BHC Special Events/Announcements
Memoir Writing Workshop
Saturday, April 17, 2021
10:30 am - 12:00 pm
VIRTUAL, via Zoom!
Time: Saturday, April 17th, 10:30-12:00 PM
Contact: 203-576-7400, #7
REGISTER HERE [closes at 5:00 pm, Friday, April 16th]
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 All Digital Collection – Digital Captures for Bridgeport Activist Organizations Collection
Explore one of BHC’s new collections of materials in all digital format. A finding aid and many items are available for viewing online.
The Digital Captures for Bridgeport Activist Organizations Collection is a pilot project for collecting digital materials and features interviews and digital media captured from the internet or digital files donated by three distinct activist organizations in Bridgeport: Justice for Jayson, an organization formed in response to a police shooting; Bridgeport Generation Now, a nonpartisan, grassroots social action network focused on civic action; and P.T. Partners, a group of residents of residents of the P.T. Barnum low income housing complex that organizes for self-determination and against racism and oppression.
This project was made possible through funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and administered by the Connecticut State Library on behalf of the Connecticut State Historical Records Advisory Board and Conservation ConneCTion.
BHC x CTDA: Bridgeport’s history, now more searchable than ever
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 it’s 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 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
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…)