Nicholas Streifel

November 18th, 2014

The Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall:
Waterbury in the Great Depression

Connecticut was a very unique place in the 1930s. During the Depression, the state was
hit very hard, but at the same time, very lightly as well. To the more insurance-centered towns
and cities in the east, the Depression may very well have felt like a bad recession. In industrial
meccas like the states capital of Hartford, the damage was a lot more severe. Historians today
have thus labeled Connecticut as a sort of microcosm for the 1930s. In a sense, the small New
England state embodied characteristics of nearly every part of the country at the time. Because of
this, many have delved into the histories of individual cities to uncover connecting themes that
rippled across the nation during the 30s. Even though it was undoubtedly one of the hardest hit
in the state, the city of Waterbury has not received enough attention. The only historians that
have focused on the Brass City in the 30s did not specifically write about the city as a whole in
the Depression1. This paper will primarily be focusing on the environment of the town of
1 Jeremy Brecher, Jerry Lombardi, and Jan Stackhouse, Brass Valley: The Story of
Working Peoples Lives and Struggles in an American Industrial Region (Philidelphia,
Temple University Press, 1982); Theadore F. Marburg, A Study of Small Buisiness
Failure: Smith & Griggs of Waterbury, The Business History Review 28 no. 4
(December, 1954): 336-384; Frederick W. Chesson, Images of America: Waterbury (Great Britain,
Arcadia Publishing, 1996).

Waterbury. We will be examining the state of affairs in many of the manufacturing companies
residing here, the people trying to work there, and the segregated districts which slowly formed
together as the Depression ploughed through.
Before we delve into how Waterbury became so crippled, we must first address the
factors that went into the citys downfall in the 30s. Being one of the oldest settlements in all of
Connecticut, Waterbury was admitted as the 28th town in the state in 1686. Growth was very
gradual, as soil was not very conducive to agriculture. Flooding and sickness also plagued the
town for its first hundred years, leading to a population of only 5,000 and not much wealth.2 Like
the rest of the Naugatuck Valley, industry propelled Waterbury to fame. In 1802, two brothers
from Southington, Abel and Levi Porter, moved to Waterbury to team up with Henry, Silas, and
Samuel Grilley, who had previously run a business making pewter buttons. Together, these men
formed the first rolling brass mill in the United States. Using horse-powered steel rollers, the
brothers implemented a new method of alloying copper and zinc together into flat sheets for use
in other factories. 3 Cotton workshops and mills began taking root at this time as well, utilizing
the Naugatuck River for power. From here, Waterburys population began to grow as the power
of industry and demand for work rose. With the connection to Naugatucks railroad system in
1849, business could also flow more freely into the town. Waterbury was finally incorporated
into a city in 1853, and by 1857, revenue moving through the town from manufacture alone
soared to over three million dollars. The breakout of Civil War would escalate that number even
2 WM. J. Pape, History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Connecticut (New York, The S.J. Clarke
Publishing Company, 1918).

3 Birth of the Brass Valley, Connecticut History, http://connecticuthistory.org/birth-of-the-brass-valley/

(accessed 12/6//2014).

more, quickly earning the city fame across the nation. The Scientific American in 1862, in a
special edition focused on Waterbury, claimed that the average Union Soldier carried at least one
pound of Waterbury brass on them at all times.4 It was this time that showed the growing
emergence of brass manufactures such as Scovill, Benedict & Burnham, and Booth & Haydens.
These three companies played a massive role in Waterburys consolidation of the Brass industry,
but they were soon joined by more as Reconstruction ended.
In 1893, the American Brass Company made its debut in the city. Being a holding
company, American Brass consolidated several existing companies under a single corporate
entity. Initial disagreements led to the company delaying its official incorporation until 1899.
After that, however, American Brass rose to be the largest brass manufacturer in the nation, and
one of the largest in the world. In 1901, Both Booth & Haydens as well as Benedict & Burnham
became part of the corporation, further skyrocketing its success. In this golden age, Waterbury
became the premiere center of brass production. Of the estimated 10,000 U.S brass workers in
the country, half of them worked for American Brass in 1900. Nine years later, the company
came to manufacture roughly two-thirds of the entire market of brass in the nation.5 In 1922,
Anaconda Copper Mining Company acquired American Brass in what became the largest
business deal ever before. That same year, Anaconda would earn the largest revenue of its history
($175,450,384), mostly due to its buyout of American Brass. Waterbury brass was not ruled
alone by Anaconda, as two other large companies had managed to survive the onslaught of
4 Manufactures of Brass, The Scientific American 6 No. 16 (April 19, 1862): 247, on
http://search.proquest.com/americanperiodicals/docview/126683119/fulltextPDF/EC51D4E8068946C7P
Q/56?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/6/2014).

5 Pape, History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, 345.

buyouts. Scovill Manufacturing was the second largest, followed closely by Chase Brass &
Copper. Collectively known as the Big Three, these industries led the charge in worldwide
brass manufacture This momentum carried the companies all the way through the twenties,
creating a hubris of invincibility that would work against them when the Depression came
knocking.6
Although we know Waterbury today as the Brass City, other forms of manufacture
were also making their way through the town before the Depression. Largest of all was The
Waterbury Clock Company, which experienced a huge increase in demand following the end of
World War I. In order to maximize profits, the company required a much cheaper and abundant
labor force than those being sucked up by the brass industry. The solution quickly came in the
form of Waterburys women, who could be hired to do the same work as men but for much lower
wages. With this work force, Waterbury Clock became one of the largest Clock companies in the
state. The companys success was a mixed bag, however, as health issues plagued the shop floors
throughout the 1920s. With no knowledge of radium and its poisonous properties, women in the
shop would routinely lick the tips of paintbrushes, as well as use those brushes to coat their nails
with radium in order to give off a glow-in-the-dark look. Going into the depression, the company
was ripe with controversy and slowing production as many women began to die from cancer or
other associated illnesses from radium.7

6 Birth of the Brass Valley, Connecticut History.

7 Claudia Clark, Radium Girls, Women and Industrial Health Reform: 1910-1935
(Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

The months leading up to Black Tuesday were relatively rough ones for Waterbury. In a
relative manufacturing slump, the city was beginning to lose jobs even before the stock market
crashed. Out of the eight top manufacturing plants in the City, Scovill was the only one that was
not losing profits compared to previous years. Industrial leaders of the time blamed the economic
dip as seasonal in character, expecting the problem to fix itself by falls advent.8 This
overconfidence was a huge misstep, as the month of October signaled the coming of a storm that
would extinguish the fires of industry in the city for over a decade.
When the jaws of the Depression sank its teeth in to Waterbury, it bit down hard. In 1930,
Sanford & Co., a popular bank in the city, shut down almost immediately. As everyone rushed to
pull their savings from its vaults, the bank was unable to pool together the $250,000 it needed to
pay the masses breaking down their doors.9 Already, vast amounts of Waterbury citizens were
completely broke. Sanford and Co. was just one example of this chain reaction brought about by
the stock market crash. Waterbury Savings and Dime Savings were two other prominent banks in
the Brass City. Miraculously, both managed three years before they could no longer sustain
themselves. In a last-ditch effort, the two combined their remaining resources together and
merged into a single entity. This helped keep the new bank open, but it still could hardly deal
8 Waterbury, The Hartford Courant, January 30, 1929, on http://0search.proquest.com.www.consuls.org/docview/557677546?pq-origsite=summon
(accessed 12/14/2014).

9 Bank Commissioner Closes Waterbury House, Boston Daily Globe, October 19,
1930, on
http://search.proquest.com/hnpnewyorkbostonglobe/docview/747719676/fulltextPD
F/EADB321715A14E9EPQ/8?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/14/2014).

with the people needing withdrawals. The mastermind of this plan and the president of the new
Waterbury Savings Bank was John A. Coe, the very same man who reigned as president of
American Brass.10 Local banks outside of the city were experiencing problems of their own.
Waterburys southern neighbor, Naugatuck, was doing just as bad. In addition to the difficulty in
staying afloat, the towns major bank Naugatuck Savings had its preverbal head cut off. Howard
Beecher Tuttle, director of the bank and prominent industrialist, suffered a stroke while at a
country club in Waterbury. He died shortly after in 1933, leaving his bank in complete disarray. 11
If Brass City citizens had hoped to use other towns banks as a substitute, they would not get far.
With no more safety net from their savings accrued in local banks, thousands of Waterbury
locals were now desperate for any money they could find. Men flocked in droves to Main Street,
where representatives of the Big Three awaited them. Out of the hundreds of desperate and
hungry workers, only a few were chosen at a time, leaving the rest to walk back home to their
families to tell them the bad news.12 In the workshops and factories, labor was not a paradise.

10 In the Months News: Brief Items From the News About Banks and Bankers, The
Bankers Magazine 127 no. 3 (September, 1933): 329, on
http://search.proquest.com/americanperiodicals/docview/124364735/fulltextPDF/36
BDB23E76A949D0PQ/1?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/14/2014).

11 H.B Tuttle Dead; Manufacturer, 70, The New York Times, September 30, 1933,
15, on
http://search.proquest.com/hnpnewyorktimesindex/docview/100802719/fulltextPDF/
DF6F44B76558424CPQ/36?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/15/2014).

12 Brecher, Lombardi, and Stackhouse, Brass Valley, 8.

Almost all of the workers there were working in unskilled fields. Assembly line work and simple
machine operation enveloped most of the labor force, neither of which were particularly hard to
learn. This bred an inherent culture of replacement in factory life. Managers had an excess in
labor available to them, but not many open positions. This put the pressure on the workers
already there, as one mistake or argument with a foreman could cost them their job. In addition
to all of this, companies needed to cut back on their production. Waterbury Clock especially was
hurting, veering on the prospect of bankruptcy if it wasnt for a Mickey Mouse watch single
handedly saving the business.13 With less people buying, less jobs had to exist to produce what
little was actually being sold. The ensuing layoffs, coupled with this culture of replacement
concocted a tense atmosphere. Even the most well-behaved and hardworking employees were
not safe. On average, a worker would be lucky to last a year or two in a single position. Finding
new Jobs were just as hard, as average unemployment in the city was around one year per
person. 14
Like many other explored industrial cities at the time such as Chicago, Waterbury featured
separate, distinct ethnic districts throughout the city.15 The largest of these were the Italians, who
in 1930 were about 9-10,000 strong in number. Polish, Canadians, Germans, English, Irish,
13 Disney Dollars, Pop History, http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/disneydollars1930s/, (accessed 12/14/2014).

14 Brecher, Lombardi, and Stackhouse, Brass Valley, 7.

15 Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939

(Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Gary Grestle, Working-Class
Americanism: the Politics of Labor in a Textile City, 1914-1960 (Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1989).

Russian, and Lithuanians joined them, all ranging from around 1,000 in population to 5,000.
Overall, about 30,000 of Waterburys 90-100,000 population were foreign-born. Unlike Chicago,
however, the citys borders were not large enough to contain all nine major ethnic groups
separately. This led to some, but not much interaction outside of work between people of
different groups.16 With time, local churches and welfare programs set up by these districts could
no longer sustain everyone. As we see in other cities, The slow growth in unionism and forced
interaction between these self-segregated inhabitants in order to further their own goals slowly
broke down the cultural walls they had set up for themselves.
Seeing a desperate and tense atmosphere, union leaders began to pour into the city. Workers,
who had in the past relied on welfare capitalism and local neighbors for support in hard times
could no longer do so. With nowhere left to turn, people of all ethnic backgrounds began to
collaborate together for more rights with employers. Some historians contribute a growing
popular culture among workers as one of the main causes of union growth.17 From what is clear
in the Brass City, this popular culture can definitely be seen, but only after union growth had
initially started. Desperation from frequent layoffs and shoddy treatment seemed to be the prime
motivator for Waterbury workers at first. Once the barriers of the ethnic districts began to decay,
workers then began to assimilate themselves further into the Moral Capitalism trend.
Despite the noble goals of unionism, crime in Waterbury was rampant. For the lower and
middle class of the city, two main motives contributed to the illegal acts. The first, most obvious
one was out of desperation. After banks began to close and industries began laying off, residents
16 Birth of the Brass Valley, Connecticut History.

17 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 209.

needed to feed their families somehow. Naturally, the Depression saw a clear increase in crime at
this time as a result. Interestingly enough, the second major cause of crime was for escapism.
With no end in sight, the Great Depression literally depressed people. To escape their worried
lives, some turned towards gambling. Throughout the city, underground betting rings sprouted,
creating a seedy underbelly that upset the nation. No longer was Waterbury viewed as a place of
success and industry. A true shell of its former self, headlines across the nation read of the crime
and misfortune in the city. The New York Times in 1938 read of yet another massive gambling
raid. In it, 75 men were arrested on the first day. It reads:
The reports of the extraordinary grand jury, which investigated Waterburys
municipal finances earlier this year and which reported that organized gambling
had been carried on in the city for many years without any effective police
opposition, had almost been forgotten by most residents.18

Initially, horse race betting was the largest form of gambling in the Brass City, but slot machines,
punch boards, and many other games quickly rose to popularity as well. Crime extended further
outwards into the government as well. Even Frank Hayes, Former Lieutenant Governor of
Connecticut and Waterburys mayor throughout the Depression organized criminal activity in the
form of a massive embezzlement scheme. According to the Boston Globe in 1939, Mayor Hayes
and 22 other government officials were finally tried and convicted for defrauding the city of over
a million dollars over the course of the Depression.19 If the reputation of the once great city had

18 75 Seized in raid at Waterbury as Wide Drive on Gambling Begins, The New

York Times, September 3, 1938, on
http://search.proquest.com/hnpnewyorktimesindex/docview/102426837/fulltextPDF/
DF6F44B76558424CPQ/31?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/14/2014).

not fallen low enough, it would now be associated with one of the largest political scandals of the
decade.
With the failure of the city council to handle the situation, the failure of banks to handle the
withdrawals of the masses, and the failure of businesses to handle worker treatment, people
began to look towards the federal government to handle their welfare. Initially, the Brass City
was accepting towards Roosevelts New Deal. In many of the struggling workers opinions, the
president was one of the only ones who seemed to actually care about recovering. Before the
scandal, Mayor Hayes was a staunch democrat who supported the New Deal. Being re-elected in
1935 re-affirmed the citys stance in the political spectrum.20 Union values played a good deal in
spreading the popular culture of the federal government being responsible for handling social
welfare and economic recovery. After the Mayors scandal reaching headlines, however, many
began to question whether they should continue voting democrat. In the congressional election of
1938, the city was incredibly divided over the issue. Some argued that New Deal politics would
provide the easy way out in the short term, but would further deepen the nations problems in the
future.21 Others still maintained that the New Deal was here to stay, and that undermining it

19 23 Sentenced for Conspiracy at Waterbury, Daily Boston Globe, August 22,

1939, on
http://search.proquest.com/hnpnewyorkbostonglobe/docview/816863842/fulltextPD
F/EF4DA44016DF4C56PQ/4?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/15/2014).

20 Hayes Wins by 1779 in Waterbury, The Hartford Courant, October 9, 1935, on

http://search.proquest.com/hnphartfordcourant/docview/558649946/fulltextPDF/38F
149F39C02438APQ/9?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/14/2014).

would be like trying to hold back the tide. In an issue of the Hartford Courant in May of 1938,
one reader illustrates his views on the matter:
It can be said that not all business and financial leaders are dishonest, just as it can
be said that not all men in city government are dishonest. Yet who would dare tell
the people of Waterbury that there should not be any new regulations to guard
their interest in the future, that everything should be left as it was, with no
provision by government for properly auditing the citys accounts?22

Waterbury differed incredibly from other industrial cities at the time when it came to political
stance. The stain of Hayes administration caused a schism in the citys Democratic Party,
making it difficult for them to regain power next election.
The issues presented are strong arguments that Waterbury was one of, if not the worst
Connecticut City to be effected by the Depression. Whether it be the isolated districts hampering
union growth, the failure of nearly every bank, or the rampant criminal activity, Waterburys
problem was legendary. The Brass Citys apocalyptic fall from grace would thankfully be
brought to an end by World War II, which signaled the city to become the Arsenal of
Democracy FDR had envisioned it to be. Still, the impact of the Depression can still be felt in
21 Sees Peril for youth in New Deal, The Hartford Courant, October 16, 1936, on
http://search.proquest.com/hnphartfordcourant/docview/558787287/fulltextPDF/FB019AC98
AB74902PQ/3?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/14/2014); Waterbury Republicans Hear Knox,
The Hartford Courant, September 1, 1936, on
http://search.proquest.com/hnphartfordcourant/docview/558784694/fulltextPDF/38F149F39C
02438APQ/8?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/14/2014).

22 New Deal and Waterbury: Condition of City Shown Argument for Presidents
Ideas, The Hartford Courant, May 25, 1938, on
http://search.proquest.com/hnphartfordcourant/docview/559031629/fulltextPDF/1A1
B05D608604284PQ/1?accountid=9970 (accessed 12/14/2014).

the city today. With the movement of manufacture over-seas, the Brass City looks more and more
as it did in the 30s with each passing day. Local history such as this presents an opportunity for
citizens to look back and see how the city got to where it is today. With this understanding, we
can hopefully move forward with enough information to help recover and re-vitalize the once
great American industrial hub.

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Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939. Cambridge;
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(accessed 10/15/2014).

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Pape, WM. J. History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley Connecticut. New York:
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The S.

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The Hartford Courant

The Daily Boston Globe

The New York Times