Emelyn Barrett, born and raised in Waterbury, began working at the Silas Bronson during her senior year at Crosby High School in 1917 and, with the exception of one year spent studying Library Science at the Pratt Institute in 1924, remained at the Silas Bronson Library until her retirement in 1971. She became the library’s fifth director in 1929, replacing Lindsey Brown.

Barrett married designer Walden Trimble in 1949, but kept her marriage a secret from the public until her husband died in 1951. Societal convention and library rules at that time would have required her to quit her job as soon as she was married. The library’s Board of Agents knew about her marriage and agreed to allow her to keep her job so long as she pretended to still be unmarried. The Trimbles were wed in upstate New York and maintained separate residences to protect Emelyn’s job. Beginning with the death of her husband, she was officially known as Mrs. Trimble, rather than Miss Barrett.

Waterville Branch Library, 1951
Seated at the desk is Librarian Minnie W. Mitchell
Silas Bronson Library Archives

Barrett’s top priority when she took over the leadership of the library was to improve and expand the branch libraries. In her 1930 annual report, Barrett noted that many people will use a library only if it is relatively close to them, stressing the importance of establishing more branch libraries in well-populated outlying areas of Waterbury.

The Waterville Branch Library was moved from its original location over a pharmacy to the annex of the Waterville Fire Station in 1930. The Brooklyn Branch and Rose Hill Branch both got a makeover during the 1930s and ‘40s.

North End Branch Library, 1951
Silas Bronson Library Archives

In 1937, near the end of the Great Depression, Barrett expressed hope of someday opening branches in the North End, Bunker Hill, Overlook, Hopeville, Fairlawn, and West Side Hill (Town Plot). Only sixteen percent of Waterbury’s residents had library cards; with more branches in the neighborhoods, Barrett anticipated that at least a third of the city would sign up to use the libraries.

The East End Branch opened in 1947 in a small storefront next to Hamilton Park. The North End Branch opened in 1951 on North Main Street near Division Street.

The Bunker Hill Branch, which opened in 1962, was the first branch library to have a building constructed specifically for that purpose.

In 1904, the library started a system of delivering books to Waterbury schools, which didn’t have their own libraries. A box of fifty books would be delivered each week, giving approximately 40 children each the chance to select a book to read. During the summer, books were distributed to children at city playgrounds in the same way.

The Silas Bronson Library began creating libraries in the schools in 1937, starting with Woodrow Wilson School, then Chase, Slocum, Walsh, Bishop, Welton, Bunker Hill, and Driggs Schools over the next several years. The new school libraries replaced the deposit boxes, setting up a room at each school with hundreds of books. Children’s librarians from the Silas Bronson staffed the school libraries one day per week.

The library saw an increase in the number of cardholders and an increase in the number of books borrowed in 1930, attributing the increase to widespread unemployment and the resultant “enforced idleness of large numbers of people.”

The library’s annual report for 1930 noted that the “popularity of financial books is now a thing of the past, due no doubt to the stock market upheaval and general economic depression.” Financial magazines, however, remained popular.

Despite the increase in demand, the library’s budget for purchasing new books was diminished by losses on the stock market. Library books that would normally have been discarded for being worn out and dirty were kept because there wasn’t enough money to replace them.

Waterbury Republican, 22 September 1940
Silas Bronson Library WWII Archive

Immigrants began flocking to the library in 1940, in response to a new federal law requiring “enemy aliens” (immigrants from Germany, Italy, and Japan) to register with the government. The reference librarians at the Silas Bronson helped numerous immigrants complete their citizenship applications, helping them figure out which ship they arrived on and the date of their arrival. For those who had been in the U.S. for decades, this was a complicated task. One man who wanted help applying for citizenship arrived in the U.S. half a century earlier, when he was a child. His parents were no longer living, and he couldn’t remember the name of the ship or the port he sailed from.

The branch libraries became a second home to many children, as both parents were working in the factories. Children using the branch libraries read an average of 26 books per year; at the newly remodeled Brooklyn branch, they averaged 31 books per year.

In 1943, the library started delivering books to factories every week, making it easier for the wartime workers to borrow books. Library staff visited during the day shift, while the factory’s Recreation Department handed out books to night shift crews at midnight.

Victory Book Campaign poster, 1942
Silas Bronson Library WWII Archive

Starting in January 1942, Emelyn Barrett was co-chair of the Connecticut branch of the Victory Book campaign, which aimed to collect ten million books nationwide for USO houses, army dayrooms, ships, and naval bases. The library teamed up with the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, students in 7^th and 8^th grade, and four trucking companies to collection 25,000 books for distribution to the military.

Posters for the campaign were placed in store windows throughout Waterbury and Wolcott, and storage rooms at the library were tested to see if they could hold the weight of the books that would be collected. The books were eventually stored in the basement of the library.

Victory Book Drive sign on the Grand Street
side of the library, January 1942
Silas Bronson Library WWII Archive

To help promote the campaign, the library installed a four-foot-tall sign on two sides of the building. The sign was created by Murrary McAnelly, a sign painter, with assistance from library employees Jane Ranando, Guldane Kershian, and Grace George.

Library employees and Red Cross volunteers (a total of nearly 800 people) drove through local neighborhoods, going door to door collecting books on January 23, 1942. Books were also delivered by the public directly to the library.

 

Boy Scouts helping with book donations, 1942
Silas Bronson Library WWII Archive

Boy Scout Troop 19, under Scoutmaster Robert Sturges, unloaded and stacked the books as they arrived at the library on January 23.

Within one week’s time, close to 27,000 books were collected by the library. Damaged books were mended by library staff to make them usable, but most of the books donated were in very good or new condition.

A second Victory Book Campaign was launched in February 1943. Books were collected at the Victory House on the Green, at neighborhood firehouses, and at local businesses, as well as at the library. By May 1943, the library had collected 2,200 books for the campaign.

In a letter to John M. Connor at the Victory Book Campaign Headquarters in NYC, Emelyn Barrett made a special request for a company of Waterbury men stationed in New Guinea, who had almost nothing to read. Barrett asked for permission to send the “pocket edition” books collected in Waterbury to that company. Barrett did not receive permission to send any books directly to Waterbury’s servicemen overseas, but she was assured that a large shipment of books would be sent to New Guinea shortly.

During the 1950s, television emerged as a potential threat to the popularity of libraries. In an article in the Naugatuck Daily News on September 19, 1951, Ivy Lovering, head of the Silas Bronson Library’s children’s department, said that several children had said they were quitting the library because they had a television at home now – but they all returned to the library after a few months.

Film became one of the library’s most popular collection areas in 1971, with more than 5,700 films shown at the library that year, drawing in over 240,000 people to the library. The library’s 8mm and 16mm film collection was borrowed frequently, primarily by schools, church and community groups, and convalescent homes.  

The library found that the Civil Rights movement led to an increase in requests from the public for books on the subject. In 1965, the library collaborated with Thomas Mallory and Kellogg Lodge No. 5 to assemble and promote a collection of books celebrating African American achievement and exploring civil rights.

In 1967, the library hosted the city's "Negro History Week" held during February with a two-week exhibit of African American history and a ceremony which included Mayor Frederick Palomba, State Treasurer Gerald Lamb, Thomas Mallory, Isaiah Holley, and Worshipful Master Henry Hardy of the Kellogg Lodge.

Waterbury American, 15 February 1967
Silas Bronson Library Archives

In 1968, after the Waterbury school curriculum was updated to include African American history, the library suddenly had a increase of requests for biographies of African Americans.

In 1969, some of the most popular items at the library included an interim report on the Waterbury Public Hearings of the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and a UConn report investigating racial imbalance in the Waterbury public schools. 

Constructed in 1894, the main library building on Grand Street aged poorly and was in need of frequent repairs and upgrades.

The first improvements made by Emelyn Barrett to the main building downtown included the installation of a power-operated elevator in 1930, replacing the old hand-cranked elevator from the 1890s. Felt and linoleum flooring was installed in the children’s room in 1930 to “deaden the sound of restless milling feet” which was disturbing adult patrons on the floor below.

Barrett began campaigning for a new building in 1937, stressing that an 1890s building simply wasn’t able to meet modern requirements for libraries. She included a sketch comparing the size of the library to City Hall and the Chase Building to emphasize the relative smallness of the library.

By the late 1950s, Barrett (now Mrs. Trimble) was actively raising the funds to construct a new library building. Although the library had been renovated, it still wasn’t large enough to meet the needs of the public. The 1890s building was to be torn down and replaced by a larger, modern building.

Local architect Joseph Stein, who designed the Bunker Hill Branch Library, was selected to oversee the new building’s design and construction. The new library was constructed in two phases, replacing the old building while still allowing a portion of it to be used. Stein won an Award of Merit for Public Library Design for his work on the Silas Bronson Library from The American Institute of Architects in 1964.

The first wing of the library to be completed, which included the Main Reading Room and the front lobby, opened in October 1963. Construction of the two-story East Wing began in 1966 and was completed in 1968.