Collections : [Bridgeport History Center, Bridgeport Public Library]

The collection contains dozens of newspaper clippings of advertisements for P.T. Barnum's American Museum located in New York City from 1841-1868.

From 1982-1983, Bridgeport's Afro-American Educators' Association conducted interviews with black residents of Bridgeport as part of a project funded by the Connecticut Humanities Council. The project aims to examine the social and economic impacts on Bridgeport's African-American residents during World War I, the Depression, World War II, and the 1960s.

As a manufacturing city during World War II, Bridgeport was a logical target should the warfront move to the east coast of the United States. The Bridgeport War Council, which oversaw the city's defense and preparations, devoted special resources to air raid preparation, defense, and recovery. This collection heavily focuses on the individual zones that Bridgeport was divided into, who was in charge of each zone, and how the city prepared for air attacks should they ever come.

Mostly containing scrapbooks, the Austin W. Mather collection documents the career of local architect Austin W. Mather through carefully curated clippings about himself, his firm Lyons and Mather, and architecture as a profession. Also included are several pencil pieces produced in 1979-1980.

In 1986, the City of Bridgeport celebrated 150 years of incorporation. This collection features the merchandise that was created by the committee to commemorate the event, along with some event ephemera including advertising supplements that were included in the New York Times and the Bridgeport Post.

Fifth year Yale University American Studies 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. Rivera's interviews are now part of the History Center holdings as an oral history collection.

This collection of Bridgeport Fire Department material is an artificial assemblage of ephemera related to Bridgeport fire departments. It contains unidentified photographs of firemen, several program books, and information about fire alarm boxes in the early 1950s.

Bridgeport has been the home of a number of theatres over the centuries. Being the backyard of theatre mogul Sylvester Z. Poli contributed heavily to that fact, as did the popularity of theatre in the late 19th and early 20th century, as well as Bridgeport's proximity to both New York City and New Haven. The Bridgeport Theatre Collection contains various programs, tickets, and photographs from the hey-day of many now-closed venues within the city.

A selection of interviews taken from the "Bridgeport Working: Voices from the Twentieth Century" labor history website with complete audio and transcripts divided by subject and chapter for easy access to specific topics. Of particular interest for the CSL BIPOC Subject Guide Project are: Frank Bridgeforth, Edna Smith, Emmett Johnson, and Richard Fewell.

This collection reflects the interests of Charles Marsh as collector himself. As a Bridgeport resident in the early 20th Century, he had a keen interest in P.T. Barnum and the circus, Bridgeport as a town, and his family's history. Most important are the family photographs located in series I, as many photographs contain lengthy descriptions on the back and identify streets as well as those pictured.