Brooklyn Ashes: The Rise of a City and the Brooklyn Theatre Fire of 1876

At the height of America’s Gilded Age, perhaps no other city in the country experienced such a radical change as Brooklyn. From a loose collection of Dutch villages that experienced virtually no crime at the beginning of the 19th century, to a rapidly urbanized area with a population bursting at the seams, a matter of decades rendered Brooklyn unrecognizable. Amidst booming growth, a righteous clash between the Church of the old world and the rising political machine of the new world unders...