BHC Special Events/Announcements
My Town, My Story – A Community Archive You Can Build!
Saturday, January 11 - December 31, 2025
All Day
MTMS is a digital community archiving platform created to preserve your community’s history and highlight the voices that make it special. We value your perspective and your potential to shape Bridgeport’s history. Click the link to the MTMS page and upload material.
View detailsMemoir Writing Workshop – this month on Saturday, February 22nd
Wednesday, February 12 - February 23, 2025
12:00 am
Please note that the monthly Memoir Writing Workshop will take place on the FOURTH Saturday of the month, February 22nd.
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Original Ancestors with Baba Craig Kelly – Saturday, February 22nd
Saturday, February 22, 2025
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Bridgeport resident Baba Craig Kelly gives a special presentation on the Mafaa (Swahili for “Great Disaster”), the Holocaust of Slavery and Genocide, and the unknown contributions of Africans and African Americans to the US and the world at large. Kelly will also display and explain several artifacts related to African American History from his personal collection.
Burroughs-Saden Library, 925 Broad Street, 1st floor program room
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Ninzi’s Secret: A Special Author Talk with Margaret Williams Walker of Monroe, CT
Saturday, March 8, 2025
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Author Margaret Williams Walker discusses her book Ninzi’s Secret: A Journey of Love, Discovery, and Heritage. Williams Walker details the amazing story of her search for her birth parents which involved learning about genealogical research and African American history as part of a voyage of self-discovery.
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Introduction to Genetic Genealogy with Kate Penney Howard
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Rev. Kate Penney Howard discusses the ever-growing field of genetic genealogy, the difference between different types of dna tests, and using dna tests to overcome those “brick walls” in genealogical research.
Event will be broadcast live. Attend in person or remotely. REGISTER HERE
View detailsBHC News
BHC x CTDA: Bridgeport’s history, now more searchable than ever
Find BHC Materials ONLINE
The Bridgeport History Center has been a proud part of the Connecticut Digital Archive for years now, taking advantage of this unique digital preservation platform that invites cultural institutions from all around Connecticut to share digitized material. Since March of 2020, BHC has worked hard to take advantage of CTDA’s hosting, search features, and support in order to make more of it’s holdings available and easier to search.
BHC is proud to share its updated CTDA space. Explore Black Bridgeport. Get to know our Archives and Manuscripts better. Did you know we have yearbooks digitized? All of our Grassroots Historians articles are available too, along with postcards and Mary Witkowski’s newspaper articles. You can search within the Bridgeport History Center’s collections only, or expand it to all of CTDA in order to find more material.
New and Noteworthy at BHC
The Bridgeport History Center updates our new and noteworthy page on a regular basis! Check back to see what we’ve added and you can come in and use. This page was last updated on April 22, 2022.
New Oral Histories
Bridgeport and New Haven Puerto Rican Oral Histories, 2023-2024
Fifth year Yale University doctoral candidate Amanda Rivera conducts oral histories to facilitate her research on the bilingual education movement in Bridgeport as led by Puerto Ricans in the 1970s. Rivera interviews community members about this topic in both Bridgeport and New Haven from 2023-2024. The interviews she conducted are now part of the History Center holdings as an oral history collection.
New Special Collections
BHC has long held biographical newspaper clipping files. Now researchers can view the list of names included in this substantial collection.
New Photographs
BHC has been continuing to add photographs to the Connecticut Digital Archive. There are over one thousand images available, with more on the way! Don’t see what you’re looking for? Contact us on our contact form.
New Digital Collections
BHC has one of the best newspaper clippings collections in the state. Explore some of the initial offerings from this vast resource.
Maps online!
Plat maps with details of lot apportionments and street details for cities across the United States
Maps with details on buildings prepared for the insurance industry
New Research Guides
Hot off the heels of finishing up the Records of the Warner Brothers Company, the Bridgeport History Center is pleased to present not one, not two, but three brand new research guides! Our women’s suffrage guide will help you celebrate a century of voting rights, the belatedly spooky guide to local witchcraft and hauntings will provide a different kind of January chill, and our comprehensive guide to material related to the Warner Brothers Company and the family will assist researchers who are keen to know more about one of Bridgeport’s biggest manufacturers.
BHC Events & Regular Monthly Programming
Original Ancestors with Baba Craig Kelly – Saturday, February 22nd
Saturday, February 22, 2025
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
View detailsFeatured Articles
The New Bridgeporters: Men of Maplewood and Growth of a Community
By Abraham Lima
This is Part 3 of a 5 Part Series at the Bridgeport History Center:
To read the previous articles, use the guide below to navigate.
- Part 1 “En El Principio, Los Mojados en USA” and “What are Tortillas?” https://bportlibrary.org/hc/hispanic-populations-and-culture/when-the-aztec-eagle-began-her-soar-over-bridgeport-part-1/
- Part 2 – “From Puebla York, Oaxakeepsie, and Mexchester” https://bportlibrary.org/hc/business-and-commerce/when-the-aztec-eagle-began-to-soar-over-bridgeport-part-2-from-puebla-york-oaxakeepsie-and-mexchester-2/
The New Bridgeporters: Men of Maplewood and Growth of a Community (more…)
When the Aztec Eagle Began to Soar Over Bridgeport: Part 2 – From “Puebla York”, “Oaxakeepsie” and “Mexchester”
by Abraham Lima
This is Part 2 of a 5 Part Series at the Bridgeport History Center:
The tri-color flag of Mexico, the green red and white. In the middle stands an eagle on a cactus with a snake, the legacy of this eagle, the eagle the Aztecs saw in the middle of the lake with artificial islands they would build soon surrounding the spot. A sign of Huichilopochtli the war god. On it was built Tenochtitlán- or as we say today, Mexico City.
This eagle soars over 2,000 miles away, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, resides the largest Mexican population, both largest foreign born and Mexican descendant population, of any city in New England, ahead of Boston and New Haven. This is her story. (more…)