HIST 3658: Jewish Tales from Four Cities

Established in 1892, the mission of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) is to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish heritage and to serve as a national scholarly resource for research through the collection, preservation and dissemination of materials relating to American Jewish history.

Center for Jewish History and partner collections span a thousand years, with tens of millions of archival documents (in dozens of languages and alphabet systems), more than 500,000 volumes, as well as thousands of artworks, textiles, ritual objects, recordings, films, and photographs. The Center’s experts are leaders in unlocking archival material for a wide audience through the latest practices in digitization, library science, and public education. As one of the world’s foremost research institutions, the Center offers academic fellowships , symposia, conferences and lectures as well as a wide array of cultural, educational and genealogy programs for the public. Please visit the Center , search our collections online and join our Email List.

The Dorot Jewish Division was established as a distinct collection with funding contributed by Jacob Schiff in 1897, just two years after the formation of The New York Public Library.

The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies is Columbia University’s center for the academic study and discussion of Jewish life, history, and culture. Explore the length, breadth, and diversity of the Jewish experience with IIJS.

The Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy collects publications documenting American history on the national, state, and local levels, including extensive holdings on New York City history.

Brooklyn Historical Society collects, preserves, and makes accessible the world’s most comprehensive collection of materials related to Brooklyn’s history and culture. The collections foster new and cutting-edge scholarship; support public learning and research; and enrich BHS’s exhibitions, educational activities, and public programming.

The bulk of the Archives' holdings consists of architectural plans dating between the 1910s and 1966. There is also a modest collection of material related to the history and development of the Yard, artifacts salvaged from the Yard, and personal papers donated by individuals or families of Yard workers. Our digital library contains more than 10,000 photographs, architectural plans, artifacts, and ephemera related to the history of the Yard, as well as the full run of the Yard's newspaper, the Shipworker.

The Brooklyn Collection at Brooklyn Public Library offers images and maps (and other materials) related to sites in Brooklyn and beyond.

This database contains over 185,000 images (including photographs, maps, archival materials and multimedia) related to the history of New York City.

The Municipal Archive's gallery is trove of photographs take in the service of city buisness. There are a number of relevant collections to choose from.

Created as part of the library, this digital collection represents a small portion of NYHS' archival and photographic holdings. You can search the entire holdings of NYHS' library through their catalog.

Inclusive of libraries in Manhattan the Bronx and Staten Island, NYPL has a huge cache of historic photographs of the City of New York, (including Queens and Brooklyn). NYPL has a world class map collection, which includes street level maps across the five boroughs. The digital archives of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture are also a part of this collection.

The Parks Photo Archive is a repository of more than 200,000 images created by the Parks Department from 1856 to the present. The majority of the photographs were taken after 1933, and the collection is especially strong in representing the era when Robert Moses was Parks Commissioner (1934–1960). The Parks Photo Archive contains comprehensive images of parks acquisition, development and use, including design and construction improvements, special events, significant features, general park activities, and aerial views. The Archive additionally includes a small collection of color motion picture footage from the 1930s and 1940s.

Digitized maps and and photographs, which are also searchable through an interactive map feature.

See the fraction of the collections that are digitized here. Relying on the expertise of distinguished curators and scholars, You can view exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora.

The mission of the New York Transit Museum is to collect, exhibit, interpret and preserve the structural, sociological, and technological history of land-based public transportation systems in the New York metropolitan region, past and present, and to conduct research and educational programs that make its extensive collection accessible and meaningful to the broadest possible audience. You can view their online collections or make an appointment at collections@nytransitmuseum.org