Family History at the Button Museum

 

My sis and I recently visited the Button Museum, a collection housed in the Mattatuck Museum in downtown Waterbury, Connecticut. Unexpectedly, we discovered a bit of family history there.

Nicknamed "Brass City," Waterbury was once a major industrial center for metal-based products like clocks, candlesticks, and buttons.

The Button Museum consists of framed shadowboxes displaying themed buttons produced in Waterbury over the years, plus drawers filled with a wide array of buttons sorted by type.

One drawer held buttons produced for WWII uniforms, including three sizes of brass buttons created for the Women's Army Corps. My aunt, Sgt. Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001) served as a WAC. Although her uniforms are long, long gone, seeing what the buttons looked like was a delightful surprise. 

Also in the collection: brass buttons manufactured for fire and police departments all over America, such as Dayton, Hartford, and other big cities. Plus hundreds and hundreds of graceful and decorative buttons for all types of garments, a nostalgic look back at what was once a way to express personality, status, and belonging. What we saw was mostly metal but also some fabric-covered buttons and other specialty items from the past.

It was a serendipitous day at the museum, showing how family history connects with local and international history through objects arranged by curators.