Born in Philadelphia and raised in its rural suburbs, he received his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1925, studied at the University of Pennsylvania for two years, and completed his master's and doctoral degrees at Harvard University in 1930 and 1936, respectively.
In 1938, the American Historical Association awarded Bridenbaugh's Cities in the Wilderness the Justin Winsor Prize for the best book by a young scholar on the history of the Americas, and the book quickly became a classic among historians.