Brooklyn, NY Made Digital



brooklyn sheet music Are you from Brooklyn, did you have relatives who lived or worked in Brooklyn, New York? Seeing it has been a large community for decades, it is very possible you do have one or more ancestors from Brooklyn. It is one of the five boroughs of New York City with a population now of about 2.5 million in a land area of about 71 square miles. With the Dutch there first in the 1630s it has a very long history. In 1800 the population was about 5,740, then in 1820 it grew to 11,187 residents. By 1850 it had really grown with a population of 138,882. More than a million people lived in Brooklyn by 1900 and it reached 2 million by 1920. So its influence and the citizens who lived and worked there is tremendous.

The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) has made available online a wide selection of their collections. They have featured Brooklyn’s historical newspapers, photographs, items related to the US Civil War & Brooklyn, theatre playbills, manuscripts, trade cards, sheet music along with neighborhood histories. The newest addition online are the Brooklyn City Directories for the years 1856 to 1908. These resources can really help locate any ancestors in Brooklyn during that time frame, where they lived and the occupation they held.

Select a category from the BPL collection, from Civil War to sheet music to the historic photos. For the photos there is a search box in the upper right corner, just place a surname or keyword. The same is true for the other categories like sheet music place a keyword in the search box in the upper right.

If you find an image you can right click on it to download it to your computer. Scroll down each image to read an additional information.

There are many images of the various Brooklyn neighborhoods, methods of transportation, and of course the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. As you look over the various collections, there is a wide select of time periods, including more recent times such as the 1970s to 1990s.

So if you have ‘Brooklyn’ in your blood, this is a Must See and Explore site.

Photo: Permans’ Brooklyn Cake Walk sheet music of 1899.

Photo: Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza, Civil War memorial designed by John H. Duncan and completed in 1892.

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