Performances by Sarah Bernhardt, Martha Graham, and Meryl Streep; meetings about equal rights with Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass  in 1869; a lecture by Helen Keller in 1913.  These are among the  people and events chronicled in some 70,000 items now available in an online archives of The Brooklyn Academy of Music, starting with the cultural institution’s grand opening in 1861 attended by First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

If BAM is now known primarily as a venue for avant-garde performance, its long history demonstrates the huge variety of uses over the years for its buildings in Brooklyn. Some 40,000 artists are searchable in the archives.

Check out the newly launched Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive

Click on any image below to see it enlarged and read the caption.

Meryl Streep and Christopher Lloyd in the Chelsea Theater Center production of Bertolt Brecht’s “Happy End” during BAM Spring Series, 1977

One of the most famous actresses of the late 19th century, Sarah Bernhardt began her career in Paris with the Comédie-Française. After performing in all the most illustrious theaters in Europe, Bernhardt came to BAM to perform one of her most popular roles, Camille, the English version of La Dame aux Camélias (the Dumas tale which was the basis of Verdi’s La Traviata). Toward the end of her long career, Bernhardt returned to BAM in the 1916-17 season for an extended repertory engagement.

Portrait of Martha Graham and Bertram Ross, 1961

1869 ad

Detail from Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences Bulletin advertising the Amelia Earhart lecture “Adventures in the Air” during Spring Season, 1936

Jeffrey Kissoon and Tapa Sudana in the Peter Brook/Jean-Claude Carriere production of The Mahabharata during BAM Next Wave Festival, 1987. Photographer Credit: Martha Swope ©The New York Public Library

1869 ad

Ian McKellen as King Lear and Sylvester McCoy as Lear’s Fool in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of “King Lear” during BAM Fall Series, 2007]

Nona Hendryx in the Laurie Anderson curated production “Laurie & Friends” during BAM Spring Series, 2009

Scene from Kontakthof part of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch self-titled production during BAM Next Wave Festival, 1985. Photographer Credit: Johan Elbers

Illustration of the Brooklyn and Long Island Sanitary Fair, 1864

poster for BAM, 1970s

Poster for Twyla Tharp Dance productions during BAM Spring Series, 1984