Our collection includes buttons from all over the world made in a variety of materials (glass, bakelite, porcelain, enamel, bone, wood, brass, bronze, ivory, cinnabar) and techniques (cloisonné, hand-painted enamel, carved ivory). The buttons range from the 18th century to the 1950s and depict everything from fables, botanical designs, and animals, to historical figures and military heroes. There are also locally manufactured buttons from the Waterbury Button Co. on display.

The Waterbury Button Museum began in the early 1940s when Warren F. Kaynor, president of the Waterbury Button Co., started the collection. He focused on collecting buttons that tell not only the history of Waterbury and Connecticut but, of the world. 

Buttons illustrate their own miniaturized art history narrative, each kind revealing enticing details about the period when it was in style. The 18th century is considered to be the ‘golden age’ of buttons, because of the intricate artisanal approach to handmade exquisite buttons. There are examples of passementerie (gold and silver threads often embellished with pearls), decoupage and reverse painting beneath glass, hand-painted porcelain and ivory, and buttons decorated with tiny Rococo paintings from this era.

Depicting historical figures and events, classical and mythical motifs, insects, landscapes and seascapes, these buttons adorned men’s attire. Women’s buttons were simple and often cloth-covered until the mid-19th century when they became just as elaborate, soon surpassing men’s decorative buttons.

As buttons became bigger and more pictorial during the 19th century, gilt buttons became popular as well as those made of porcelain, pearl, and enamel. With the arrival of new materials, such as Bakelite plastic, 20th century buttons demonstrate an abundance of vividly colored novelty buttons from the 1930s and 1940s.

Buttons have been a big story in Waterbury for more than 200 years. The manufacture of buttons, first by hand and then by machine, has been a mainstay of the region’s economy since the late 18th century.

Button-making was a product of the city’s expertise in the elaborate working of metals. Encouraged by large military contracts and the steady demands of changing fashions, button manufacturing was an important activity for many area companies.

During the war of 1812, Aaron Benedict began making brass buttons in Waterbury for the soldiers’ uniforms. In 1834, he cofounded Benedict & Burnham, from which the Waterbury Button Co. was formed in 1849. During the Civil War, the company made buttons for both Union and Confederate uniforms, which they then reproduced for the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. The Waterbury Button Co. also made the brass buttons for the crew of the Titanic and reproduced them for the 1997 film Titanic. For over two centuries, the Waterbury Button Co. has dipped into many different fields, such as toys and vinyl records, though they always came back to buttons. Also home to Scovill Manufacturing Co., which began making buttons in 1802, Waterbury was the center of the metal button industry by the beginning of the 20th century.