continued to work throughout the state, among them David Hoadley in New Haven County (figure 28), John Bishop in New London, James Jennings in Warren (place 59), and the Truesdale/Truesdell family in Tolland County. Others provided engineering expertise needed for factories and infrastructure projects such as the Farmington and Enfield Falls Canals (place 51). But the professional lines remained indistinct; in the course of his career a man might successively call himself a carpenter, a master builder, and an architect. The distinctions in terminology seem in some cases to have been as much a matter of self-promotion as of training or practice.
The century between about 1730 and 1840 saw Connecticut move beyond its initial, primarily agricultural, economy to become an economically diverse society. This development was reflected in movements to improve its towns and landscapes, to adopt internationally recognized classical standards of architecture, and then to temper that classicism with Romanticism. Economic and social diversification inspired the development of new building types and the emergence of educated, professional architects.
Industrial Connecticut, 1840–1930
By 1840, Connecticut was a vastly different place from what it had been one hundred years before, and it stood on the brink of even greater changes. Over the next century, the processes that had begun after the Revolution completely transformed the state, turning it into an urban, industrialized society whose members traced their lineage to every country of Europe as well as many other places throughout the world. Other states experienced similar changes, but in small, densely settled, overwhelmingly homogeneous Connecticut they were particularly dramatic.
The main factor was industry. Manufacturing came to dominate Connecticut’s economy, and mills and factories appeared in nearly every town. Textiles and armaments continued to be principal products, but the state also became known for processed materials such as sheet brass, wire, and thread, as well as a wide range of consumer products, including clocks and watches, tools and hardware, and household goods. Less visible in the marketplace but crucial to continued industrial prominence were the companies that produced industrial machinery; ongoing innovation kept Connecticut at the forefront of the nation’s economic development during this period.
Industrial expansion sparked explosive growth in existing cities like Bridgeport and gave birth to new ones such as Shelton (figure 29; place 34). By the 1860s, improvements in steam power freed manufacturers from the need to locate where there was waterpower. Increasingly, they clustered in cities with their better transportation connections and ready labor supply. There, the need for infrastructure and services to support the industrial population fueled additional growth: transportation networks to move raw materials and finished goods, housing for workers and their families, stores to sell them the goods they needed for daily life, and schools, churches, and other community institutions.
Even in the countryside, industrial development prompted changes. Most rural towns lost population as residents moved to cities to find work. Those who remained behind concentrated on providing city markets with foods that could not be transported long distances, or on cash crops such as tobacco (place 26). Nearly every rural community also had some small-scale manufacturing enterprise. Some of these served local needs; others eventually fostered the growth of a new industrial center or else moved to a larger existing community with better access to labor or transportation or suppliers.
The need for labor and the promise of economic opportunity drew immigrants from abroad. In 1840, Connecticut’s population still traced its roots primarily to the British Isles. In 1850, immigrants made up approximately 10 percent of the state’s population; by 1870, the number was 25 percent, and by 1900 Connecticut had one of the largest percentages of foreign-born residents in the country.17 The newcomers came in waves from different areas: Irish and Germans in the antebellum years, French Canadians beginning in the 1860s; Southern and Eastern Europeans from the 1880s. They brought new religions, new social patterns, and new faces to the state.
The growth in size and complexity of Connecticut society affected architectural development. First of all, there was simply more of everything, and everything was bigger: cities, factories, schools, commercial buildings—even houses for the prospering middle and upper classes and multifamily dwellings for urban workers. Prosperity and economies of scale thanks to mass production encouraged growth and elaboration. No building embodied the new scale and lavishness of Connecticut architecture better than the State Capitol, completed in 1879 (place 91).
FIGURE 29. View of Bridgeport, Ct. O. H. Bailey & Co., 1875 (detail). Library of Congress
Industrial architecture was dominated by multipurpose loft buildings suitable for many types of manufacturing, such as the Hockanum Mill (place 33). But as processes and products diversified, many manufacturers, particularly those such as the Clark Brothers Bolt Company who worked in metals, needed more-specialized structures (place 35). Whatever the type, structures had to withstand the weight and stresses of ever-bigger and ever-faster machinery. By the early twentieth century, the introduction of electric lighting and power meant that it no longer was necessary to have workers close to windows for illumination, or to keep machinery in the straight lines dictated by shaft-and-belt power transmission systems. With electricity, buildings could spread out, like the Willimantic Linen Company’s Mill Number 4 (1884; demolished; figure 30), claimed as the first industrial building in the country specifically designed for electric lighting. Insurance companies, many of them headquartered in Hartford, influenced industrial buildings as well. They pushed for fire-safety efforts such as eliminating attics, where flammable materials often accumulated, and building separate towers to isolate stairs. Beyond functional changes, owners often asked for ornamentation to proclaim their prosperity and stability to potential customers. At the Meriden Curtain Fixture Company’s plant, in Meriden, two powerhouses—one with an eye-catching arched roof—supplemented loft buildings, and bands of decorative brick ornamented the entire complex (figure 31). This ornament could benefit the bottom line as companies used images of attractive facilities like this in marketing materials.
FIGURE 30. Willimantic Linen Company, Mill Number 4, Willimantic, 1884, destroyed 1995. Insurance map, 1909. The Windham Textile and History Museum
Industrial architecture was not limited to factory or mill buildings. Factory complexes also needed auxiliary structures to house specialized processes, as well as warehouses, power plants, rail sidings, bridges, and dams and canals for waterpower systems (place 34). Companies continued to develop or expand factory towns and neighborhoods offering housing, stores, and community buildings for their workers. In the early twentieth century the Progressive and Garden City movements inspired efforts to improve working-class housing (see Seaside Village, place 44). A privately built example is Connecticut Gables (1917, W. H. Cox; figure 32), a multifamily structure erected by the Connecticut Mills Company in the Danielson section of Killingly. Its fourteen apartments each comprised three to five rooms, plus modern kitchens and bathrooms. The building, which resembled an English country inn, bore a plaque proclaiming it “A Forward Step in Good Housing for Working People.”
Companies were less likely to get involved in neighborhood building in the cities, where private investors were active. However, industrial expansion still drove rapid growth in Connecticut cities from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. During this period the two- or three-family house emerged as the most common urban residential type. These narrow buildings with units stacked one on top of the other gave each unit windows on all four sides, providing more light and air than
