Group Description

Brooklyn was established in the 1820s across the Mississippi River from St. Louis and the slave state of Missouri. It was started as a settlement of African Americans escaping slavery, and later became the first black town in America to be incorporated. The growing town was also called Lovejoy in honor of abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy, who was killed by a pro-slavery mob in nearby Alton, Illinois, in 1837. Brooklyn grew as a community of craftspeople, laborers, and their families. A plat of the town was filed in 1837 and in 1873 it became the first African-American town to be incorporated. The goals of a new archaeology and historical research project are to understand how ethnicity, class, religion, racism, and developing markets influenced the ways in which individuals and families of this community made choices in shaping their natural, social, and built environments and in developing particular social traditions and economic strategies. An interdisplinary, collaborative research project is being planned that includes the University of Illinois Departments of Anthropology and African American Studies, the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, and the Illinois State Museum, working in coordination with the Historical Society of Brooklyn.