Theater for the 99% in Bridgeport
BHC Special Events/Announcements
The Federal Census: Moving Beyond the Population Schedule
Thursday, January 28, 2021
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Thursday, January 28, 3 PM-4 PM EST
Presented by Lindsay Fulton
Cost: FREE
When most family historians think about the census, we think of the population schedule—the enumeration of individuals living within a household. But there is so much more to the Federal Census that many researchers overlook! Census expert Lindsay Fulton will discuss how mortality, agriculture, manufacturing, business, and other social statistics schedules can be used in your genealogical research. She’ll review what data was collected for what years, how to access these non-population schedules, and how to leverage this information in your own family history.
Memoir Writing Workshop
Saturday, February 20, 2021
10:30 am - 12:00 pm
VIRTUAL, via Zoom!
Time: Saturday, February 20, 10:30-12:00 PM
Contact: 203-576-7400, #7
Brian Hoover leads the class which will include free form writing exercises and an exploration of the nature of memoirs, and examining voice and perspective. Drop in any month!
The History Center has sponsored a Bridgeport Memoir Writing Class since 2002. Our class has continued to write about memories not only of Bridgeport, but about the stories that we find have linked our lives. We all have shared landscapes of memories, common experiences in daily life. Newcomers are welcome. Please join us!
BHC News
New and Noteworthy at BHC
The Bridgeport History Center is beyond pleased to have a bevy of new offerings, some available digitally and others awaiting you when we can safely allow researchers back in!
On the digital front, we have begun to place some of our most beloved and used collections onto the Connecticut Digital Archive. Please check out the new homes of our Postcard Collection and “From the Historical Collections” by Mary K. Witkowski! Moving these collections onto CTDA allows for better searching, and for you to find more related materials both from the Bridgeport History Center AND the other Connecticut institutions who choose to make their material available online.
Also in the digital realm is the new space for Genealogy from Home! It provides links and access information for all of the Bridgeport History Center’s main online databases so that you can keep working on your family history.
We also have a new array of physical collections! On the top of our list is our new Community Cookbook Collection, featuring local organizations and their favorite recipes. This collection is seeking additional cookbooks from Bridgeport organizations, so if you have one you’d like to donate, please be sure to use our contact form and get in touch. We also now are able to provide access to the Seeley Almanac Collection and our Sermons and Early Church Printings Collection, featuring publications from the mid 1700s to the 1890s!
On the archives and manuscripts front, BHC is happy to report that it has now surpassed over 100 processed archival collections. This includes the Records of Charles B. Tisdale’s 1976 Congressional Campaign, The Frisbie Pie Company and the Frisbie Family Collection, Records of Reads Department Store, and a whole host of records from local labor unions. There’s more in the pipeline we can’t tell you about, but to see what you’ve missed be sure to check our archives and manuscripts listing.
We’ve also compiled two new research guides – one to help you research Connecticut’s Native and Indigenous Peoples at the Bridgeport History Center and another of public domain Bridgeport histories with URLs to all the available books.
Keep checking back for updates and new material!
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.
Multi-media exhibit: Bridgeport Cultural Arts Center
We Are Artists Every One: The Art Center in Action, 1970-1986
The Art Center was far more than a place to learn visual arts, literary arts and music. The Art Center was a place to improve reading skills, get a meal, and gain exposure to burgeoning cultural, artistic, social, and political ideas. By the time of its closing in 1986, the Art Center had offered thousands of hours of art, photography, music and culinary instruction to city youth, adults, and senior citizens. Curator Michelle Black Smith
click here to visit the exhibit
BHC Events & Regular Monthly Programming
Featured Articles
Father Panik Village: the Place Where Dreams Refused to Die
By Britney Murphy
On December 22, 1939, Father Stephen J. Panik, proudly addressed the audience attending the groundbreaking ceremony for Bridgeport’s first public housing project. The erection of what would become Yellow Mill Village was the culmination of years of hard work on the part of Father Panik, city and state officials, and Bridgeport residents.[1] Father Panik considered the Village to be, “perhaps the greatest Christmas gift that ever was given to the people of Bridgeport, –not a promise, but the beginning of a reality, fine, decent homes for about 5,000 people.”[2] (more…)
Did Jack the Ripper Visit Bridgeport? Who Was the Mysterious Fred B. Beleno?
by Michael J. Bielawa
One hundred and thirty years ago this autumn, in 1888, Jack the Ripper terrorized the Whitechapel neighborhood of London, England. The madman brutally murdered five women. Then vanished. Never to be heard from again. Or was he? Some 21st century Ripperologists, as Jack the Ripper investigators are dubbed, think that the unknown assailant journeyed to America. Did Jack the Ripper voyage to Bridgeport, Connecticut? (more…)