Clock and Watch Industry

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CLOCK AND WATCH INDUSTRY

CLOCK AND WATCH INDUSTRY. The history of American clock-and watchmaking is a microcosm of the early history of American manufacturing. It includes the story of a tremendously talented line of artisans and of the training that passed from one to the other. Their ingenuity led to the spread of the "American system" of production—a forerunner of mass production. Finally, large-scale production of clocks and watches depended on the development of an elaborate system of distribution, through which the clocks and watches produced in such large quantities were distributed to urban and rural Americans.

The first clockmaker of record in America was Thomas Nash, an early settler of New Haven in 1638. Throughout the seventeenth century, eight-day striking clocks with brass movements, similar to those made in England, were produced by craft methods in several towns and villages in Connecticut. The wooden clock was not made in America until the eighteenth century, although it was known to exist in Europe in the seventeenth century, probably originating in Germany or Holland. By 1745 Benjamin Cheney of East Hartford was producing wooden clocks, and there is some evidence that these clocks were being made as early as 1715 near New Haven. Cheney was not the only maker of wooden clocks during the second half of the eighteenth century, but he was the most successful. Benjamin Willard, founder of the Willard Clock dynasty of Massachusetts, was apprenticed to Cheney.

The main line of descent of the American clock industry derives from Thomas Hatland, who emigrated from England in 1773 and opened a shop in Norwich, Connecticut. A clock-and watchmaker employing traditional craft methods, he was the first prominent European in that trade to settle in Connecticut. Hatland trained a substantial number of talented clockmakers, the most famous of whom was Daniel Burnap, who established his own business in East Windsor about 1780. Together Hat-land and Burnap were the forerunners of the modern, industrial era of clockmaking. This distinction derives from the fact that Eli Terry, the first to systematize clock production on a basis similar to that of interchangeable parts manufacture, was apprenticed to Daniel Burnap in 1786. It was most probably under Burnap's tutelage that Terry, who is recognized as the outstanding Connecticut clockmaker of the nineteenth century as well as the originator of clockmaking by machinery, was introduced to the concept of volume production as opposed to the customary practice of production to order.

Leaving Burnap's shop, Terry commenced business at Plymouth, Connecticut, in 1794. Shortly after 1800 he began to produce wooden clocks in quantity and in 1808 contracted with the Porter brothers of Waterbury for the production of 4,000 wooden clock movements at $4 each. Production in such quantities was unheard of up to that time, and the contract price contrasted sharply with the more usual $25 average price for movements. About 1814 Terry designed and manufactured the thirty-hour wooden shelf clock, hundreds of thousands of which were produced until his retirement in 1833.

Seth Thomas and Chauncey Jerome, both of whom worked for Eli Terry, greatly elaborated the system of factory production and carried the clock industry into its distinctly modern phase. Jerome worked for Terry for a year or two after 1816. Then he engaged in itinerant clockmaking and moved to Bristol in 1821. In 1825 Jerome designed the bronze looking-glass clock, which was an instant commercial success. Even though Joseph Ives of Bristol must be given credit for the pioneer development of the cheap American brass clock, which evolved from his work around 1815, it was Chauncey Jerome who, in 1838, developed the commercial possibilities of the thirty-hour rolled-brass movement. By 1842 Jerome was exporting brass clocks in large quantities to England. By 1855 almost all common clocks in America were brass, the four largest firms producing 400,000 rolled-brass movements in that year. Virtually every major firm in existence at the end of the nineteenth century could trace its descent from these early Connecticut-based establishments.

Watchmaking helped establish and carry forward a new standard of accuracy in American metalworking. Until World War I, nearly all watches produced in the United States were pocket watches, and for much of this time they were luxury goods. Although watches were probably made in America before the Revolution, the earliest production of watches in some volume is accorded to Thomas Haftand of Norwich, Connecticut. Between 1809 and 1817 Luther Goddard of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, produced about 500 movements. Goddard learned the art of clockmaking from his cousin Simon Willard, son of Benjamin Willard; and thus this line of mechanical influence can be traced from Benjamin Cheney. Between 1836 and 1841 James and Henry Pitkin of East Hartford, Connecticut, made perhaps 800 movements, using the most elaborate tools known in America up to that time. Shortly before 1850 Aaron Dennison and Edward Howard made plans to manufacture watches on a volume basis, using a system of interchangeable parts, some of the parts being held to an accuracy of 1/10,000 of an inch. Dennison had learned clockmaking in Maine and watchmaking in Boston. Howard had been apprenticed to Aaron Willard Jr. for five years commencing in 1829—again in the Cheney line of descent. Other men who contributed prominently to the watchmaking industry throughout the balance of the nineteenth century were Ambrose Webster, Charles Mosley, Edward Marsh, and Charles Vander Woerd.

Dennison and Howard's attempts to use interchangeable parts in watch manufacture resulted in the formation of Dennison, Howard, and Davis, the firm that was the predecessor of the American Watch Company, later the Waltham Watch Company. When it was formed in 1850, the Waltham Watch Company was the only firm manufacturing watches in the United States, and it maintained a virtual monopoly on watch production through the 1870s. Although the factory used machinery, it depended on workers' abilities to manipulate and adapt very complicated technology. Owners offered generous wages and benefits, a clean working environment, and promises of promotion to retain and recruit the highly skilled labor force they needed. New watchmaking firms were established in the years just preceding and following the Civil War, and Waltham employees were in high demand by companies in Chicago, Providence, Springfield, Massachussetts, and Springfield, Illinois. All American watchmaking firms can trace their lineage either through the Waltham Watch Company prior to 1885 or through personnel associated with that firm. The watchmaking business expanded in the 1890s, when many firms began marketing cheaper "dollar watches." Just as Eli Terry had made clocks into an affordable item for many Americans, now watches were something that many people could see themselves owning. These watches did not use the jeweled parts that had been part of older and more expensive watches. Rather, a punch press was used to stamp highly standardized and cheaper parts out of sheets of metal. Simultaneously, railroads issued new requirements for the watches worn by their employees. Because reliable time-keeping was so essential to the scheduling and operation of railroads, the watches worn by employees had to be of very high quality; these watches represented the opposite end of the spectrum of "dollar watches." Firms developed ever more sophisticated techniques to produce ever more precise watches. Watches gained an even bigger market when American firms began producing wristwatches. First developed in Switzerland and marketed as women's watches, wristwatches were distributed to soldiers in World War I, and they quickly became popular items for both men and women.

The American watch industry declined considerably in the interwar years, the result of over expansion and the high costs of specialized machinery. Only seven firms survived the 1930s, and the industry continued to contract in subsequent decades. While many Americans continue to wear watches, these are often manufactured overseas.