Brooklyn’s Renaissance : Commerce, Culture, and Community in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World

This book shows how modern Brooklyn's proud urban identity as an arts-friendly community originated in the mid nineteenth century. Before and after the Civil War, Brooklyn's elite, many engaged in Atlantic trade, established more than a dozen cultural societies, including the Philharmonic Society, Academy of Music, and Art Association. The associative ethos behind Brooklyn's fine arts flowering built upon commercial networks that joined commerce, culture, and community. This innovative, carefully researched and documented history employs the concept of parallel Renaissances. It shows influences from Renaissance Italy and Liverpool, then connected to New York through regular packet service like the Black Ball Line that ferried people, ideas, and cargo across the Atlantic. Civil War disrupted Brooklyn's Renaissance. The city directed energies towards war relief efforts and the women's Sanitary Fair. The Gilded Age saw Brooklyn's Renaissance energies diluted by financial and political corruption, planning the Brooklyn Bridge and consolidation with New York City in 1898.-- Provided by publisher "This book shows how modern Brooklyn's proud urban identity as an arts-friendly community originated in the mid nineteenth century. Before and after the Civil War, Brooklyn's elite, many engaged in Atlantic trade, established more than a dozen cultural societies, including the Philharmonic Society, Academy of Music, and Art Association. The associative ethos behind Brooklyn's fine arts flowering built upon commercial networks that joined commerce, culture, and community. This innovative, carefully researched and documented history employs the concept of parallel Renaissances. It shows influences from Renaissance Italy and Liverpool, then connected to New York through regular packet service like the Black Ball Line that ferried people, ideas, and cargo across the Atlantic. Civil War disrupted Brooklyn's Renaissance. The city directed energies towards war relief efforts and the women's Sanitary Fair. The Gilded Age saw Brooklyn's Renaissance energies diluted by financial and political corruption, planning the Brooklyn Bridge and consolidation with New York City in 1898"--Page 4 of cover Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Introduction....Pages 1-7 Parallel Renaissances in the Atlantic World....Pages 9-47 Black Ball Business and Commercial Networks....Pages 49-100 First Steps Toward Brooklyn’s Renaissance....Pages 101-155 Symphony of the Arts....Pages 157-208 Sociability, Civil War, and a Diverted Renaissance....Pages 209-252 Culture of War Relief....Pages 253-302 Brooklyn’s Changing Complexion....Pages 303-342 Impact on the Arts....Pages 343-376 A Fading Renaissance....Pages 377-422 Back Matter....Pages 423-458