USA > Connecticut > History of Connecticut, Volume II > Part 15
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
711
AGRICULTURE, LABOR, AND FOREIGN-BORN
in building trades.134 In the latter they were utilizing a talent developed in their native country, as they did when then turned to the develop- ment of nurseries. A. N. Pierson, who settled in Cromwell in 1870, be- gan what was to become the largest underglass greenhouse in the coun- try.135 The Norwegians were similar to the Swedes in their economic pursuits, while many of the Danes became highly skilled mechanics and tool makers. Others turned to dairying and truck farming. The native background of the Scandinavians was similar to the Connecticut heri- tage and the Scandinavians were easily assimilated and suffered little discrimination.136
The Italians, of whom the residents in the state became acutely aware in the last decade of the century, did face discrimination. Whether because of fear of persecution, as has been claimed, or because of the transitory nature of the first of these immigrants, they were not identi- fied in large numbers until 1890. Then, 5,000 foreign-born Italians were reported in the state. More than 25 percent of these resided in the city of New Haven. The others were evenly distributed among the cities of Waterbury, Bridgeport, and Hartford. They aroused suspicion and were subjected to the discriminations suffered by earlier groups.137 Near the end of the century, the General Assembly took steps to assure the Italians and other immigrants with language difficulties of their right of contract and of the protection of that right under the laws of the state. The Catholic Church and such other organizations as the Connecticut Missionary Society and the Italian Baptist Mission assisted the newcomer to adjust to Connecticut life.139 Many turned from the problems of the cities, took advantage of the status of agriculture in the state and moved to rural communities.
The Italian provided the energy and the knowledge necessary to transform many of Connecticut's marginal abandoned farms into prof- itable enterprises. There were those who believed that "the best of the old stock" of the small towns had moved West and that the immigrant was a necessary replacement.140 It was suggested that the immigrant with a large family was the hope of the decaying small towns of Connecticut.141 Certain Italians recognized the potentialities of the land near New Haven, acquired it cheaply, and transformed it into a productive enter- prise which decreased the dependence of New Haven on New York
(Courtesy Conn. State Lib.)
MIDDLETOWN
713
AGRICULTURE, LABOR, AND FOREIGN-BORN
markets.142 In the Glastonbury area, another group of approximately 50 families established profitable orchards on sterile and well-worn land.143
Other nationalities which immigrated in significant numbers be- fore the turn of the century included the Russians, Hungarians, and Austrians. The Russians began to come in the decade from 1880 to 1890, and by 1900 they numbered 11,000. There were 3,100 Russians in New Haven and another 2,200 in Hartford.144 The Austrians and Hun- garians, in about equal proportion, comprised another 11,000 immi- grants.
Not until the twentieth century did other immigrant groups ap- pear in significant numbers, including the Lithuanians, Czechs, Slo- vaks, Greeks, and Poles. The Poles, however, began to arrive as early as 1880.
The adjustments of Connecticut society in the last part of the nineteenth century provide in small compass a view of the accommoda- tions of the peoples of the world to the demands of the scientific ad- vances which stimulated, accompanied, and resulted from the industrial revolution. Connecticut in the years immediately following the Civil War occupied something of a half way point in this process of indus- trialization in the remaining decades of the century. Corporate industry grew to maturity, a transportation system was perfected, and capital be- came more fluid and to an increasing extent looked beyond the state's borders for returns. In the western states, where industrialization was only beginning, there remained undeveloped land capable of producing foodstuffs in quantity and at a price with which Connecticut farmers could not compete. Many left their family farms and established new homesteads in the West. Others swelled the growing labor classes in the industrial centers. The labor needs of the expanding industries, how- ever, exceeded the available numbers from the native population. Meanwhile, residents of other states and peoples of other lands were making similar adjustments to the technical, industrial advances. Some came to Connecticut and supplemented the native labor force. A smaller number settled in the rural areas of the state and helped to resuscitate and adapt Connecticut agriculture to the demands of an industrial civilization. In the process, the independence of the Connecticut yeo- man was considerably lessened and the homogeneity of the people de-
714
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
stroyed. There emerged an urban civilization which required the cooperative efforts of society.
NOTES-CHAPTER XXVII
1 Niven, "Time of the Whirlwind," pp. 500-515.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., pp. 516-32.
4 Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1875, pp. 10-12, Public Documents, 1875; Re- port of Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1884, p. 24, Public Documents, 1884, Vol. II; Niven, "Time of the Whirlwind," pp. 536-39.
5 Governor's Message, 1875, pp. 14-15, Public Documents, 1875.
6 Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1875, pp. 19-20, Public Documents, 1875.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., pp. 19-20.
9 Public Acts, 1875, P. 44.
10 Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1875, pp. 3-16, Public Documents,
11 Report of the Board of Education, 1877, p. 6, Public Documents,
12 Public Acts, 1882, pp. 162-63.
13 Public Acts, 1886, pp. xix, xx; Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1886, pp. xvi-xxi, Public Documents, 1887, Vol. I.
14 Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1893, pp. 19-20, Public Documents, 1884, Vol. II.
15 Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1893, p. 10, Public Documents,
16 Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1889, p. 14, Public Documents, 1890, Vol. II; Ibid., 1890, p. 28, Public Documents, 1891, Vol. II.
17 Ibid., 1893, p. 138, Public Documents, 1894, Vol. I.
18 Ibid., 1887, pp. 19-20, Public Documents, 1888, Vol. II.
19 Ibid., p. 42.
20 Ibid., pp. 19-20.
21 Ibid., p. 17.
22 Ibid., 1886, p. xviii.
23 Ibid., 1887, pp.
24 Ibid., pp. 385-91.
25 Ibid., p. 308.
26 Ibid., pp. 387-88.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., p. 387.
29 Ibid., 1886, pp. ix-lx.
30 Ibid.
31 Public Acts, 1887, p. 696.
32 Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1889, pp. 55-57.
33 Public Acts, 1887, pp. 763-65.
34 Ibid., 1895, PP. 559-60.
35 Ibid., 1899, pp. 1109-10.
38 Public Acts, 1787, p. 725; ibid., 1789, pp. 155-59.
39 Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1889, p. 16, Public Documents, 1889, Vol. II.
40 Ibid., 1887, pp. 15-17; ibid., 1890, pp. 16-17.
715
AGRICULTURE, LABOR, AND FOREIGN-BORN
41 Ibid., pp. 21-23.
42 Ibid., p. 27.
43 Ibid., 1894, Public Documents, 1895, Vol. II, pp. 167-284.
44 Ibid., 1890, pp. 13-14; ibid., 1893, pp. 20-24.
45 Ibid., 1895, pp. 197-210.
46 Ibid., 1899, Public Documents, 1899, Vol. III, pp. 12-13; ibid., 1900, Public Documents, 1900, Vol. II, pp. 8-9.
47 Ibid., 1893, pp. 178-82, 193; Public Acts, 1893, p. 377; ibid., 1899, p. 995, 1006-1007.
48 Ibid., 1895, pp. 584-85.
49 Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1899, pp. 172-74; ibid., 1900, pp. 164-65. 50 Ibid., p. 221.
51 Ibid., 1895, pp. 11-12; ibid., 1896, Public Documents, 1897, Vol. III, pp. 12-13; Public Acts, 1895, pp. 638-39.
52 Ibid., Report of Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1897, p. 11.
53 Ibid., pp. 173-74; ibid., 1900, p. 174.
54 Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," in Osborn, History of Connecticut, pp. 385-88, 410-12; Tenth Census of the United States, pp. 3-19; Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture, 1890 (Hartford, 1891), pp. 160-61.
55 Fourteenth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture, 1880-81 (Hartford, 1881), p. 223.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid., pp. 219-21.
58 Fourteenth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, pp. 225-32; Twenty-Fourth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, 1896 (Hartford 1897), pp. 157-74.
59 Thirtieth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, 1896 (Hartford, 1897), pp. 70-71. 60 Fourteenth Annual Report . .. Board of Agriculture, pp. 233-35.
61 Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Census of the United States, 1880, 1890, and 1900, Agriculture.
62 Twenty-Fourth Annual Report . .. Board of Agriculture, p. 163.
63 Twenty-First Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, 1887 (Hartford, 1887), p. 103; Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," pp. 384-85.
64 The Connecticut Granges, edited under the supervision of a Committee of the State Granges (New Haven, 1900), p. xiii.
65 Fourteenth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, p. 36.
66 Ibid., pp. 35-39.
67 Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," pp. 356-59; Walter Stemmons, Connecticut Agri- cultural College, A History (Storrs, 1931), p. 22.
68 Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," pp. 360-61.
69 Ibid., pp. 375-80; Twenty-First Annual Report . . . Board of Agriculture, pp. 99-107. 70 Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," pp. 368-70; Stemmons, Connecticut Agricultural College, pp. 64-66.
71 Ibid., pp. 23-33.
72 Ibid., pp. 56-70.
73 Twelfth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, 1878-79 (Hartford, 1879), p. 38. 74 The Connecticut Granges, p. 9.
Twenty-First Annual Report . Board of Agriculture, pp. 218-19.
76 The Connecticut Granges, p. xii; Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," p. 384.
77 Shannon, Farmer's Last Frontier, pp. 291-303.
78 Twenty-fourth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, p. 163; Twenty-eighth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, 1894 (Hartford, 1895), p. 58.
716
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
79 Richard F. Hogan, "Abandonment of Agricultural Lands in the Uplands of Western New England" (Doctoral thesis, Division of Geological Sciences, Harvard University, 1949), pp. 144-46; Twelfth Census, 1900, Agriculture, p. 593.
80 Ibid.
81 Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," pp. 393-94.
82 Ibid., pp. 398-99.
83 Ibid., pp. 361, 396-99.
84 Fourteenth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, p. 223; Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," p. 410.
85 Ibid.
86 Tenth Census, Agriculture, p. 285; Twelfth Census, Agriculture, pp. 11, 322.
87 Tenth Census, Agriculture, p. 43; Twelfth Census, Agriculture, pp. 11, 599-60.
88 Tenth Census, Agriculture, pp. 3-19; Twelfth Census, Agriculture, pp.
89 Adrian F. McDonald, "History of Tobacco Production in Connecticut," (Tercente- nary Commission of the State of Connecticut), (New Haven, n.d.), p. 15 .; P. J. Anderson, Tobacco Culture in Connecticut, (New Haven, Agricultural Experiment Station, 1934), p. 801.
90 McDonald, "Tobacco Production in Connecticut," p. 16.
91 Jenkins, "Connecticut Agriculture," p. 413.
92 Hartford Courant, April 28, 1902.
93 Anderson, Tobacco Culture in Connecticut, p. 803.
94 Shannon, Farmer's Last Frontier, p. 247.
96 Thirtieth Annual Report ... Board of Agriculture, 1896 (Hartford, 1897) pp. 70-73. 97 Ibid.
98 Shannon, Farmer's Last Frontier, pp. 249-50.
99 Samuel Koenig and David Rodnick, Ethnic Factors in Connecticut, A Survey of Social, Economic, and Cultural Characteristics of the Connecticut Population (WPA Writers Project) (New Haven, 1940), pp. 16-22.
100 Twelfth Census, Population, Part I, p. xxii.
101 Ibid., p. 485; Samuel Koenig, Immigrant Settlements in Connecticut, Their Growth, Characteristics (WPA Writers Project) (Hartford, 1938), p. 13.
102 Twelfth Census, Population, p. 808.
103 Charlotte Erickson, American Industry and the European Immigrant, 1860-85 (Cam- bridge, 1957), p. vii.
104 Ibid., pp. 10-11; Mary Beard, The American Labor Movement; A Short History (New York, 1942) pp. 71-72.
105 Ibid., pp. 11-12.
Ibid., pp. 28-29.
107 Ibid., p. 29; Public Acts, 1865, pp. 8-9.
108 Erickson, American Industry and the European Immigrant, p. 29.
109 Ibid., p. vii.
110 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, pp. 17, 24-30.
111 Twelfth Census of the U. S., 1900, Population, Part I, pp. Ixix, 798-801.
112 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, p. 29.
113 Edward Self, "Evils Incident to Immigration," North American Review, June, 1884, p. 86.
114 Koenig and Rodnick, Ethnic Factors in Connecticut, pp. 26-27.
115 Tenth Census of the United States, Population, p. 675.
116 Twelfth Census of the United States, pp. 817, 823.
717
AGRICULTURE, LABOR, AND FOREIGN-BORN
117 See the Hartford Courant, June 19, 1871, for Elihu Burritt's views on the immigrant in Connecticut politics.
118 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, pp. 17, 25; Twelfth Census of the United States, pp. 798-801.
119 Marcus Lee Hansen and John Bartlett Brebner, The Mingling of the Canadian and American People, (New Haven, 1940) Vol. I, p. 159.
120 Ibid., pp. 214-15.
121 Hansen and Brebner, Mingling of the Canadian and American People, pp. 164-65.
122 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, pp. 31-32.
123 Hansen and Brebner, Mingling of the Canadian and American People, pp. 164-67.
124 Ibid., pp. 164, 212; Annual Report ... Board of Education, of Conn., 1872, p. 8; Hartford Courant, January 18, 1873.
125 Annual Report ... Board of Education of Connecticut, 1871, p. 155.
126 Hansen and Brebner, Mingling of the Canadian and American People, p. 212; Egbert Smyth, The French Canadian in New England (Worcester, 1892), pp. 318-28.
127 Self, "Evils Incident to Immigration," p. 351; Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, p. 17. 128 Hartford Times, February 2, 1876.
129 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, p. 17; Twelfth Census of the United States, pp. 798-801.
130 Ibid., p. 36; Self, "Evils Incident to Immigration," p. 82;
131 Annual Report ... Board of Education of Connecticut, 1872, p. 210.
132 Daniel Chauncey Brewer, The Conquest of New England by the Immigrant (New York, 1926) pp. 145-56.
133 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, p. 17.
134 Ibid., p. 36; Twelfth Census of the United States, pp. 798-801.
135 Adolph Benson and Naboth Hedin, Americans from Sweden (New York, 1950) pp. 396-97.
136 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, p. 36.
137 Ibid., pp. 17, 25-30; Twelfth Census of the United States, pp. 798-801.
139 J. S. Ives, Italian Connecticut (Hartford, 1905), p. 6; A. Roce, A History of the Italian Baptist Mission (Hartford, 1910), p. 15; Hartford Courant, February 6, 1904.
140 New York Daily Tribune, March 15, 1903.
141 Ibid., March 13, 1903.
142 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, p. 28.
143 United States Immigration Commission, Abstracts (Washington, 1911), Vol. I, p. 561.
144 Koenig, Immigrant Settlements, p. 17; Twelfth Census of the United States, pp. 798-801.
Chapter XXVIII The Growth of the City
C ONNECTICUT had become an urban society by 1890. At that time slightly more than half of her residents lived in commu- nities of more than 8,000, and this was the population figure used in the United States census of that year for classification as an ur- ban center.1 In only four states, Rhode Island, Massachussetts, New York, and New Jersey, was population more concentrated than in Con- necticut.2 The population of the five leading cities of the state, Bridge- port, Hartford, New Britain, New Haven, and Waterbury, increased 260 percent from 1870 to 1900 while the population of the state in- creased only 65 percent.3 The exodus from the farm to the city con- tinued unabated during these 30 years, with a decrease in population reported in 72 towns which were "almost wholly dependent on agri- culture."4 By the end of the century the deaths in most rural towns were exceeding the births.5 By the beginning of the century there were more than 100 towns with a population of less than 3,000; in 70 towns the population was less than it had been 50 years previously.6
With the rapid growth of the manufacturing centers and the great influx of foreigners, humanity was crowded into living quarters pre- viously considered characteristic of the old world, but not of the new. The death rate from infectious disease was invariably higher in the areas where population was concentrated. In a study of the 2,619 deaths from tuberculosis in New Haven from 1876 to 1891, it was found that the death rate was highest in the Irish neighborhoods of the southeastern part of the city, in the Irish-American neighborhoods in the western section, and in the negro settlement in the vicinity of Eaton and Web- ster streets. In a single ward which was heavily populated by Italians, 514 deaths occurred in 361 of the 650 houses located in the area.7
719
THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
By the first decade of the twentieth century housing conditions were improving for skilled workers in New Haven who could pay from 15 to 25 dollars a month. Improvement came largely, it appears, through the building of tenements of from six to 18 family units. Tene-
(Courtesy Mills Coll., Conn. State Lib.)
NEW MILFORD-BRIDGE OVER HOUSATONIC RIVER, COMPLETED IN 1954
ment housing standards were determined by the thrifty among the foreigners who invested their savings in these dwellings. Although the tenements were crowded onto the smallest lots the law would permit, the units were greatly superior to those available to those who could pay only twelve dollars or less. As late as 1911 there were still more than 1,000 quarters with privies in their- dooryards. Basement dwellings existed in large numbers, and, in the more thickly settled neighbor- hoods, rear tenements were also crowded onto the lots.8
720
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
Shortly after the beginning of the new century, two incidents oc- curred which focused attention on housing conditions in Connecticut's two largest cities. An independent investigation of housing conditions in New Haven depicted the horrible conditions of the crowded neigh- borhoods of the poor in that city. A report of the United States Bureau of Labor described the housing conditions in Hartford as the worst in any town of its size which was investigated by the Bureau. Hartford joined with New Haven in an effort to control tenement housing. The lack of public opinion in support of legislation and the opposition of the real estate interest limited the application of a bill which was passed to tenements which were to be erected. All provisions to correct and control unsanitary conditions in existing housing were eliminated. The need for adequate housing continued to perplex the growing cities and soon outstripped the ability of the municipal and state governments to meet it.º
Transportation arteries symbolized the energy of these urban cen- ters and constituted their life-line as well. "If there is any kind of ad- vancement going on," Horace Bushnell had declared in 1846, "if new ideas are abroad and new hopes are rising, then you will see it by the roads."1º Connecticut's industrial and financial development in the latter part of the nineteenth century had been brisk, and by 1900 her principal cities were connected by a consolidated system of railroads which bound the cities more tightly as an economic unit and provided the means by which the products of their teeming factories would be distributed.11 In the period immediately following the Civil War, the streets of the cities meandered among the irregularly arranged collec- tion of buildings in the same manner as in the earlier rural community from which the town had grown. New transportation lines, water mains, and sewage lines demanded that building lines be straightened and moved back. Streets were widened and new ones added as the popula- tion grew; stone and iron bridges replaced wooden structures which would no longer stand the strain of traffic. Even a cursory reading of the records of the cities reveals the preoccupation of their governing boards with these routines in the life of a city.12
As business centers became more congested and as traffic in- creased, hard surfaced roads became a necessity for both health and
721
THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
convenience. Various materials were used for surfacing: gravel, stone, various types of block pavement, and asphalt were experimented with until macadamized surfacing came into general use by 1890. By this date approximately 80 percent of the paved streets of the five largest
(Angell Collection)
(Courtesy Norwalk Historical Society)
NORWALK-MERRITT PARKWAY ON AN AUGUST SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN 1944. GASOLINE RATIONING THE CAUSE
cities was macadamized. Perhaps this process would have been even more widely used except for the practice, as in New Haven, of the city's paying the complete cost of paving with stone, but of requiring the owner of property abutting the pavement to bear two-thirds of the cost of using the improved pavement.13 The 218 miles of pavement in Con- necticut's five cities gave them a slightly higher average than the na- tional average of one mile for every 1,264 inhabitants and the average for the three largest cities of New Haven, Hartford, and Bridgeport was
722
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
even higher.1+ Even with the pavement, the dust from the streets pre- sented a serious health hazard and street sprinkling was practiced gen- erally in Connecticut cities by the end of the century.15
A water supply, adequate for the concentrated populations of the cities was rarely supplied in advance of the most urgent need. Water works had been established in each of the five cities by 1870. Three of these were municipally owned. New Haven and Bridgeport, however, secured water through contractual arrangements with privately owned companies. If any of these water works could have been judged ade- quate when introduced, it did not long remain so. Perhaps the planners could not have been expected to anticipate the growth of the cities.16 Although Hartford had abandoned the Connecticut River as its sole source of water, it was still used for auxiliary purposes. An outbreak of typhoid fever in Hartford in 1879 pointed to the impure water drawn from the river, which, although freed from direct sewage in the vicinity of the town, was still contaminated by the sewage from Springfield. The State Board of Health called attention to the marked impurities of the water in the state in 1880, particularly in Hartford and New London. Within a few rods of the reservoir of one city was found a slaughter house. Gross negligence was noted where water for a school building was drawn from an area within a few feet of a large privy.17 During the succeeding decades water lines and reservoirs were added in the several cities and the works were altered with at least three of the cities intro- ducing a gravity system.
The state made $5,000 available in 1887 for a study of the pollution of rivers and a similar amount two years later for a study of the water works of the state. By 1890, 50 towns, with about two-thirds of the state's population of 750,000, provided inhabitants with drinking water from a supply intended for common use. The variant conditions under which the water was collected and treated and the changes in climatic conditions presented difficult problems in sanitation.18 The State Board of Health published in 1891 information to enable cities to provide wholesome water for their inhabitants.19 The speed with which an ade- quate supply of pure water would be made available was more depend- ent upon the speed with which the citizens could be educated to the necessity of action.
/
(Courtesy Chamber of Commerce of Greenwich, Inc.) GREENWICH-SCENES IN BRUCE PARK
724
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
The concentration of people made the continuance of the existent sewerage system intolerable by the last decade of the century. The wooden logs which had transported the sewage along Anne street when the first sewers were laid in Hartford in 1844 would no longer suffice. Ditches, covered and uncovered, were made to serve the purpose of sewers in some cities as late as 1880. As late as this, too, Park River flowed through Hartford, within a stone's throw of the State Capitol, carrying the sewage and industrial waste not only of Hartford, but also of New Britain. Hartford was sometimes charged with not having a sewerage system at all. Water drains were made to serve as sewers in some instances in New Haven as late as 1890. In the absence of compel- ling laws, some property owners refused to connect with sewers which did exist. Cesspools and privy vaults could be found in the midst of the city, on premises owned by the poor and by the wealthy.20 Officials of New Britain remained numb to the complaints of the riparian dwellers and continued to dump the city's sewage in Piper's Brook and the Sa- bethe River.21 Waterbury was taxed to the extent of its resources to keep abreast of the needs of its growing population.22
Most of the larger cities were attending to the problem of sewage disposal by the end of the century. If the observations of a contributor to the New England Magazine were valid, there remained much to be desired. Frank Putnam charged that New England cities concerned themselves with providing beautiful buildings and parks "while neg- lecting the best devices for simple cleanliness."23 Yet, in 1890, when compared to cities of the same size, Connecticut cities had considerably more sewerage lines than the national average.24 However, in the older Connecticut cities, the systems were antiquated. Of Hartford's 48 miles of sewers, 44 were of brick or stone and about half of New Haven's 58 miles were of similar construction. The newer cities, such as Waterbury, were using pipes generally of six inches in diameter.25 The public im- provements of a half century earlier were in need of replacement as Hartford and New Haven continued their cycle of development in the twentieth century.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.