electro-gold and silverplating factory, 1881
18th century Meriden was originally a part of the neighboring town of
Wallingford. It was granted a separate meetinghouse in 1727, became a
town in 1806 with over 1,000 residents. Meriden was incorporated as a city in 1867, with just under 9,000 residents. It was once proposed as the Connecticut state capital. It was named for the village of
Meriden, West Midlands, England, near Birmingham. The oldest house in town, the
Solomon Goffe House, was built by Solomon Goffe in 1711, and became a museum in 1986. Timothy Jerome's son, Samuel, is the great-great-grandfather of
Jennie Jerome,
Winston Churchill's mother.
19th century to World War II In the second half of the 1800s, Meriden became a manufacturing center of note, with several companies forming, or relocating to the city, involved in the production of mainly silver, lamps and metalware, glassware, guns, and musical instruments. A substantial number of design and technology patents were secured.
Silver and cutlery For silver, the numerous companies included the
Meriden Britannia Company (a predecessor of the
International Silver Company with corporate HQ in Meriden), Meriden earned the nickname "Silver City", due to the large number of silver manufacturers, and the International Silver Co. continued production until the early 1980s. Along with the silver companies, other producers of cutlery included the Meriden Cutlery Co. and Miller Bros. Cutlery. In 1876, the Meriden Britannia Company made significant efforts at the
Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, and won the First place medal for plated wares. According to the Sotheby's auction house, "The publicity of the award and the impression the firm made on the fair's 8 million visitors was continued by the catalogues and other intensive marketing; by the end of the 1870s Meriden Britannia Co. was considered the largest silverware company in the world." A key design attributed to launching the company and the town's international name was the
Buffalo Hunt with a smaller edition in the White House collection, Washington, DC. For some time the original
Buffalo Hunt sculpture went missing, and in a shocking report by Bailey Wright in 2018, it was learned that it was recently 'missing' actually in Meriden.
Lamps and metalware For lamps and metalware, the companies with national and international markets included the
Edward Miller & Co / Miller Company (1844–stopped manufacturing lighting ), the
Charles Parker Company,
Handel Company, and the
Bradley & Hubbard Manufacturing Company (1852–1940), which also was widely known for producing metal-based products like decorative tables and andirons.
Glassware For glassware, the companies included the C.F. Monroe Company (1892–1916). and the Meriden Flint Glass Company (1876–1892), Meriden was also the site of the production of
Parker Brothers (guns), widely-known and traded by firearms enthusiasts. From 1905 to 1918, the
Meriden Firearms Co. manufactured small arms from 1905 to 1918. The stock was owned by
Sears, Roebuck & Company. The Aeolian Company grew quickly forming production sites in other places and developed a music hall in New York. (The largest holder today of instruments and music rolls by the two companies is the Pianola Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.)
Graphic arts innovation Meriden also was an important site for graphic arts innovation. In 1888, the
Meriden Gravure Company (in Meriden 1888–1989) was founded by Charles Parker and James F. Allen, and continued a previous printing operation by Parker. The company developed an expertise in high quality image reproduction, which initially was driven by the needs of the silver industry. With the wealth of entrepreneurs during this time, several mansions and houses of note were built, particularly on Broad Street. , across from Meriden's city hall, was opened. In , several Hollywood stars, including
Judy Garland,
Ginger Rogers and
Barbara Stanwyck, endorsed the company's 1847 Rogers Bros. silverware in print advertisements in LIFE magazine. After World War II, in 1949–1950,
The Silver Theatre was brought to television and broadcast on CBS, also with the International Silver Company as the sponsor. Guest stars included
Eva Gabor,
Kim Hunter, and
Burgess Meredith.
Legacy of Meriden's grand manufacturing era A few thousand designs from this manufacturing era from Meriden are in museums and historical societies across the United States and into Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Some comparatively recent examples of Meriden designs in exhibitions include
In pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1986–1987), and more recently,
Modernism in American Silver: 20th century design (2005–2006) in Dallas, Miami Beach, and Washington, DC, which highlighted downtown Meriden and the area's role as an important center of Modernist silver production. In
19th century Modern (2011–2012) in Brooklyn, designs by the International Silver Company and the
Napier Company, another Meriden manufacturer, were exhibited. In November 2016 – November 2017, the city's iconic Napier penguin cocktail shaker was in an exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art; the Napier penguin was the lead image of the show. In summer 2017 alone, historical Meriden area design was exhibited in museum shows in at least Dallas, Newark, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Museum in New York, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, The Netherlands, and the KunstHalle in Berlin, Germany. Later, a 14-inch, International Silver Company cocktail shaker () sold for US$21,600 tripling its estimate, at Christie's in New York in 2005. A Parker gun made for a Russian czar before World War I, but never delivered, was reported to have been sold for US$287,500 in 2007. On March 5–6, 2014 at Sotheby's in London, "Al Capone's cocktail shaker" made by the Meriden International Sterling Company () achieved over 33 times its estimate with a sale price of GBP50,000 (US$83,250 on the day). Lastly, in 2014, at Sotheby's New York, a rare Paul Lobel-designed coffee service () produced by the Wilcox Silver Plate Co. / International Silver Company sold for US$377,000.
WWII–1970s In 1939,
Edwin Howard Armstrong, a network radio pioneer who invented
FM radio, used West Peak in 1939 for the location of one of the first FM radio broadcasts. His original radio mast still stands on the peak. Currently West Peak is home to six FM broadcast stations, including WNPR, WWYZ, WKSS, WDRC-FM, WMRQ-FM and WHCN. During World War II, factories in Meriden worked round-the-clock in three shifts. On March 8, 1944, the War Manpower Commission gave Meriden the designation as "National Ideal War Community", and
Jimmy Durante and
Glenn Miller entertained those at the ceremony. and later travelled to venues in 27 venues across the United States (1947–52). Substantial national media coverage reported on the exhibition.
Painting toward architecture is considered one of the important art-design-architecture crossover exhibitions of the 20th century, tabling European influences for usage in the Post-World War II United States. In the 1950s, the
Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art was privatized to "Mr & Mrs Burton Tremaine, Meriden, CT" and numerous artworks were lent to hundreds of exhibitions nationally and internationally into the 1970s with this designation. , built in 1965. In 1965, the Miller Company addition on Center Street was completed. The black-and-white Modernist facade was designed by influential American architect
Philip Johnson. On April 27, 1976,
Jimmy Carter campaigned at city hall and the Latin American Society for the nomination of the
Democratic Party for President of the United States.
1980s–present In 1981, the
Ku Klux Klan was present in Meriden, holding various rallies in the first half of the year. At a March 21, 1981, rally, where the KKK was showing support for a police officer who killed a Black person, protestors threw rocks at the KKK, spurring the
Connecticut State Police to protect the Klan from anti-Klan protestors. Two protesters were injured. In 1987, the
Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation was founded by the noted art collector that partly worked in Meriden, before her death, with three focus areas: learning disabilities, the arts, and the environment. The offices were located in downtown Meriden. In , the foundation offices were relocated to New Haven, near Yale University. The
Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist have their mother house in Meriden, as do the
Franciscan Brothers of the Eucharist. The headquarters of
Eastern Mountain Sports is located in Meriden. ==Geography==