The Brooklyn Art Association, a development of the Sketch Club, formed by Brooklyn artists in 1857, erected a handsome building adjoining the Academy of Music in 1872. The exhibitions held in the association galleries have been the chief displays of pictures seen within the city. In recent years the Brooklyn Art Club, a society composed of artists solely, has attained a large membership, and has exhibited annually in the Art Association galleries. The Art Association maintains a free art school. The leading society of art connoisseurs is the Rembrandt Club.
The Society of Old Brooklynites, the Franklin Literary Society, and the Bryant Literary Society have won prominence, and a position of influence has been assumed by the Brooklyn Woman's Club.
In private libraries and art collections Brooklyn has grown rich within the past twenty-five years. The development of certain valuable picture collections has induced the wish that the city had a great museum similar to the Metropolitan in New York, which might receive contributions by bequest. The advancement of the Brooklyn Institute promises to supply this need.
The newspapers of Brooklyn have acquired an increasingly influential position in the life of the city. We have seen how the "Eagle," the "Times," and the "Freie Presse" attained their established positions. The "Standard-Union" represents some interesting newspaper history. The "Union" was started in the midst of the war period, its first editor being Edward Cary. The paper was purchased in 1870 by Henry C. Bowen, and Gen. Stewart L. Woodford became editor-in-chief, and H. E. Bowen (son of Henry C.), the publisher. When General Woodford retired a few months later, he was succeeded by Theodore Tilton, whose skillful pen was in the service of the paper until January, 1872, when Henry C. Bowen assumed the editorship. In the following year the control of the paper passed to Benjamin F. Tracy, F. A. Schroeder, John F. Henry, and others associated with them, and Robert Burch, who afterward became managing editor of the "Eagle," took the post of editor-in-chief. Later the property came into the hands of Lorin Palmer, and in 1877 the purchase of the name and good-will of the Brooklyn "Argus," which had been established as a weekly in 1866 and as a daily in 1873, resulted in the change of title to "Union-Argus." When the Union Publishing Company was formed, the name "Argus" was dropped, and the paper was again known as the "Union" during the aggressive editorship of John Foord, formerly of the New York "Times," and afterward editor of "Harper's Weekly." In 1887 the "Standard," which had been established in 1884, was consolidated with the "Union," and John A. Hatton assumed the editorship of the "Standard-Union." Soon afterward William Berri became principal owner of the paper, and in 1890 Murat Halstead, long the master spirit of Ohio journalism, was called to the chair of editor-in-chief. The qualities which gave Halstead a national reputation while editor of the Cincinnati "Commercial Gazette" have not failed to make his pen a power in Brooklyn and throughout the State.