Administrative Files, 1936-2024

The Administrative Files series documents the general administrative duties of the Brooklyn Museum's Education Division from 1936-2024. It includes a wide variety of reports from singular projects to complete department activties; histories and descriptions of the department; research on topics like pedagogy and accessibility; audience surveys which informed programming choices; general correspondence which includes praise and thank you letters; general programming files; ephemera; and staff files.

Most of the Education Division records span from 1970 until 2024, but this series has several unique early materials that demonstrate the activities and philsophies of the division. There are annual and monthly department reports from 1936, and 1947-1967. These reports, likely to the director or used in Museum annual reports, document the vast activities of the department. Additionally, there is a small amount of material from the 1940s on the Loan Room. Similar to the Learning Center of the 1990s, the Loan room held material that could be loaned to schools and teachers to help meet curriculum needs. Materials included: lantern slides, records (music), films, and pre-visit kits.

Several other projects are also included in this series. The Museum Education Consorium (MEC) was a collaborative of museum education departments that received grant funding to explore video and computer technology in Museums for educational purposes. Working with 6 other Museum staff, the Brooklyn Museum Education department helped to create content and a prject demonstration of an interactive video element about Impressionism. While the project ultimately was tabled, it certianly influenced future projects at every institution involved. The Learning Center was a small space within the Museum that opened in 1999 and it allowed children and other visitors to utilize computers to access educational content, and browse books about art. This intersection of technology and art education was a successful experiment. Access to computers was important, as according to a USDA survey, 42% of Americans had at least 1 computer in their home as of December 1998.

Lastly, of note are the Director's files. Here, you can see larger decisions that push the Education Division in terms of projects and pedagogy. You can see in both Radiah Harper's and Adjoa Jones de Almeida's files, that there was an embrace of a more social justice oriented form of teaching or teaching that embraces themes of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access. This can be seen in trainings, research, and policies like: the all gender bathrooms, diversity and sensitivity trainings for interns, culturally responsive teaching presentation, and the Brooklyn Museum Racial Equity taskforce.

This series truly encompasses and demonstrates the quality and quantity of educational programming and projects that the Education Division organizes and/or participates in.