For a full overview of the internship experience (including archival research experience), please see "An Overview."
One incredible perk to working as an intern at BHS was having the opportunity to learn about the collections through my reference work, free access to programming, and conversations with staff members. This type of personalized exposure helped demystify the collection and its access points in a way that is unique — impossible to replicate by anyone who does not have the privilege of working in this role. This experience will continue to define my relationship with BHS as I continue to use its services as a Brooklyn resident, library student, independent researcher, and (quite likely) a professional librarian working in New York City.
In the staff offices at Brooklyn Historical Society, I noticed a wide variety of items pinned to the felt cubicle walls. These included student works created using archival materials during programming events, staff-owned resources like the booklet "Slavery and Resistance in NYC: A Walking Tour" by Mariame Kaba, and promotional materials from other organizations like TeachArchives.org. To have this type of insight into what employees of BHS were being inspired by and working to produce felt like a peek into the general ethos of the organization.
One set of documents that struck me was something evidently excerpted from a copy of a 1963 issue of African Heritage Magazine. Alongside a photo of a young woman was a short caption describing her activism: "Gwendolyn [REDACTED] is a young seventeen year old black girl who has a burning desire to do something about the racial situation in the United States. This is a little of her story. When the fight for construction jobs at the Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, N.Y. began last summer, Gwendolyn was one of the first pickets to join the picket line. She was among those who chained themselves together in an effort to block the trucks. This young lady is very proud of the fact that she has been to jail several times during her fight for freedom and equality, and, she states that she is willing to go to jail many more times."
Someone — presumably a BHS staff member — had written on this printout "Brooklyn C.O.R.E. Member."
One set of documents that struck me was something evidently excerpted from a copy of a 1963 issue of African Heritage Magazine. Alongside a photo of a young woman was a short caption describing her activism: "Gwendolyn [REDACTED] is a young seventeen year old black girl who has a burning desire to do something about the racial situation in the United States. This is a little of her story. When the fight for construction jobs at the Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, N.Y. began last summer, Gwendolyn was one of the first pickets to join the picket line. She was among those who chained themselves together in an effort to block the trucks. This young lady is very proud of the fact that she has been to jail several times during her fight for freedom and equality, and, she states that she is willing to go to jail many more times."
Someone — presumably a BHS staff member — had written on this printout "Brooklyn C.O.R.E. Member."
Because I had become somewhat familiar with BHS collections through my regular work, I knew that the Brooklyn C.O.R.E. (Congress of Racial Equality) Collection was housed within the building. I was interested in learning more about this activist movement. I did this through conducting some basic Google searching, much of which led me to the Brooklyn Public Library's Brooklyn Collection, and right back to the Brooklyn Historical Society. Much of what I read harkened back to the themes explored at the programming event "The Stacked Deck: Race and America’s Unjust Criminal Justice System" that I had attended two weeks prior. I decided to schedule a research appointment for myself on a day that I was not scheduled to work at BHS.
On October 23, I was able to peruse the Arnie Goldwag Brooklyn C.O.R.E. collection myself. Because the collection had been donated by the wife of 1960s civil rights activist Arnie Goldwag, the collection featured much of the late Brooklynites personal archive. I found myself fascinated by material that was generated from his time serving a prison sentence in Rikers Island penitentiary. These documents included letters sent by him at this time, lists he made of books he had read while imprisoned, and even a typed copy of a "freedom song" he wrote to the tune of My Country Tis of Thee. It was a deeply emotional and affective experience to sit there with these documents in my hand and imagine the horrors Goldwag was facing in these moments.
As I looked through the mail Goldwag had received while in prison, one name caught my eye: "Gwen." It was a letter dated May 20, 1964, just one year after Gwendolyn [REDACTED]'s photo ran in African Heritage Magazine. Reading the sign-off from the Gwen who wrote this letter (whose last name did not appear anywhere on it), I wondered if this was the same young woman who wrote: "I was just interupted and takened to the principal's office for not saluting the flag. My mother has to come to the school at 7:30 tonight."
On October 23, I was able to peruse the Arnie Goldwag Brooklyn C.O.R.E. collection myself. Because the collection had been donated by the wife of 1960s civil rights activist Arnie Goldwag, the collection featured much of the late Brooklynites personal archive. I found myself fascinated by material that was generated from his time serving a prison sentence in Rikers Island penitentiary. These documents included letters sent by him at this time, lists he made of books he had read while imprisoned, and even a typed copy of a "freedom song" he wrote to the tune of My Country Tis of Thee. It was a deeply emotional and affective experience to sit there with these documents in my hand and imagine the horrors Goldwag was facing in these moments.
As I looked through the mail Goldwag had received while in prison, one name caught my eye: "Gwen." It was a letter dated May 20, 1964, just one year after Gwendolyn [REDACTED]'s photo ran in African Heritage Magazine. Reading the sign-off from the Gwen who wrote this letter (whose last name did not appear anywhere on it), I wondered if this was the same young woman who wrote: "I was just interupted and takened to the principal's office for not saluting the flag. My mother has to come to the school at 7:30 tonight."
Whether this letter was from this same young woman or another young person with the same name, I felt a sense of connection reading these words in her own handwriting on this page. I thought of the young Brooklyn students I work with every day as a library assistant and wondered how they might feel to get their hands on this letter; how it might cause them to reflect on their own lives and the political issues they cared about. Would they relate to Gwen? Could this type of primary source material move them as it did me?
These questions harkened to an article I had recently read in School Library Connection called "Exploring Local History." In it, the author (a school librarian passionate about bringing primary source research into the lives of her students as a means of learning about stewardship and historic preservation) noted, "Making connections to the past is not always easy for students... It's exciting to see those connections happened through focused study and hands-on experiences." It made me think about the ways the school I work for might take on this approach in their annual experiential education initiative, Project Brooklyn.
These questions harkened to an article I had recently read in School Library Connection called "Exploring Local History." In it, the author (a school librarian passionate about bringing primary source research into the lives of her students as a means of learning about stewardship and historic preservation) noted, "Making connections to the past is not always easy for students... It's exciting to see those connections happened through focused study and hands-on experiences." It made me think about the ways the school I work for might take on this approach in their annual experiential education initiative, Project Brooklyn.