Southern
New England
Southern New England District: Tour of The New Britain Industrial Museum
Thursday, December 12, 2019
New Britain, CT
EVENT DETAILS
Please join us for an informative evening of manufacturing history at a tour of The New Britain Industrial Museum located in downtown New Britain. No one really knows what drew 17th century settlers away from the main settlements in Farmington and Wethersfield into the area now known as New Britain/Berlin. There was no major river to attract them, no natural resources and, until an ecclesiastical society was established in present day Kensington in 1712, early settlers were required to walk to Farmington each Sunday to attend church.
By the late 1700s, James North Sr., a New Britain blacksmith, sent his son along with two other boys to Massachusetts to learn the art of brass making. Upon the boy’s return, they set up shop in a single room to manufacture sleigh bells and other brass items, making them the first metal manufacturers in the area who were neither tinsmiths nor blacksmiths. This industry led to the establishment and growth of other New Britain industries. By 1850, companies that would grow into titans of American industry had taken root. By the end of the 1800s New Britain manufacturers had sales offices in major cities across the country and goods manufactured on both sides of the Atlantic as New Britain became known as “The Hardware City of the World.”
The museum’s always expanding collection that showcases 200 years of New Britain skill and innovation will be on full display. Changing exhibitions feature a particular factory, unique items from the collection or different aspects of life in the Hardware City. On this night, the museum will proudly unveil its first-ever traveling exhibit, “Interwoven: New Britain’s Textile Industry.” When 19th and 20th-century consumers sought clasps, buttons, eyes and hooks, ball bearings, zippers, wrenches, needles, lathe chucks, sash fasteners, and the best Merino wool undergarments, they needed look no further than New Britain, CT. The city’s skilled hands and minds drove New Britain to create a distinctive textile industry, capitalizing on what made them different from riverside mill towns. “The Hardware City of the World” was not known for its contributions to the textile industry, especially when Silk City (Manchester, CT) and Thread City (Willimantic, CT) thrived on the other side of the Connecticut River. Companies producing knit goods were a profitable, productive part of New Britain’s manufacturing scene. More importantly, whatever was needed to make an industrial textile machine work was made in this city. Further, whatever was needed to make textiles useful to people in the 19th and 20th centuries (i.e. “personal hardware,” including clasps, buckles, and hooks and eyes) was made in New Britain.
AGENDA
Registration: 5:00 - 5:45 p.m.
Tours: 5:30 - 6:45 p.m.
Social: 6:45 - 7:30 p.m.
Dinner: 7:30 - 8:30 p.m.
LOCATIONS
Tour
The New Britain Industrial Museum
59 West Main St.
New Britain, CT 06111
Dinner
Baltic Banquet Facility & Restaurant
237 New Britain Rr.
Berlin, CT 06037
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
$60 PMA member
$80 Nonmember
Registration includes multi-course buffet dinner.
Registration deadline is Wednesday, December 4
For more information, please contact Genene Patrissi. To register over the phone, please contact Joe Zgrabik at 216-901-8800 ext. 144.
A 72-hour cancellation notice must be received for credit consideration towards a future meeting.