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. Founding member and former president of the United Women Firefighters. Trustee of the Women in Fire Service. Taught at the FDNY fire academy and the United States National Fire Academy. 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
Photo. Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Working Women Organizing for Equality In New York City, by Jane LaTour.
More About Brenda:
- Brenda Berkman website
- Brenda Berkman podcasts
- Capt. Brenda Berkman ’78: “From NYU Law to the FDNY,” 2017
- 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
- “Brenda Berkman: NYC Firefighter and Recipient of the Susan B. Anthony Award,” by Buck Johnson
- Brenda Berkman: A Trailblazer Starts a New Path
- Women’s Media Center
- The documentary Taking the Heat, which chronicles Berkman’s struggle to integrate women into the FDNY, aired on PBS in 2006
- Archives
- United Women Firefighters website
- Wikipedia page