Girls' High School collection
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Abstract
The Girls' High School collection spans the period 1890 to 1964 and contains ephemera, documents, photographs and publications documenting school events and student activities.
Historical Note
Girls' High School was Brooklyn's first all-girls high school, opening in 1886 on Nostrand Avenue between Macon and Halsey Streets in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. The school's distinctive building, borrowing from both neo-Gothic and French Second Empire architectural styles and featuring a prominent clock tower, was designed by architect James W. Naughton and was deemed a New York City landmark in 1983.
The school's predecessor was the Central Grammar School, a coeducational institution that was established in downtown Brooklyn at Court and Livingston Streets in 1878. As Brooklyn's population grew, Central Grammar School became too small to accommodate the large number of new students, and the need for additional classroom facilities became apparent. Girls' High School was one of two public high schools established in response to this need, the other being Boys' High School, which opened in 1891 on Marcy Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Although Girls' High School closed in 1964, it later merged with Boys' High School and reopened in 1976 under its new name, Boys and Girls High School, at 1700 Fulton Street. As of 2023, the school continues to operate at that location.
Sources:
- Jackson, Kenneth T., John B. Manbeck, and the Citizens Committee for New York City. The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn. New Haven: Yale University Press, c1998.
- Parker, Vernon. "On This Day in History: September 23: Boys' High School Designated Landmark." Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 23, 2010. Accessed October 20, 2010, http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?id=38255.
- Robbins, Michael W., and Wendy Palitz. Brooklyn: A State of Mind. New York: Workman Pub., 2000.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into three series by type. Within each series, materials are arranged by type and/or chronologically.
Scope and Contents
The Girls' High School collection spans the period 1890 to 1964 and contains ephemera, documents, photographs and publications documenting school events and student activities. Materials include programs for events; a collection of school songs; yearbooks; issues of the student-produced literary journal, Blue and Gold; issues of the school's newsletter, published under the titles The Chaser Fortnightly and The Fortnightly; and two volumes of poems written by students.
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Conditions Governing Access
Open to researchers without restriction.
Conditions Governing Use
While many items at the Center for Brooklyn History are unrestricted, we do not own reproduction rights to all materials. Be aware of the several kinds of rights that might apply: copyright, licensing and trademarks. The researcher assumes all responsibility for copyright questions.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date (if known); Girls' High School collection, ARC.128, Box and Folder number; Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Portions of accession 1985.054 were the gifts of Grace E. Beadman, 1937, and Sophie E. Rie, 1986. Accession 2006.031 was the gift of Marjorie Smeltzer-Stevenot, 2006. Blue and Gold issues for June 1919, January 1921, and June 1921 were gifts of the Winterthur Museum Library in 2017. Sources and dates of acquisition for remaining items in the collection are unknown.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
If digital surrogates exist, they should be used in place of the originals whenever possible.
Separated Materials
In some cases, duplicate materials were discarded.
About this Guide
Processing Information
This collection was originally minimally processed to the collection level. At that point, the collection comprised portions of accession 1985.054 and all of accession 2006.031.
In 2023, the collection was reprocessed to incorporate found-in-collection material and material removed from the Brooklyn ephemera collection (BCMS.0007) and Brooklyn schools collection (CBHM.0006).
Much of the material from BCMS.0007 is labeled "BAF," which was at one time the Brooklyn Collection's so-called "Brooklyn Authority Files," also known as the clippings files and similar to vertical files.
