Danbury Museum & Historical Society
Museum · Danbury, Connecticut
A seven-building Main Street campus preserving Danbury's history — Huntington Hall's exhibits, the birthplace of composer Charles Ives, and the Marian Anderson Studio. Hat City's hatting story lives here. Tours Wednesday-Saturday.
History
Danbury made America's hats. Zadoc Benedict pioneered felt hat-making here in the late 1700s; by 1809 the town had 56 hat shops, and by 1880 Danbury turned out roughly 4.5 million hats a year. The trade's dark side — mercury poisoning known as the 'Danbury Shakes' — helped drive workplace-safety reform, and Connecticut banned mercury in hat manufacturing on December 1, 1941.
Visit
43 Main Street, Danbury, CT 06810
Photos
Photo "Danbury Museum": TulaneTim, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo "John Rider House": Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo "Charles Ives Birthplace": Danbury Museum, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
