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VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT: BRENDA BERKMANveteranfeminists2023-06-27T10:01:04-04:00

THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Capt. Brenda Berkman

“We’ve suffered as a second generation not knowing our foremothers’ history.”

Firefighter, Attorney, Artist, Educator, Historian. Founder and former president of the United Women Firefighters. Trustee of the Women in Fire Service. Taught at the FDNY fire academy. Vice-President and Board Member of Monumental Women. Education: B.A., St. Olaf College, Minnesota; M.A., Indiana University; J.D., New York University Law School, M.S. in fire protection management from City University of New York.

Interviewed by Judy Waxman, Oral Historian, March 2023

Homepage photo by Tim Hoy

Photo 1. Brenda Berkman speaking at the unveiling of Monumental Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in 2020 in Central Park, New York. Photo 2. Brenda printing one of her original stone lithographs at the Art Students League in New York. Photo 3. At the 9/11 Memorial during volunteer work leading tours of the Memorial. Photo 4. Brenda Berkman after a fire. Photo 5. Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Working Women Organizing for Equality In New York City, by Jane LaTour (photo by Gary Schoichet).

Read the Transcript

More About Brenda:

  • Brenda Berkman website
  • This Is Actually Happening podcast with Whit Missildine, September 21, 2021
  • Capt. Brenda Berkman ’78: “From NYU Law to the FDNY,” 2017, Birnbaum Womens Leadership Center podcast
  • Women’s Media Center podcast, WMC Live with Robin Morgan
  • Brenda Berkman podcasts
  • Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Working Women Organizing for Equality In New York City, by Jane LaTour
  • Send a Girl! by Jessica M. Rinker
  • Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Courage and Compassion, by Hagen and Carouba
  • “Brenda Berkman: NYC Firefighter and Recipient of the Susan B. Anthony Award,” by Buck Johnson on the website A Tour of Her Own
  • Brenda Berkman: A Trailblazer Starts a New Path
  • The documentary Taking the Heat, which chronicles Berkman’s struggle to integrate women into the FDNY, aired on PBS in 2006 
    • Part 1
    • Part 2
    • Part 3
  • Archives
    • Guide to the United Women Firefighters Records, WAG.057, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive
    • Many Women Strong, A Handbook for Women Firefighters
  • United Women Firefighters website
  • “Artist Talk: Sculptor Meredith Bergmann with Brenda Berkman” at the Art Students League, 2021
  • “Thirty-six Views of One World Trade Center,” Berkman discusses her series of stone lithographs documenting the rebuilding of One World Trade Center 
  • Wikipedia page

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