Mattatuck Museum

 Waterbury was called the Brass City.  It is proud of its industrial heritage in days gone by.  Most of that work has gone to lower cost states and countries.

The Mattatunk Museum on Waterbury Green has many displays about the manufacturing and the products from Waterbury's industrial past.  This is a bust of a founder of a brass manufacturing company.

Scovill was still a big company when I moved to Connecticut in 1980.  It built on a history of making buttons, zippers and coin blanks, moving into munitions and household products.  After World War 2 Scovill opened facilities in Georgia.  In time those became more dominant.  It was bought by a Japanese company a decade ago.

A tall case clock at the museum honors two Connecticut industries.  The face is made from Waterbury brass, while the clock itself was designed and built in another central Connecticut town like Bristol.

Charles Goodyear was a Connecticut-born chemist who began in the button business in nearby Naugatuck.  He developed an interest in trying to work out how to make rubber harder and more durable.  Goodyear's efforts were up and down, damaging both his health and his wealth.  Goodyear Rubber Company was founded forty years after his death.  It bears his name but is wholly independent from him and his family.