About the Broome County Historical Society
The Broome County Historical Society was organized during the summer of 1919 and later incorporated, beginning with a membership of roughly twenty-five to thirty people whose first meeting was held in a men's clothing shop at 99 Court Street in downtown Binghamton. For more than a century since, the society has been collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of Broome County, New York, the Southern Tier region that grew up around Binghamton at the junction of the Susquehanna and Chenango rivers.
Today the society is headquartered at the Broome County History Center on the second floor of the Broome County Public Library at 185 Court Street. Its collection of more than 200,000 items covers the area from pre-history to the present and is cared for according to professional museum and archival standards. The History Center brings the society's holdings together with the local history and genealogy collections of the public library and the office of the Broome County Historian, giving researchers a single destination for photographs, printed histories, genealogical resources, maps, vertical files, and obituary indexes.
The society presents nine regular programs each year, all free and open to the public, on topics in regional history. It publishes the Broome County History Bulletin twice a year and a series of major books on local history that are sold through its online store. Membership, which supports the collections and programs, is offered at individual, family, student, and corporate levels; applications are currently handled by mailed check to the Court Street address while online processing is being set up.
Collections and Research Services
Visitors to the History Center can consult artifacts, research documents, and family files alongside the library's genealogy room, which makes it the natural starting point for Broome County family and house research. Staff research services are available for a fee for those unable to visit in person; contact the society through its website for current rates and turnaround. One of the most useful online resources is the society's map collection: full-size, high-resolution scans of historic maps of Broome County, the City of Binghamton, and every township, shared through Google Drive for personal use. Pair those maps with the library's city directories and our guides to old city directories and free family history research to trace a Binghamton address or family across the decades.
Planning Your Visit
The Broome County History Center is on the second floor of the Broome County Public Library at 185 Court Street, Binghamton, NY 13901. The center is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Tuesday from noon to 8 p.m. The society does not publish a phone number on its website, so use the contact form there for research questions. Parking and accessibility details are not posted online; check with the library before visiting. Program schedules, newsletters, and the book store are at broomehistory.org.
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