The “Brass City”: New England’s Forgotten Brass Foundries (1802–2013)
A metal we take for granted today is brass. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve varying mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. At the turn of the 19th century, just as plastic was discovered and became “all the rage” in mid century America, brass was the 19th century version of plastic for New England.
At one point in America’s history, all of America’s brass was domestically made in factories located in one particular city, the “Brass City” which we know of today as Waterbury. From 1860 to 1920, Waterbury increased in population 9 times, as families moved in. This is an example of an entire city that was built around an entire industry, similar to Lowell and textiles. However from 1970 to 2020, the population actually shrunk. The current poverty rate Waterbury in the year 2017 was 24%. This means one out of every four residents of Waterbury lives in poverty. In comparison, New York City’s rate is 14%. Los Angeles is at 16%. Even Chicago is at 18%. The only other major city that beats Waterbury is Detroit.
An article in The New York Times on February 3, 1957 ran with the headline “Brass Industry Hits Rough Road,” and detailed the problems facing the industry. Among the problems, such as the highest copper prices since the Civil War, was competition from other countries. England, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Japan were all exporting brass and copper products to the U.S. and selling them for as much as 20% less than the American-made versions. The average brass mill worker in the U.S. earned $4.07 an hour (including fringe benefits) while brass workers in Great Britain earned $1.16 an hour. The hourly wage in West Germany was $1.15 an hour, in France it was 69 cents an hour, in Japan it was 63 cents an hour, and in Yugoslavia it was 30 cents an hour. The U.S. brass industry cited foreign government subsidies as giving their competition an unfair advantage, as well as U.S. regulations unfairly penalizing them. — Waterbury Observer (5/22/2011)
This is one of the stories that hit the working class people hard, but the story of these factories that once smelted copper and zinc deserve to be told. In this article we cover the “big three” that once represented the entire American brass industry of unionized factories which paved a way of life for hundreds of thousands of families. Today they are all but gone. What happened to them?
American Brass (1834–2013)
Quid aere perennius? The story of this institution was at one point in time by far the largest foundry to ever grace America’s shores, as it grew to become America’s largest empire of that weird looking “gold” copper with its innate capability for strength, workability, and resistance to corrosion. At one time most of the brass produced in the entire world was made in the United States, and most in New England, and iconically in the Connecticut town of Waterbury. It became the reason why America turned into the jazz capital of the world, the time movement revolution was born out of Connecticut, and we revolutionized plumbing and sewage in every home by the 20th century.
During the mid 19th century three of the largest brass producers in the country were located in Connecticut. 6 of the 18 American brass mills in existence by 1894 were located in the city of Waterbury. The history of the American Brass giant roots back to five major companies. The two largest were Wilcottville Brass which built the town of Wilcottville today known as Torrington to house their workers, among the earliest of major brass companies in America’s history starting in 1834. They were a manufacturer of kettles, brass buttons, and rolled and sheet brass for photography plates. Most of their workers were snuck over from Great Britain under the cover of darkness. Then you had the Ansonia Brass & Battery in the town of Ansonia, Connecticut, coming into existence by 1844 along the Naugatuck River. They went onto spin off to producing the world renown Ansonia Clocks. By 1849 they had already produced 25,000 hand built brass “time machines”.
“In the 19th century brass entrepreneurs and inventors made this an important industrial center for the country. It was the 19th-century version of today’s Silicon Valley.” — New York Times (3/06/1985)
When American Brass finally become the giant towards the turn of the century in 1901, it was a merger between some of the largest brass companies in the United States along the East Coast. Coe Brass in the town of Torrington, Ansonia Brass in the town of Ansonia, and Waterbury Brass, and Holmes, Booth & Haydens located in Waterbury along Bank Street. Very quickly the giant became a national empire of New England, responsible by 1909 for producing two-thirds of all brass in the United States, consuming one-third of all copper produced in America, and was by far the largest foundry of nonferrous metals in the world. Waterbury began being nicknamed as the “Brass City”. The factories were controlled by the Waterbury Brass Workers Union. They even had the American Brass bowling league, where employees of the factory would compete in Waterbury sports competitions. In 1921 the company yet again merged with the copper giant from the west Anaconda to control almost the entire brass market. In 1946 they were reporting 10,000 unionized workers at their three Waterbury, Torrington, and Ansonia plants, 1800 workers at the Buffalo plant, and 1500 workers at the Detroit plant.
“By the end of World War I, American Brass was undisputed as the world’s largest consumer of copper, controlling 40% of the industry and melting down as much as 600,000,000 pounds of copper and zinc (the two main components of brass) annually.” — Waterbury Observer (5/22/2011)
The company had a close relationship with organized labor, employing workers on ten hour shifts and overtime as early as WWI. The company’s first strike took place in 1919, when 3000 Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian immigrants walked out to demand better wages. The strike lasted one month and they won 25% wages increases from direct action. The next major strike happened in 1938 for five days when 700 workers of the rolling mill in Buffalo were told they had to accept a 10% wage cut and the union viewed this as unfair labor practices in violation of the Wagner Act. About 200 of them started a sit-down strike, and a few hours later most of the employees of the wire mill and a number of machinists and maintenance men also walked out in protest against the cut. In that year 700 also went on strike in Detroit at their factory. They eventually obtained the wage increase, and by 1944 the company was giving all workers two weeks paid vacation. In 1946 the company experienced its largest strike in history of 10,000 workers at their Connecticut plants that lasted 15 weeks. The Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Union won an 18% wage increase and cash settlements for lost overtime.
For most of the company’s history American Brass operated as a fully autonomous structure. Autonomous management is a business management system in which individual employees and work groups are given the authority to manage their own processes instead of having work details controlled by senior management or company shareholders. This gave the labor union direct control and access over company processes. This was a fully working example of the relationship where workers themselves own the labor they are producing. This continued until 1922 when the largest merger in American history up to that point took place with the buyout form Anaconda Copper, and achieved the largest revenue in corporate history to date. This is when we really entered the era of the roaring 20’s that was too good to last. From 1922 to 1937, Anaconda American Brass used the FIFO method of accounting. In 1937, however, the company moved to LIFO accounting. The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency took issue with this accounting change, and in 1947 sued to recover tax revenues under the Excess Profits Tax Act of 1940. In 1956, the Supreme Court of Canada held in Minister of National Revenue vs. Anaconda American Brass Ltd. (1956) that LIFO was not allowed for tax purposes in Canada. As of 2000, the case still provided the legal precedence for LIFO not being allowed for tax purposes in Canada.
Remnants of American Brass survived well into the latter half of the 20th century under various ownerships, and in 1990 the first international company purchased its operations Outokumpu Oyj. Ansonia Copper eventually split from American Brass to form their own separate company again in 1986 in protest of the factory getting shut down. Heading into the turn of the century the factory worker’s way of life was starting to get more difficult by every year with increased competition from India, China, and Mexican suppliers of copper rods and flat wire for home construction, aerospace and the auto industry. In the year 2005 one of their largest customers Connecticut’s shipyard Electric Boat announced they were indefinitely halting repair and maintenance operations which caused a huge blow. Around 70% of Ansonia’s mainstay tubing business was tied to the military ship and submarine business. Of that business, about a third came from Electric Boat. This ultimately led to the decision to cut factory expenses by shutting down their wire mill in Ansonia that could no longer compete.
“Ansonia Copper & Brass Co. will lay off about half of its workers in the next few months, the company president, Ray McGee, announced. McGee said 84 employees would be laid off.” — Hartford Courant (2/04/2007)
At this point forward there were only 50 workers left at the Waterbury plant and only production left was copper-nickel tubing, only because it is required by law that 51% of military equipment be American made. Yet again in 2013 they made another short amount of layouts with only 40 workers remaining. The writing was on the wall for what was coming next.
“Ansonia Specialty Metals continues to be a poster child for the Buy America clause. The reason Ansonia needs TAA assistance is because they’ve lost defense contracts to foreign companies.” — Senator Chris Murphy (7/25/2013)
“Any foreign competitor can come in, use predatory pricing and dump their products here and there’s nothing an American company can do.” — CEO John Barto
Company President believed the Mexican mill was dumping their product at below its production cost, and then when it drives him out of business, it will raise its prices. He said after he shut the rod mill, many of his old customers begged him to start it back up, telling him their new suppliers had raised their prices and the quality wasn’t as good. But it was too late. He’d sold off the equipment. Murphy warned defense officials that if Ansonia goes under, the United States would not be able to get the capability back. As fait would meet the company would announce their complete closing on the day before Thanksgiving laying off all remaining workers in 2014. Local Waterbury reporter Raechel Guest was on the ground as the factory was getting setup for the wrecking ball, where she interviewed the local community where they spoke of tales of years past and how the closing affected them.
“When I was growing up, back in the 1960s and ’70s, everyone I knew assumed that the factory jobs would always be there. I didn’t bother going to college, because I knew I could get a good-paying job at a brass factory.” — Carmen D. Palumbo (Former Worker 2014 Statement)
The state of Connecticut estimates that in the last decade alone, the manufacturing economy has shrunk by nearly a fourth, to 193,900 people with manufacturing jobs from 248,500. The ripples can be felt throughout the region where shells of former factories dot the banks of the Naugatuck River. The local steel workers union has seen its membership shrink to nearly half its size in the last decade, to 1,400 from 2,600. Trade schools, where hard-working fathers sent their sons to learn the family business, have been replaced by centers for the elderly and office buildings.
Chase Brass (1876–1977)
The first and original plant of the Chase Companies was the Waterbury Manufacturing Company, which was founded in 1837. It was formally called Hitchcock’s and later became known as the United States Button Company. In 1876 it was incorporated under the new name of Waterbury Manufacturing Company, and in 1882 it employed a mere 37 men in contract. The factory would not be that small forever.
By 1900 it used so much brass that a new plant called the Chase Rolling Mill Company was built to cast and roll the metal needed. Gradually this second unit of the company entered the market as producers of Chase brass sheet, rod, wire, and tubing. Later in 1920, with a view to the future of the brass business, a second brass mill, the Chase Metal Works was created. It was this mill that would become one of the largest and best equipped brass and copper mills in America during its day. It would be in 1917 when these three plants, Waterbury Manufacturing, Chase Rolling Mill, and Chase Metal Works were merged into Chase Companies Incorporated. During this time the company saw a period of great expansion in 1921, and copper warehouses were started on the East and West coasts and additional warehouses were soon added in important manufacturing cities. This included purchasing the U.T. Hungerford Brass & Copper, which also operated brass and copper warehouses in principal cities. Both the Chase and Hungerford chains of warehouses were united and merged into a separate company named Chase Brass and Copper, which in addition to its warehouse business also acted as the selling and distributing company for the products of their mills.
One symbol of Chase during this era, and something of a tourist attraction in Waterbury, was its team of Percheron horses used for hauling cordwood from forests in Kent, coal from the Freight Street railway station, and heavy loads from the Waterville plant to the mill on North Main Street. At their height of use, Chase had close to 350 horses, typically used in eight-horse hitches, but they also had a 24-horse team and a 40-horse team. In 1913, after a trolley railway for freight and passenger service connected the Waterville Chase Metal Works to the mill on North Main Street, the horses were sold to the Barnum & Bailey circus. At least one of Chase’s horse team drivers, Jim Thomas, joined Barnum & Bailey to drive the horse teams for the circus. —Waterbury Observer (5/22/2011)
In 1927 the Chase Companies Inc bought the U.T. Hungerford Brass & Copper Company, which also operated brass and copper warehouses in principal cities. Both the Chase and Hungerford chains of warehouses were united and merged into a separate company named the Chase Brass and Copper Company, which in addition to its warehouse business also acts as the selling and distributing company for the products from the mills of Chase Companies Inc.
By 1930, they were now the largest and most complete brass copper warehouse system in the world. In 1946 the company saw its largest strike which lasted more than two months, when workers at both American Brass and Chase Brass in Waterbury with the CIO unions demanded for an 18 and a half cent hourly pay increase with retroactive provisions. It’s second major strike happened in 1956 when 3600 workers in local 1565 United Auto Workers that now ran the factory walked out, over a disagreement with the company’s method of distributing a “14 1–2 to 15 cents-an-hour wage increase”. Its third major strike happened in 1965, when 1,100 workers demanded a day increase they had not seen since 1960 when they employed 1600 workers. In addition to wages, other issues included increased pensions, hospital insurance, and other benefits.
Chase was a major economic powerhouse for the city of Waterbury, being the largest taxpayer for the city. For the employees they even opened up their own institution called the Chase Country Club, a sprawling
During the 1970 the amount of copper imports from Far East regions of the world increased significantly, and the Waterbury operations began running on thin profit margins in order to stay competitive. The plant lost $6 million during the first half of 1975 alone to competition.
The ultimate fait of the Thomaston Avenue factory in Waterbury happened in 1975, when its last and final strike which began on August 7th and ended on August 20th, closed down permanently, when executives made the decision that it wasn’t worth the cost of doing business. This was after workers were forced to receive a 10% pay cut. At the time the plant which manufactured alloy wire and tubing, employed 537 hourly and 151 salaried employes. However the strike is not what caused the plant itself to close down, it was the dying business entirely, being outpriced by foreign copper and brass. In a statement at the time reported in the Bridgeport Post, company President Glenn Bakken said…
“We are not closing this plant because we are on strike. We are not washing 60 years of sweat and tears down the drain after a 12-day strike. We are closing down the plant because we are losing money and we see no reasonable prospect of changing that circumstance.” — CEO Glenn Bakken (8/20/1975)
An investor by the name of George Ward, formed a third-off company Connecticut Metal with plans to buy the plant to bring it back from the dead in the fall of 1975. With plans continue the business and modernized facilities. Ward was President of Producers Chemical Corporation, a chemical manufacturer and copper producer in New York City, Texas, and Arizona, and was the former Vice President of Exxon Chemical Corporation.
Ward’s investors pulled out of the contract after UAW refused to accept a five year contract, when they wanted a three year contract.
“My financial backers decided to pull out after the plant union refused to accept a five-year contract. The backers required a five year contract because of the plant’s financial difficulties.” — George Ward (Hartford Courant 11/13/1975)
The company’s Forgings division which employed 75 closed down one year later, and the company’s nuclear division which made zirconium parts for reactors employing 50, continued operating in the same Thomaston plant until 1978. It was the first of the “big three” brass factories in New England to shut down. Efforts to sell the factory at the time deemed unsuccessful.
“No one seems to be interested in it. The site has been mentioned as a possible location for a dogtrack” — Richard Berman (Waterbury Assistant Director of Economic Development 1977 statement)
The building was eventually auctioned off to the city, with some proposals to turn its occupancy into a “multipurpose industrial park”. Another proposal claimed it for the site of a new civic center. As of writing this story in the year 2022, the building still sat abandoned with no future plan to use the space for anything. Two more major New England institutions Draper and Iver Johnson would close down that year as well. The late 70s were not a great time period for the New England economy. Chase Brass is still in existence today, but its only American production is left in a 200 person shop in Montpelier, Ohio. It’s legacy of defining Waterbury as the “brass city” should not be forgotten.
Scovill Brass (1802–1988)
“Scovill’s Rolling Mill” was a song about Irish immigrants of New England working in a Naugatuck Valley brass mill. Scovill was the first of the “big three” in Brass City in direct competition with American brass at their peak, and the original factory was also located right in Waterbury along Mill Street. The brass industry in Waterbury began in the mid-18th century and provided an alternative for people struggling to make a living off the rocky, exhausted soil. In 1802, Southington brothers Abel and Levi Porter moved to Waterbury and joined pewter button makers Henry, Silas, and Samuel Grilley to form Abel Porter and Company, the first rolling brass mill in the US. Brass ingots from old copper kettles and stills were alloyed with zinc and sent to iron mills in Litchfield for rolling into sheets and then returned to Waterbury to be finished by horse-powered steel rollers. The Porter brothers were likely the first in the US to make brass using this direct fusion of zinc and copper.
The demand for military and other uniform buttons in the mid-18th century led to the building of a water-powered mill and increased mechanization. By 1864, individual machines in the factory capably produced 216,000 buttons per day. By this time, the gilt button business of Abel Porter and Company had been purchased by James Mitchell Lamson Scovill, a fifth-generation descendant of one of Waterbury’s founders, Sergeant John Scovill. Along with Frederick Leavenworth and David Hayden, James Scovill formed the foundation of what later became the Scovill Manufacturing Company. This was when the Scovill name became famous making buttons for every war. Scovill Manufacturing grew to become Waterbury’s largest employer and, along with both American Brass and Chase Brass, made up what local residents referred to as the “Big Three” of brass production. Together, these companies made Waterbury the leading producer of brass in the world. In the year 1934 it was reported that Scovill alone employed 9000 workers at their Waterbury factories when they reached their peak during WWI and WWII. It was in 1946 when Scoville experienced their first major strike, where 4300 workers in local 569 CIO won a major pay increase, and this pay increase did not go to the additional 1500 office workers that were employed at the time. It specifically only went towards blue collar workers on the ground.
As the American market started shifting towards plastics, zinc, and aluminum, the leaders of the company expanded their outreach to new industries under Baldrige’s leadership who entered the company in 1962. Labeled in newspapers as the cowboy heading Scovill, who was famous for riding a horse to work. In the late 1960’s they entered the housing market with brand name exhaust fans, security systems, bath cabinets, lighting fixtures, zippers, and wood doors and windows. This was during the baby boom when an unprecedented amount of housing was being built. The company also saw a new line of sewing notions, and their new line of American kitchen appliances known as Hamilton Beach who’s sales from 1962 to 1977 jumped from $14 million to $165 million. Also under such names as Nutone, Yale Security, Schrader, and Scovill Apparel Fasteners. As welcoming as these successes into the 20th century were, there was the threat of cheap labor from imported brass that began biting at the backs of the aging factories of the Brass City during the 70’s recession and the rust belt that was starting to close in.
Beginning in 1975 the company entered its most serious labor dispute in history when the factory owners decided to sell to new owners to a group represented by Bear Stearns Company a New York investment firm. The announcement came that Scoville would be moving its apparels fastener operation out of Waterbury to Georgia and Virginia where cost of operations were cheaper after they had lost $8 million that year to overseas competition. This led to a total of 300 workers getting laid off. After the sale the grey cloud was so persistent that Chairman Malcom Baldrige who was Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan cabinet, had to place advertisements in Waterbury newspapers to say it was still alive. The new ownership would soon move its headquarters building near I-84. The headquarters, complete in 1979, became a symbol of Scovill’s presence in Waterbury. One year later in 1976 they sold their Aerosol Valve Division in Manchester, New Hampshire, along with a new contract for the 1800 workers left in Waterbury that they would agree to not accept a pay raise for three years, the removal of cost of living adjustments, and no fringe benefits such as having their company pension plan moved to a federal government insurance corporation. The 1500 union workers at the factory represented by LOCAL 1251 United Auto Workers went on strike for the entire year, until it was finally reached a settlement that the firm would restore the benefits when and if they recovered from their financial burdens.
“On Sunday, union members at Scovill rejected a new contract by proposed buyers of Scovill’s brass works and the president of the company said the rejection could mean the closing of the brassworks and the loss of 1,800 jobs.” — Hartford Courant (12/16/1975)
By the late 1970’s the company had diversified into consumer products in order to stay alive, resulting in 70 percent of its sales and 90 percent of its profits coming from such products under the new name Century Brass. Lack of investment in maintaining the aging factory took its toll however in 1977 when a company dam on the Housatonic River experienced a breakthrough, flooding the J.P. Stevens parking lot and lowering the water supply for Century Brass. The U.S Department of Agriculture Litchfield County Soil Conservation Service (SCS) noted that Century Brass would be forced to shut down its Housatonic avenue tubemill if the water level could not be raised. The breakthrough lowered the water level so far that the pumps could not provide cooling water for the tubemill. Governor of Connecticut Ella Grasso originally ordered the state to refuse the project as it was announced that the damage did not qualify for help from the Corps Of Engineers. This forced the company to start using water from the Scovill Reservoir.
‘SCS and Corps Of Engineers said they could do nothing with flood control at this time. Mr Chapin’s proposal to lower the dam to help with flood waters was rejected by the engineers who said the back up came from the Lover’s Leap gorge and not the dam. — Bridgeport Post (9/09/1977)
“We’ve tried to better balance the company, so that in any economic downturn we would offset a decline by pickups in the other parts of the business. That strategy was not proven misguided by the events of the past year, because autos, housing, and capital goods have not traditionally slumped all at the same time.” — President Will Andrews (12/13/1980)
Scovill’s problems were directly related to the sharp decline in the nation’s auto and housing markets. The slump in the auto industry undercut the company’s Shrader automotive unit, which makes tire valves and related accessories. The auto and housing slump continued to a 40 percent drop in earnings by the year 1980. The company’s housing products group which makes such items as exhaust fans, lighting fixtures and electric heaters fell off as high interest rates Brough near-depression conditions to the building business. Economic downturn was reported by local residents in angry letters to the editors in local newspapers at the time in relation to the factories, and in 1981 the factory saw its second strike in less than a decade as newspaper headlines wrote, “Closing Of Brass Mill Looms”. In the summer of ’81 a total of 1000 workers picketed off 13 entrances with reported violence. This was on top of a time period where the state of Connecticut was significantly raising taxes to make up for forced budgets cuts during the recession.
“I’ve got 22 years in here. I was expecting to retire this year. I think they had planned on doing this (liquidating the company) all along. That is what’s got us all upset. — Connie Chiero (22 year worker)
“If these companies had been allowed to operate without ever increasing government taxes, and regulation, perhaps they would have operated at a substantial profit, and their employees would not be in the unemployment lines toady.”- Donald L. McCollum (Waterbury Resident)
“Earlier Monday, about 1,000 strikers picketed the company’s 13 entrances. Union officials charged that Kenneth P. Rubenstein, son of the company’s board president, Charles Rubenstein, hit three pickets with his car.” — Hartford Courant (8/04/1981)
On top of all this the New Haven Conservation Commission after they had refused to approve the repair of the leaking dam, two years later opened up an environmental review on the company in 1982 that complained they were draining water levels too low and affecting residents wells. Everything began crashing down in a very short amount of time period. Two years later in 1984 was the final straw which kickstarted the largest strike in the company’s history, where 1800 people including 500 clerical and managerial workers participated in round the clock picketing from LOCAL 1604. This after the company threatened to remove healthcare coverage for retirees, Even though they had assumed those responsibilities after inheriting the company. The strike climaxed about three weeks of negotiations that involved state and federal mediators. The company offer now included varying pay increases, a profit sharing plan and no reduction in benefits. The union was demanding striking workers that they receive $85 a week in strike benefits to close.
“We’re going. It’s about time everybody stayed together and fought for our piece instead of cowering to the big boss.” — Jim Cavalari (Plumber @ Century Brass)
“The UAW doesn’t normally do this, but they don’t normally have to deal with a company like Century Brass. Even if Century doesn’t appreciate them, the UAW does.” — Patricia Albino (LOCAL 1604 UAW Vice President)
“Certainly we want to save jobs in the state of Connecticut. I’m not sure of the route we’re going to take to do that at this moment.”- Governor William A. O’Neill (2/28/1985)
According to union Vice President Patricia Albino, the counter offer just redistributed the money in previous offers and did not include any raises in the first year of the proposed three-year contract. One retiree Patricia reported was so upset, he was heard crying on the phone at the meeting proclaiming he couldn’t afford to pay his health insurance. This forced the union to being paying health insurance to retirees themselves. The strike continued into the next year when the company told Union officials they were seeking tax deferrals from both the state and from the city of Waterbury to keep their business afloat. Neither Mayor Edward D. Begin nor state Economic Development Commissioner John J. Carson responded to these requests. Century Brass finally set the Monday of March 4th as the deadline for the Union to respond, or Waterbury’s metal division which employed 800 workers would be laid off permanently. They blamed foreign competition and depression of the brass industry. The Union was flat out against making any sort of concessions of wage cuts towards the largest brass mill and Waterbury’s largest employer. Union workers were being asked to give up about $2,000 each and salaried workers about $5,000 each.
The deadline came and the union voted no to concessions and the company folded pulling out of Waterbury. Scovill Manufacturing Company owned the sprawling complex of brick mill buildings until 1976, when a group of investors led by Charles Rubenstein purchased it. In April 1977, the company became Century Brass Products Inc. Its brief existence was marked by tense labor-management relations that included strikes in 1979, 1981, and 1984. Union members said they went from the top to the bottom of the industry’s wage scale.
“The ax fell quickly Monday at Century Brass products Inc. as the company delivered on its promise to close the metals division and laid off hundreds of employees. As the former employees in Waterbury trooped into the snow outside, state officials in Hartford had no plans to offer assistance.” — Hartford Courant (3/5/1985)
“The Scovill’s were gentlemen. These people are sharks. They’re outlaws.- Larry Bernier (40 year worker)
“They’re asking me to work for less than when I started as an apprentice. They’re offering no kind of future for me. — Kurt Herbert (Environmental Systems Specialist)
“I’ve given them 30 years of my life and for them to pull this. Any kind of job is better than Century even not having a job.”- Charlie Howell (30 year worker)
The last brass mill owned by the company in Waterbury was finally sold in 1987 along with their New Milford site totaling 133 acres of land, where the remaining 300 workers in the General Products Division were able to transfer their jobs to the new company Rostra Engineered Components who took over the building. The only factory that remained under Century Brass ownership was their fasteners operation in Watertown, a 325,000 square foot eight acre plant that was labeled as the “finest industrial building in the Naugatuck Valley” until their lease was finally up in mid 1988 and the complex was sold. The former retirees including those who retired after ’76 finally got their pension plans in 1987 after settling a two million dollar class action lawsuit. The Woodtick and Chestnut Hill reservoirs and Cedar and Hitchcock lakes were sold to the town of Wolcott for $740,000 and turned into the Scovill recreation area of 200 acres surrounding the reservoirs. The town felt a great loss at the decline of this business as Scovill had been the town’s second highest taxpayer. This would be the second to last of the brass giants to leave Waterbury, representative of an industry that was drying up and stagnating wages.
All that is left is the memories from grandfathers who were once the electricians, machinists, millwrights, tool grinders, tool makers, progressive tool setters, and drawer dial pressers. The smell of melting ores that would smack your face while throwing wires into the oven. It was a brutal reminder that you are never more than one generation away from losing a way of life and tradition. Waterbury’s brass dominance would never return.
