Series 8: Exhibitions and Special Projects, circa 1865-2020, inclusive

In 1865, the Natural History Department of the Long Island Historical Society was established under the leadership of Elias Lewis, Jr., who served as the department's chairman. In addition to this role, he held various other positions within the Society, including secretary, museum curator, and board member.

The museum displayed its natural history collection along with other items referred to as "curiosities" and "relics" from Long Island and around the world. The exhibits included taxidermy animals (primarily birds, reptiles, and small mammals), Revolutionary War-era surgical instruments, geological specimens (such as local rocks, pebbles, and soils), firearms, and human remains (including skulls, ulnas, and femurs). The Society also collected a significant number of arrowheads, spearheads, stone implements, and other objects associated with indigenous peoples in the United States and abroad.

In 1926, due to financial difficulties, the LIHS closed its natural history department and donated its collections to other institutions in New York, such as the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Museum of the American Indian.

Beginning in the late 1980s, the Brooklyn Historical Society conducted five documentation projects focused on Brooklyn's Latino Communities, the AIDS crisis, Crown Heights, the Chinese community in Sunset Park, and the annual West Indian Carnival celebration. These projects were part of BHS's initiative to make the Society more responsive to – and its collections more reflective of – contemporary Brooklyn. Each community study involved two phases: research and dissemination. Research involved collecting oral history interviews, documents, photos, and artifacts. Dissemination was mainly done through exhibitions using the collected materials. To help conduct these projects, scholarly and community advisory committees were formed for each study. Committee members identified candidates for oral history interviews, sites to be photographed, and sources for documents and artifacts.

In Pursuit of Freedom: African Americans and the Antislavery Movement was a year-long project that resulted in a traveling exhibition and educational materials. The exhibition explored the role played by Brooklynites, particularly African Americans, in the movement to end slavery in the United States and prominently featured an original copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln.

After its opening at City Hall in Manhattan on September 22, 1997, the exhibition traveled to multiple locations in Brooklyn, including Borough Hall, the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp, and several branches of the Brooklyn Public Library. Beginning in 2008, a decade after the conclusion of In Pursuit of Freedom: African Americans and the Antislavery Movement, a separate public history initiative, also titled In Pursuit of Freedom, continued to explore similar themes and expand upon the groundwork laid by the initial project.

Brooklyn's History Museum (1989-1999) was purportedly the first-ever long-term exhibition on the borough's history. Sections were organized around five symbols of Brooklyn: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklynites, Coney Island, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Under the direction of Chief Curator Ellen Snyder-Grenier (1984-1992), the symbols were chosen for their familiarity and used as entry points to building broader interpretations of Brooklyn's history.

The exhibition was installed in the Shellens Gallery of Brooklyn History, also known as the Shellens Gallery. The space was named in honor of Ruth M. Shellens, whose estate contributed $350,000 to the project, marking the largest single gift or grant received by the Historical Society for this initiative.

Brooklyn Works: 400 Years of Making a Living in Brooklyn was a major exhibition that told the story of labor and industry in Brooklyn, starting with its agricultural beginnings and ending with stories of contemporary workers in various industries. Brooklyn Works was the Society's inaugural exhibition upon the reopening of its historic building in October 2003, following an extensive renovation that began in 1999. The exhibit highlighted historical and contemporary personal narratives, featured several interactive activities, and showcased different work environments, including Bush Terminal, a tenement building, a sugar refinery, a garment factory, and a barbershop.

In Pursuit of Freedom was a multifaceted public history project that explored and traced the history of abolitionism, anti-slavery, and the Underground Railroad in Brooklyn. The project was a collaboration between three Brooklyn cultural institutions: Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS), Weeksville Heritage Center (WHC), and Irondale Ensemble Project (IEP). In Pursuit of Freedom resulted in three interactive exhibits, an educational curriculum, public programs, walking tours, a website, and an original theater piece by Irondale Ensemble Project. The exhibitions traced the history of abolitionist Brooklyn and provided visitors with the opportunity to read and explore images, primary source documents, original land-use maps, sermons, and editorials about the draft riots and fugitive slave laws. The BHS exhibit, Brooklyn Abolitionists, was a major, long-term exhibition that explored the lesser-known individuals of Brooklyn's anti-slavery movement.