David Koch

The Civil War is the single most significant event in US history, and the city of Bridgeport played a key role.

The Bridgeport History Center offers a diverse range of materials to support the widest possible range of research on the Civil War and Bridgeport’s involvement. These include:

• Books on the Civil War — We have scores of bound volumes offering the researcher the opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge on every aspect of the war, from the figures who drove the efforts in both the North and South to the weaponry used and the industries that abounded in the period;
• Periodical literature — Both current periodicals and periodicals from the Civil War era are available for study in the library. Some titles, like Harper’s Weekly or Maclean’s, are considered the period’s best sources for detail and description of that entire era of conflict;
• Newspapers from the period — Newspapers offer the researcher detailed, first-hand accounts of battles and political doings during the war, as well as localized editorial takes on what was happening at the time. Come in and get a decidedly different approach to the war, one immediate and immersed in the day-to-day aspects of the conflict, and how it mingled with local and state political happenings;

• Genealogical and local history records and artifacts — Search through the center’s historical holdings on families and local area towns and villages to get information on the Civil War’s effect on the region and on the families — and communities — that lived through it.
• Artifacts and photographs — The center holds collections of many varied records that reach back into the Civil War era. Visit this website and the center for an ever-expanding list of the artifacts, written records and ephemera from the time of the War Between the States.

Interested? Make an appointment with Mary Witkowski, director of the Bridgeport History Center, or with one of her staff to learn more about the center’s extensive holdings, or to arrange a time to research them yourself.

Contact the Center

DID YOU KNOW?

• The Civil War is also known as the War of the Rebellion, the War Between the States and the War of Northern Aggression.
• Its total number of deaths exceeded those of all America’s wars combined until the Vietnam War.
• Every aspect of the nation’s political, economic, social history passed through the crucible of the Civil War and was transformed by it. All the questions facing the nation until that time were resolved by the war. All the major questions in our nation’s history since were framed by the events and conflicts of that time period.
• The Civil War is the most written-about and researched subject in American history, with over 70,000 books to date, as well as countless periodical articles and artifacts.
• The Bridgeport History Center has a wide-ranging collection of these materials, which still hold relevant, even urgent, lessons on who we are and who we strive to be.