diff --git a/wayback/_client.py b/wayback/_client.py
index 8ccb05c1..d553ec6a 100644
--- a/wayback/_client.py
+++ b/wayback/_client.py
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 from datetime import datetime, timezone
 import hashlib
 import logging
+import queue
 import re
 import requests
 from requests.exceptions import (ChunkedEncodingError,
@@ -26,9 +27,10 @@
                                  ProxyError,
                                  RetryError,
                                  Timeout)
+import threading
 import time
 import urllib.parse
-from urllib3.connectionpool import HTTPConnectionPool
+from urllib3 import HTTPConnectionPool, PoolManager
 from urllib3.exceptions import (ConnectTimeoutError,
                                 MaxRetryError,
                                 ReadTimeoutError)
@@ -259,10 +261,19 @@ def from_httplib(cls, httplib_response, **response_kwargs):
 #####################################################################
 
 
+class PoolManagerAdapter(requests.adapters.HTTPAdapter):
+    def __init__(self, pool_manager):
+        self.poolmanager = pool_manager
+        super().__init__()
+
+    def init_poolmanager(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        pass
+
+
 # TODO: make rate limiting configurable at the session level, rather than
 # arbitrarily set inside get_memento(). Idea: have a rate limit lock type and
 # pass an instance to the constructor here.
-class WaybackSession(_utils.DisableAfterCloseSession, requests.Session):
+class UnsafeWaybackSession(_utils.DisableAfterCloseSession, requests.Session):
     """
     A custom session object that network pools connections and resources for
     requests to the Wayback Machine.
@@ -299,11 +310,13 @@ class WaybackSession(_utils.DisableAfterCloseSession, requests.Session):
     # just the error type. See `should_retry_error()`.
     handleable_errors = (ConnectionError,) + retryable_errors
 
-    def __init__(self, retries=6, backoff=2, timeout=None, user_agent=None):
+    def __init__(self, retries=6, backoff=2, timeout=None, user_agent=None,
+                 connection_manager=None):
         super().__init__()
         self.retries = retries
         self.backoff = backoff
         self.timeout = timeout
+        self.connection_manager = connection_manager
         self.headers = {
             'User-Agent': (user_agent or
                            f'wayback/{__version__} (+https://github.com/edgi-govdata-archiving/wayback)'),
@@ -321,6 +334,7 @@ def __init__(self, retries=6, backoff=2, timeout=None, user_agent=None):
         # get more fancy with log filtering, since we *expect* lots of retries
         # with Wayback's APIs, but urllib3 logs a warning on every retry:
         # https://github.com/urllib3/urllib3/blob/5b047b645f5f93900d5e2fc31230848c25eb1f5f/src/urllib3/connectionpool.py#L730-L737
+        self.reset()
 
     # Customize the built-in `send` functionality with retryability.
     # NOTE: worth considering whether we should push this logic to a custom
@@ -387,8 +401,69 @@ def reset(self):
         self.close(disable=False)
         # Re-build the standard adapters. See:
         # https://github.com/kennethreitz/requests/blob/v2.22.0/requests/sessions.py#L415-L418
-        self.mount('https://', requests.adapters.HTTPAdapter())
-        self.mount('http://', requests.adapters.HTTPAdapter())
+        if self.connection_manager:
+            self.mount('https://', PoolManagerAdapter(self.connection_manager))
+            self.mount('http://', PoolManagerAdapter(self.connection_manager))
+        else:
+            self.mount('https://', requests.adapters.HTTPAdapter())
+            self.mount('http://', requests.adapters.HTTPAdapter())
+
+
+class WaybackSession(_utils.DisableAfterCloseSession):
+    def __init__(self, max_connections=None, **kwargs):
+        self.thread_data = threading.local()
+        self.all_sessions = queue.SimpleQueue()
+        self.session_options = kwargs
+        # Create a single urllib3 poolmanager (thread-safe) to share across all
+        # the actual concrete sessions (not thread-safe).
+        if max_connections:
+            manager = PoolManager(num_pools=10, maxsize=max_connections,
+                                  block=True, strict=True)
+        else:
+            # These defaults come from requests.adapters.HTTPAdapter.
+            manager = PoolManager(num_pools=10, maxsize=10, block=False,
+                                  strict=True)
+        self.session_options['connection_manager'] = manager
+
+    def get_unsafe_session(self):
+        session = getattr(self.thread_data, 'unsafe_session', None)
+        if session is None:
+            session = UnsafeWaybackSession(**self.session_options)
+            self.thread_data.unsafe_session = session
+            self.all_sessions.put_nowait(session)
+        return session
+
+    def close(self):
+        while True:
+            try:
+                session = self.all_sessions.get_nowait()
+                session.close()
+            except queue.Empty:
+                break
+
+    def __enter__(self):
+        concrete_session = self.get_unsafe_session()
+        return concrete_session.__enter__()
+
+    def __exit__(self, *args):
+        concrete_session = self.get_unsafe_session()
+        return concrete_session.__exit__(*args)
+
+    def request(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        concrete_session = self.get_unsafe_session()
+        return concrete_session.request(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def resolve_redirects(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        concrete_session = self.get_unsafe_session()
+        return concrete_session.resolve_redirects(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def send(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        concrete_session = self.get_unsafe_session()
+        return concrete_session.send(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def should_strip_auth(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        concrete_session = self.get_unsafe_session()
+        return concrete_session.should_strip_auth(*args, **kwargs)
 
 
 # TODO: add retry, backoff, cross_thread_backoff, and rate_limit options that