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thank you for your patience. we re delighted to be gathered here today. i don t want to slow is down, but i do want to make sure that all of you know a little bit about where you are today. can i just get a sense of how many of you are at brooklyn historical society for the first time? wow. fantastic. welcome. welcome to all of our old-timers as well. a few of our board members are in the audience, so we re delighted be that as well. those who have never been here before i want to give you a sense of this institution which has been around for a very long time, 154 years, and we are historical society that prides ourselves on being very, very accessible to people. we have an extraordinary research library that is open to one and all. we encourage you to come and explore it. we have exhibitions which you may have got an glimpse of right behind the wall, history of abolition in brooklyn, called in pursuit of freedom. there s an exhibition i want to make sure that you p ....
you all so much for your patience. we are delighted to be gathered here today. i don t want to slow us down, but i do want to make sure you know a little bit about where you are today. can i just get a sense of how many of you are at the historical society for the first time? welcome to the institution has been around for a long time, 154 here s comin, and we are a histl society that prides herself on being very accessible to people. we have an extraordinary research library that is open to one and all. periods behind the wall of history. it is an exhibition about the prospect parprospect park and iy downstairs, so there s a lot going on and you should come back and explore and perhaps most importantly for those of you that are interested in public programs such as this one i want to make sure that you pick up this brochure on your way back. it is chalk full of incredibly interesting programs and a whole series about women s suffrage coming up soon. take a look. don t m ....
i don t want to slow us down, but i do want make sure that all of you know a little bit about where you are today. can i just get a sense of how many of you are at brooklyn historical society for the first time? wow. fantastic. welcome. welcome to all of our full timers as well. a few of our board members are in the audience so we are delighted by that as well. for those of you who have never been here before, i want to give you a sense of this institution which has been around for very long time am a 154 years and we are a historical society that prides ourselves on being very assessable to people, we have an extraordinary research library that is open to one and all and we encourage you to come explore. we have exhibitions which you may have gotten a glimpse of ray behind this wall, history of abolition in brooklyn called in pursuit of freedom, there s an expedition about jackie robinson and baseball world series season, upstairs and an exhibition about the prospect ....
so, again, encouraging people to take their seats. good evening, everyone. my name is kai bird, i m the new executive director of the leon levy center for biography which is celebrating its tenth year now all due to shelby white and the leon levy foundation. and i want to advertise, first of all, our new alliance with bio. this is our first sort of jointly-sponsored event with them, but we are also, courtesy of will swift here the president of bio, we are also going to be doing, cosponsoring their great annual conference on biography next may. and that will also be happening here at cuny. should be a great event with over 200 biographers. i also want to advertise and put out the word, we have a december 15th deadline for our new, our annual fellowship, and there are four fellowships given out every year of $65,000 a pop for aspiring biographers. so if you know of people who are aspiring, please encourage them to apply. and finally, i just, you know, i m really thril ....
nancy caught, for her support of our endeavor here today. today, we will address a timely topic the participation of historians in courtroom proceedings. there s no systematic study, but the evidence we have indicates of, for instance, scholarly amicus briefs, where scholars file amicus briefs in court proceedings, has been increasing. there s a long history of scholarly input into appellate court cases stretching back at least to the famous brandeis inef in a supreme court case 1908, but for our purposes, our pedigree as historians might be traced back to the brown versus board of education litigation in which the distinguished cptorians helped the in aa casee naacp make the against school segregation. more recently, 400 historians signed an amicus brief in the case of webster versus reproductive services, the abortion rights case from 1989, tell youanelists will about things that are both older and more recent. in addition, historians testifying at trial has a quite ....