Collections : [Bridgeport History Center, Bridgeport Public Library]

Capturing the seafaring trade of Fairfield County, this collection from the U.S. Customs House represents some of the earliest material held by the Bridgeport History Center. The various licenses and accounts provide a year-by-year look into trade conducted along the Long Island Sound.

The Works Progress Administration (later the Works Projects Administration) was a key feature of the New Deal of the 1930s, and strove to help unemployed job seekers earn pay through public works projects. While the WPA is most readily identified with construction and infrastructure, the library service program had a profound impact on communities throughout the country. The Bridgeport Public Library was one participant out of many in the state of Connecticut.

The Klein Memorial Auditorium is a 1,447 seat theater with a Broadway sized stage that currently houses four resident companies. Since it was completed in 1940, the Klein Memorial Auditorium has hosted orchestras, speakers like Martin Luther King. Jr., public events, rentals, and many, many more performances. This collection represents a very small portion of the Klein's history.

In 1849, the Bridgeport Protestant Widows Society was founded with the intent of providing charity and support to widowed members of the Protestant denominations in Bridgeport. The Sterling Home was administerd by them and went on to provide housing for widows without anywhere else to go, along with communal support through the grieving process. Within the collection are minutes, financial documents, and reports that provide insight into the administrative elements that ran the Sterling Home until it shut down in 1992. The Sterling Home is now a part of FSW Inc.

The Huntington Telephone Company was founded in 1903 and operated out of Huntington, Connecticut for the whole of its existence. Began in response to the need for a local phone exchange, the records in the collection document the finances and activities of the company until it was sold to the Southern New England Telephone Company in 1948, offering insight into the early days of telecommunications in Connecticut.

Miller, Hicks, and Hewitt was an auto body shop located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Located on 2075 Fairfield Avenue, the company provided service from 1925-1985. Present in this collection is the company's early days, reflected primarily through financial documents.

This collection contains documents produced by the women-only, Bridgeport-based book club. These are primarily brief accounts of monthly meetings.

The Mallett, Fairchild, and Shelton papers provide documentation of the families behind the massively successful Fairchild and Shelton Soap Company. Related to the Sheltons are the Malletts, who also did genealogical work that is present in the collection. Both correspondence and account books are major features of the collection.

This collection focuses on the Gazzalo family, whose patriarch Luigi came to the United States from Genoa. Gazzalo became a citizen in 1876, and he married his wife Maria Arata in 1886. The collection documents Italian-American life at the turn of the 20th century, with a focus on correspondence and estate papers following Luigi's untimely death at sea.

Starting in 1891 and continuing into 1892, poor weather began to impact the area along the Volga River which produced a large amount of food in Russia at that time. A combination of bad weather, outdated farming technology, and ineffective distribution methods resulted in a massive famine. An international response sought to raise funds and provide help to the Russian people. In the United States, the Russian Famine Relief Committee of the United States formed. This included localized efforts for collecting funds, as represented in this collection.