Records of the Brooklyn Council for Social Planning

This collection comprises the records of the BCSP from its founding in 1933 until its demise in 1957, and is organized in ten series, as received from BCSP. Records are much more extensive for the years 1948-57 than for the earlier years of operation. The collection provides a comprehensive description of existing and needed social welfare services in Brooklyn during the years covered, as well as efforts to extend and improve these services in the following areas: child care, adoption and foster care, juvenile delinquency, recreational facilities, neighborhood organization, medical and mental health services, the practice of social work, housing needs, discrimination and segregation issues, veterans services, and volunteerism. In some instances the policies are at odds with current practice (the general approval of public housing projects, for example); in others (the recognition of discrimination in the apportionment of services to certain minority neighborhoods, or school segregation), the records point to a growing cognizance of social injustices which would culminate in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Minutes of meetings present the most comprehensive picture of the administrative and program activities of BCSP during all years of operation, and also include minutes of a related organization, the Brooklyn Health Council. The administrative activities of the organization, including its finances and fund raising, Board of Directors, membership activities, and early history are chronicled in correspondence and related material in Series 2, administrative files. The program files, Series 3, demonstrate the organization's active approach in addressing the needs of all groups, and include committee correspondence, some minutes of meetings, press clippings, and related pamphlets and reports. Programs include annual meetings, family and child welfare activities, group work and recreation, health care services, housing, neighborhood organization, professional training, services to African-Americans, transportation, World War II veterans' services, volunteerism, and youth services.

The hierarchy of welfare and health councils in New York City during this period is evident in Series 4, which chronicles BCSP's relationship with other related organizations, including its parent organization, the Welfare and Health Council of New York City (later called the Community Council of Greater New York); its sister organizations in the other boroughs; and its distant relatives in other cities. BCSP's offspring, in the form of various Brooklyn neighborhood councils, are documented in Series 5, which also includes general information on many neighborhoods in the borough.

BCSP's interests and programs included issues involving city, state and local government agencies. Its work with and relationship to various municipal agencies is revealed in correspondence, press clippings, reports and publications in Series 6. Correspondence with and records of cooperative projects with nongovernment organizations and agencies, including Brooklyn College, Brooklyn Public Library, Greater New York Fund, and the Urban League of Greater New York, is found in Series 7, which also includes a large group of files on related nonprofit organizations, mostly in Brooklyn, whose purposes were in sympathy with those of BCSP.

Many BCSP projects were anticipated by extensive research and information about particular topics or issues. Publications, pamphlets, press clippings, reports, and other material covering the aged, juvenile delinquency, social welfare legislation, narcotics abuse and Puerto Rican communities in New York, and other issues can be found in Series 8, subject files.

As the culmination of a project, or as an impetus to social change, BCSP published reports and pamphlets on issues of concern; these are found in series 9. Series 10 contains scrapbooks assembled by BCSP to record the press coverage of its activities and on important issues of the day.