The graduate student research team has engaged with many different sources and subjects to inform our understanding of the post-WWII period of development and change in and around Pratt. As is often the case with such research, in answering some questions we have invariably identified many more that we hope to see answered.

We invite interested scholars, artists, designers, preservationists, and activists to help us more fully understand the many layers of this complex time period.

The following are some our ongoing research questions:

If Pratt was open to students from all gender, socio-economic, ethnic, and racial backgrounds, what courses and programs did they pursue once they were admitted and why?

How did the GI bill influence who could attend Pratt and who couldn’t?

How did the federal Urban Renewal program influence Pratt’s relationship with the broader Central Brooklyn community? How did Pratt respond to these significant federal programs?

How did student activism at Pratt differ based on race, ethnicity, gender and major?

How did the Bed-Stuy / Clinton Hill community change with Pratt’s campus development?

How did the shift in generations from World War II to Vietnam create tensions between the Pratt Institute’s administration and the emerging generation of the sixties and seventies?

What was Pratt’s administrative involvement with federal and local urban renewal decision-makers in the 1950s, and why are there no records in Pratt’s institutional archives?

We welcome your contributions to help us address questions and add to them!