Collections : [Bridgeport History Center, Bridgeport Public Library]

Sprague Gas Meter Company was a manufacturing firm headquartered in Bridgeport, Connecticut and founded in 1900. Over the next 85 years, it developed meters featuring new methods for measuring and dispensing gas, along with many other technologically-novel products geared toward industrial machinery, home security, cooking and defense, made and stored within plants located across the U.S. and abroad. Sprague was bought out by the diversifying corporation Textron in 1961 and then sold to a firm concentrating on oil and semiconductor production in 1985, when it left Bridgeport. This collection consists of newspaper articles, advertisements and catalogs, usage and repair guides, factory newsletters, convention materials, newsletters, photographs, and oral histories.

Starting in the 1940s and continuing into the 1950s, the Warner Brothers Company held annual banquets to honor the employees that had been with the company for 20 years. An unknown company compiler created several scrapbooks documenting the event.

Dr. Herbert Parker Lansdale III, known as H. Parker Lansdale or simply Parker, was born in Worcester, Maine in1923 and died in 2006 in Milford, Connecticut. From the 1960s into the 1980s, he played an active part in Bridgeport's push for greater access to equity, education, and creating nonprofit social support networks to improve the community. He received a degree from Yale Divinity School after graduating from Oberlin College and eventually ended up working with many of the great social service and education organizations active in Bridgeport, CT, in the 1960s-1980s.

Don't Ruin Our Waterfront Neighborhood, abbreviated as D.R.O.W.N., was formed in 1979 with the initial intent of responding to the proposed construction of four duplex houses at Brewster Street and Grovers Avenue. D.R.O.W.N. expanded its scope, and was active and present at zoning and hearing meetings until the late 1980s. The collection documents its activities, newspaper reports on the group and on zoning/planning decisions, and provides key information about southwest Bridgeport's waterfront during the 1980s.

The collection contains programs, ticket stubs, concert reviews, and research concerning the Society's termination in 1940.

Focusing primarily on artifacts from the Barnum and Bailey Circus, the Schneider Collection contains material from the circus after the death of P.T. Barnum and into the 20th century. Photographs of the Barnum and Bailey Circus abroad also feature heavily, giving insight into what the shows were like.

The P.T. Barnum Research Collection represents archival materials collected by the Bridgeport History Center over the years relating to the life and ventures of P.T. Barnum. Barnum himself was deeply connected to Bridgeport, building four homes there, serving as mayor, and hosting his circus' Winter Quarters in the city. As a result, this collection represents both national and local history. The series in the collection relate to his personal life, the American Museum, Barnum's circus ventures, Jumbo the Elephant, Jenny Lind, and Charles S. Stratton and Lavinia Warren. Each series contains manuscript material including an extensive correspondence series in Barnum's own hand, programs, tickets, artifacts, illustrations, and photographs, as well as clippings and examples of promotional material in the form of booklets, trading cards, and even paper dolls. This collection is artificial, and has grown over the years. The series themselves were formed by researcher needs, and as such have been kept intact at the time of arrangement.

Lewis Corbit Junior, known as Lew, helped run the Corbit Studio from the passing of his father in 1952 until his death in 1986. Known as a treasure trove of Bridgeport's history thanks to the studio's presence in Bridgeport since 1906, Lew's personal papers reflect his family life and activities outside of the photo studio. This included correspondence to his parents during World War II, material related to his wife Ione's teaching career in Bridgeport, his time as a scout master for the Boy Scouts, and more. There is minimal material related to Corbit Studios in this collection.

he International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators was founded in 1893 and is an active union to this day. Within Bridgeport, membership was weighted towards movie theatre employees who worked the projection booths in the many, many movie theatres in and around Bridgeport. Founded in [X] and dissolved in 1993, the records of local 277 provide insight into the finances, history, and Bridgeport members of IATSE.

Portrait photographer Anne Brignolo was an institution in Bridgeport, having taken over the studio from her father in the 1970s. From the mid-1970s until her retirement in 2009, Brignolo's keen eye, sense of perfection, and dedication to photography helped her to become an award winning photographer. Within the Anne Brignolo Studio collection is not only her correspondence and notes on her work, but a substantial collection of the work itself.