a vital player in the pharmaceutical industry, with locations throughout the world and with many major drugs in its product line for the treatment of such diseases as cancer, Alzheimer's, and HIV/AIDS, among many others. Though Pfizer no longer carries out operations in Brooklyn, it continues to hold its corporate headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

From the guide to the Pfizer Inc. collection, circa 1849-1992, 2007-2008, (Brooklyn Historical Society)

Forty-five years ago, interracially married couples faced prosecution and jail time, or violence, if they happened to cross into one of sixteen states that prohibited and punished marriages on the basis of racial classifications . Sixty years ago, anti-miscegenation laws were on the books in thirty states. Eighty-two years ago, in 1930, the Hays Code forbade portrayals of interracial romance, curtailing the careers of actors of color like Anna May Wong who could no longer play romantic leads. In Germany in 1935, The Nuremberg Laws were introduced that prohibited marriage between Jewish Germans and other Germans. The only other nation to legislate against intermarriage was Apartheid South Africa in 1949. While interfaith marriages were not legally proscribed in the United States, interfaith and interclass marriages often met with opposition from family and community. And yet, in less than two generations since the last anti-miscegenation laws were removed, a study released by the Pew Research Center in 2010 reports that a record one out of seven new marriages in the United States were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity. The 2010 U.S. Census revealed that multiracial and multiethnic children are one of the country’s fastest-growing demographic groups.

The Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations Project aims to explore these historical ideas through modern day interviews with multiple generations of Brooklynites. It is an oral history project and public programming series which examines the history and experiences of mixed-heritage people and families, cultural hybridity, race, ethnicity, and identity in the historically diverse borough of Brooklyn. Through sharing stories, we open up intergenerational conversations about preserving cultural heritage in a multicultural democracy. Narrators came to this project through connections with the project the interviewing team and CBBG public programs.

Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations is a project of the Brooklyn Historical Society which builds upon BHS's oral history collections. Begun in 1973, the oral history collections contain interviews with more than 500 narrators and are available for listening in the Othmer Library. Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations is an ongoing project that is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and New York Council for the Humanities.

From the guide to the Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations Mixed Heritage Oral History Collection, 2011-[ongoing], (Brooklyn Historical Society)