Bridgeport


Book Description

Explore Bridgeport, the most political neighborhood in the most political of cities - home to five Chicago mayors and parades of politicians honoring its power at national conventions. Once a Native American village traversed by Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, as Chicago grew the area was called Hardscrabble, then Cabbage Gardens, and finally Bridgeport. Immigrants built it: the Irish dredged a canal and mined a quarry that led to slaughterhouses, cooperages, rolling mills, and breweries that were worked by Germans, Bohemians, Swedes, and Poles. Held dear as the "Heart of Lithuania," muckrakers described parts of it as a heartbreaking jungle. More immigrants came: Italians, Croatians, Mexicans, Chinese. Against the backdrop of prairies, labor strife, gangways, and Joe Podsajdwokiem, this sometimes uneasy mix lived, worked, and voted together. Bridgeport still has streets that defy the city's orderly grid, settlement houses, language stews, and, for each nationality, churches and taverns. Today, it may welcome artists and expensive housing, but on summer nights stoop sitting and rooting for the White Sox remain social obligations.




Bridgeport


Book Description

The golden age of postcards, which took place between 1900 and 1940, was also the golden age of Bridgeport. Local and national publishers printed scenes of the city's beautiful and renowned parks, magnificent mansions, palatial theaters, and sprawling factories, as well as its busy streets and unique architecture. These cards carried images of Bridgeport near and far. Recipients of these mementos could imagine building automobiles at the Locomobile factory, dining at the Amazon Caf©, staying at the Stratfield Hotel, riding the carousel at the Steeplechase Island amusement park, shopping at Howlands, admiring the Wheeler Mansion, attending mass at the South Congregational Church, or watching the activity at the winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Bridgeport takes the modern reader on a journey into the past through nearly two hundred of these vintage postcard images.




Bridgeport's Socialist New Deal, 1915-36


Book Description

A backdrop to the evolving national developments of the New Deal, this study stands at the intersection of political, labor, and ethnic history and provides a new perspective on how working people affected urban politics in the interwar era."--BOOK JACKET.




Murder in Canaryville


Book Description

The grandson and great-grandson of Chicago police officers, Chicago Police Detective James Sherlock was CPD through-and-through. His career had seen its share of twists and turns, from his time working undercover to thwart robberies on Chicago's L trains, to his side gig working security at The Jerry Springer Show, to his years as a homicide detective. He thought he had seen it all. But on this day, he was at the records center to see the case file for the murder of John Hughes, who was seventeen years old when he was gunned down in a park on Chicago's Southwest Side on May 15, 1976. The case had haunted many in the department for years and its threads led everywhere: Police corruption. Hints of the influence of the Chicago Outfit. A crooked judge. Even the belief that the cover-up extended to &“hizzoner&” himself—legendary Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. Sherlock, expecting to retire within a year, had a dream assignment: working cold cases for the Chicago office of the FBI. And with time for one more big investigation, he had chosen this stubborn case. More than forty years after the Hughes killing, he was hopeful he could finally put the case to rest. Then the records clerk handed Sherlock a thin manila folder. A murder that had roiled the city and had been investigated for years had been reduced to a few reports and photographs. What should have been a massive file with notes and transcripts from dozens of interviews was nowhere to be found. Sherlock could have left the records center without the folder and cruised into retirement, and no one would have noticed. Instead, he tucked the envelope under his arm and carried it outside.




Palante


Book Description

Interviews and photographic essays highlight the spirit of the 70's New York-based organization of Puerto Rican radicals, the Young Lords.




Bridgeport at Work


Book Description

What was it like to work and live in Bridgeport during the past two centuries? No one could tell us better than the people who worked on the line in the factories, sold goods behind the counter at a department store, taught children in local schools, ran a travel agency, worked as a housewife, drove a truck, or ran one of the many prosperous businesses that helped Bridgeport grow and develop. Bridgeport at Work chronicles the working life of Bridgeport, a center of industry and home to several legendary individuals. P.T. Barnum, who made Bridgeport his adopted home, began an 1851 project that established an industrial center in East Bridgeport, spurring many other companies to set up in this remarkable city. Igor Sikorsky, Simon Lake, Lucien and I. DeVer Warner, Harvey Hubbell, Elias Howe, and for a short time even Buckminster Fuller all produced some of their best work in Bridgeport. World Wars I and II helped to build the munitions and defense industry in the city, and companies such as Remington Arms, the Lake Torpedo Boat Company, and Sikorsky Aircraft thrived. Bridgeport at Work shows the workers and companies, producing everything from Frisbie pies to firearms, that made Bridgeport the "Arsenal of Democracy," and an industrial leader at a crucial time in American history.




Bridgeport


Book Description

Located just 14 miles northwest of Philadelphia, Bridgeport is a stone's throw from Valley Forge National Historic Park. Incorporated in 1851, the tiny village of 422 acres had 500 residents living within its boundaries. In 1723, Swedish and Welsh immigrants settled along the Schuylkill River, with the Eastburn and Holstein families among the first to settle. Irish immigrants found work in Bridgeport as early as 1860, and Italian immigrants poured into Bridgeport in the 1890s, finding work in the quarries and along the railroads and canals. Through vintage photographs, Bridgeport celebrates the families and industries that have helped shape this borough.




Wicked Bridgeport


Book Description

Join Bielawa as he navigates a precarious path through the unforgettably macabre and scandalous misdeeds of Bridgeport. Beneath the smokestacks of the gritty cityscape of Bridgeport, Connecticut is the shocking criminal underbelly of this New England community. Sin and vice have long had a home on the shores of the Long Island Sound, and Bridgeport's sinister past is littered with tales of pirates, mobsters, bizarre Victorian murders, and even rumors of a doctor's attempts to reanimate the dead. Historian Michael J. Bielawa investigates such bizarre crimes as the unsolved murder of philanthropist James Beardsley, and the grisly discovery in Yellow Mill Pond during the 19th century, which helped legitimize forensic science. Join Bielawa as he navigates a precarious path through the unforgettably macabre and scandalous misdeeds of Bridgeport.




Bridgeport Baseball


Book Description

Bridgeport, Connecticut, owns a rich and diverse baseball history. People from varied backgrounds stepped up to the plate in Bridgeport's early years-sons of Irish immigrants, laborers and merchants, Asian and Latino players, and some of the first African Americans to play professional ball. Local baseball truly blossomed with "Orator" Jim O'Rourke, who returned from the big leagues and organized the Connecticut State Baseball League in 1895. Numerous Bridgeport teams evolved, including the Victors, Mechanics, Bolts, Americans, and Bears. Bridgeport Baseball traces the game from the post-Civil War era to today. Baseball beneath the roaring smokestacks of industrial Bridgeport included visits by barnstorming Major League and Negro League teams, future Hall of Famers, and a train wreck that almost killed the St. Louis Cardinals. The smokestacks are silent now, yet the legacy of Bridgeport baseball continues to evolve with the city's first professional club in nearly half a century-the Bridgeport Bluefish. The team, owners, staff, fans, and stadium have all contributed to restoring the living history that is Bridgeport Baseball.




Place Names of Illinois


Book Description

This extensive guide shows how the history and culture of Illinois are embedded in the names of its towns, cities, and other geographical features. Edward Callary unearths the origins of names of nearly three thousand Illinois communities and the circumstances surrounding their naming and renaming. Organized alphabetically, the entries are concise, engaging, and full of fascinating detail revealing the rich ethnic history of the state, the impact of industrialization and the coming of the railroads, and insight into local politics and personalities. Many entries also provide information on local pronunciation, the name’s etymology, and the community’s location, all set in historical and cultural context. A general introduction locates Illinois place names in the context of general patterns of place naming in the United States. An extremely useful reference for scholars of American history, geography, language, and culture, Place Names of Illinois also offers intriguing browsing material for the inquisitive reader and the curious traveler.