watches in a day." Great was the merriment at this reply. "Why, where
on earth could you _sell_ seven watches a day?" they shouted.
With the advent of the factory, the real troubles of Dennison and
Howard began. It is worth while to glance for a moment at the problem
which lay before them, if only to appreciate its difficulty. The old
plan was to have a model watch made by hand by a master workman. This
watch was then taken apart and its separate parts distributed for
reproduction by a multitude of specialized workers involving perhaps
some forty or fifty minor trades. These parts, hand-made after a
hand-made model, were then returned to the expert who assembled and
adjusted them. At the worst, this resulted in gross error; at the best,
in individual variation. A part from one watch could not be expected to
fit and work accurately in another, although the two were supposed to
be alike in all their parts.
The new idea was first to lay out the whole design on paper and then to
make the various parts by machinery according to the exact design. It
was supposed that a machine making one part would duplicate that part
repeatedly without variation; that in so far as the machines themselves
were accurate, the parts produced would necessarily be interchangeable;
that any set of parts could therefore be assembled without fitting
or alteration. The finished watch, it was assumed, would require
adjustment only. Theoretically, this idea was correct; practically,
it could not be perfectly carried out, and the results did not fulfil
the hopes of the manufacturers. In the first place, there were not in
existence any machines of the required delicacy and precision; every
one must first be invented, then designed, then made, and finally
adjusted for practical operation. Even so, and notwithstanding the
great mechanical achievements of the Waltham Company, the results
never succeeded in realizing the dreams of Howard and Dennison, of
absolute interchangeability of parts. It remained for the Ingersoll
organization, many years later, to develop such a factory system.
Before Howard and Dennison could make a single watch, therefore, they
had to invent all the mechanism, and themselves build and install
every invention. Moreover, several of the processes had to be worked
out from the ground up. There was nobody in America who understood
watch-gilding, for example, or who could make dials or jewels.
Thus they set to work developing the machinery as fast as they could do
so, and imported such parts as they themselves could not yet make. It
was a staggering task and a discouraging devourer of capital. "I do not
think," said Dennison many years later, "there were seven times in the
seven years we were together that we had money enough to pay all our
employees at the time their wages were due. Very often we would find
ourselves without any cash on hand, but Mr. Howard would manage some
way to produce enough to tide over with."
The two men made a perfect team, eager to give each other credit,
and each having unbounded loyalty and confidence in the other and in
their enterprise. But, curiously enough, it was Howard, the artist and
dreamer, who seems to have developed into the business man of the two,
in addition to being the inventor and engineer, whereas Dennison, the
expert watch-repairer, became the designer and originator of plans. It
was said of him long afterward that there was probably never an idea
in American watch-making that had not at some time passed through Mr.
Dennison's resourceful mind. He is known to many as the "Father of the
American Watch Industry," although he insisted that Howard deserved the
title as much if not more than he. Dennison schemed out what was to
be done, while Howard found the money and invented the machinery with
which to do it.
Their first model, an eight-day watch, was Dennison's idea. It was
found to be impracticable and was soon abandoned in favor of a one-day
model. The name of the company had to be changed, because it did
not find favor with some of the English firms from whom they bought
certain parts. They called it the "Warren Manufacturing Company" for
a time, and their first few watches were marked with this name. Later
on, they moved to a new factory at Waltham and incorporated under the
name of the Waltham Improvement Company. It was while the act for its
incorporation was before the Massachusetts legislature that some wag
there produced the couplet:
"_A Waltham' 'patent' watch, which ere it goes
Besides the 'hands' must have the 'ayes' and 'noes._"
All this time, the tools and machinery were giving trouble. There were
innumerable difficulties. For example, New England workmen objected to
cutting the pinion-leaves because they were shaped like a bishop's
miter. And financial pressure was always upon them. The building was
one of the earliest attempts at concrete construction, and was far from
stable in stormy weather. Mr. Hull, afterward foreman in the dial-room,
said: "Often in those days we would jump from our stools when we felt
something jar, for fear the building would fall down. Somehow, it never
did."
In 1854 the name was changed again, this time to the American Watch
Company. Incidentally, Mr. Dennison took his place among the large and
honorable company of inventors who have been called insane. He earned
that title by saying that they would eventually make as many as fifty
watches a day. The company now makes between two thousand and three
thousand a day.
Just as they were on the point of a richly deserved success, the
panic of 1857 drove the young company into bankruptcy. The plant was
purchased by Royal E. Robbins, of the firm of Robbins & Appleton, watch
importers. Howard went back to the old factory at Roxbury, taking with
him a few trained workmen, and patiently started all over again. He
succeeded, at last, in producing really fine watches, although in small
numbers; and his new business, as we shall see later, developed into
the E. Howard Clock Company, and practically abandoned the manufacture
of watches. Meanwhile, the Waltham factory, under good business
management and with Dennison as its superintendent, was safely steered
past the financial rocks and shoals of the period, and began gradually
to reap the reward of its less fortunate early efforts.
It was the Civil War, with its great military demand for watches, which
first set the Waltham Company squarely upon its feet by justifying
quantity production. A dividend of five per cent was declared in 1860;
and one of one hundred and fifty per cent in 1866, the short-lived
Nashua Watch Company having meanwhile been absorbed. Since that date
its name has been twice changed—first, to the American Waltham Watch
Company, and then to the Waltham Watch Company, which is now its title.
At the present day, the Waltham Company employs nearly four thousand
people and produces about sixty-eight thousand complete watch-movements
a month, or over three-quarters of a million a year.
This output is made possible only through the extensive employment of
automatic machines, all of which have been invented and manufactured at
the Waltham factory. Even now it is not possible to buy watch-making
machinery ready-made in the open market; it is all "special" work,
designed and often built by the watch manufacturers themselves. And the
development of this great industry, employing, at first, crude devices
operated for the most part by hand-power, to the complex automatic
mechanism which seems to act almost with human intelligence, has been
a marvelous achievement.
The company now makes ten different sizes of regular movements, in more
than a hundred different grades and styles. Of these every part is made
in the Waltham factory. It was the first establishment in the world in
which all parts of a watch were made by machinery and under the same
roof. And its success revolutionized the methods of watch-making not
only in America but, to a less degree, in all parts of the world. A
prominent London watchmaker who went through the plant in the early
period of its success said to his colleagues: "On leaving the factory,
I felt that the manufacture of watches on the old plan was gone." And
the name passed into literature when Emerson, describing a successful
type of man, said, "He is put together like a Waltham watch."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
_Checkered History_
One of those mental marvels who can play fifteen simultaneous games
of chess, blindfolded, might be able to form a complete idea of the
American watch-making industry in the years that followed the Civil
War; all that the ordinary mind can gain is a bewildering impression
of change and confusion, with companies springing up, and merging or
disappearing, all over the industrial map. Inventions were as thick as
blackberries in August and, to investors, as thorny as their stems.
Countless revolutionary ideas in watch-making revolved briefly—few
evolved, and capitalists, large and small, learned the sobering lessons
of experience, as capitalists ever have and ever will.
[Illustration: "QUANTITY PRODUCTION" IN 1850
_When P. S. Bartlett boasted that his company was making seven watches
a day, his friends laughed, "Why, where could you SELL seven watches a
day?"_]
With it all, certain points seem to stand out as clearly defined—among
them the fact that watch-production appealed strongly to the public
mind at a time when the nation, galvanized into intense activity by the
great conflict, was entering an era of extraordinary self-organization.
This is, of course, significant. The nation's time as well as its
forests, mines, and other resources, must be a factor in the growth
of public wealth, and this could not be unless it were widely and
accurately measured, which, in turn, implied the universal use of the
watch.
The later history of American watch-making is, therefore, a story of
the formation of many companies, the failure of most, and survival
in the case of comparatively few. In the sense of being founded by
men whose experience had been gained at Waltham, the Waltham Company
was more or less the parent of the majority. Of the failures, it may
roughly and broadly be stated that the general trouble was most often a
lack of cooperation between technical watch-making skill and business
management.
Of the occasional successes due, on the other hand, to perfect
harmony between these two factors, the Elgin National Watch Company,
established at Elgin, Illinois, in 1864, was one of the first. Its
officials and promoters were not watchmakers but business men—a group
of Western capitalists who organized the company at the suggestion
of a few trained men from Waltham, to whose technical experience and
knowledge they gave entire liberty of action from the first. This
combination of Western enterprise and Eastern mechanical skill was a
great and immediate success. Within six years from its incorporation,
the Elgin Company had built its factory, designed and made its own
machinery, and marketed forty-two thousand watches. It is said to be
the only American watch company which has paid dividends from the
beginning. And yet this achievement cannot be traced to anything
strikingly distinctive either in the policy or in the product. It was
a case of doing rapidly and easily, with vast previous experience to
build upon, what the parent company had so long strived to accomplish,
and of doing this honestly and well. In a small way, it was like the
rapid growth of democratic principles in America, having, as it were,
the British commonwealth of a thousand years on which to base itself.
The period of the development of American watch-making was also the
period of the rapid and enormous expansion of railroads. The two were
naturally related, in that railroading demands the constant use of a
great number of watches, while its progress in punctuality and speed is
in direct proportion to the supply of reliable timekeepers. Precision
is here the great essential; every passenger must have the means of
being on hand in time in order not to miss his train. But what is of
far greater importance, railroad men must know and keep the exact time
not alone for their own protection but in order that they may protect
and safeguard the lives of those who are entrusted to their care.
Most of our great inventions and improvements can be traced to some
pressing human need. Many of them, unfortunately, are delayed until
some great catastrophe shows the need. It required a disastrous wreck
to bring home to the railroads and make clear the necessity for
absolute accuracy in the timepieces of their employees.
In the year 1891 two trains on the Lake Shore Railroad met in head-on
collision near Kipton, Ohio, killing the two engineers and several
railway mail-clerks. In the investigation which followed, it was
disclosed that the watches of the engineers differed by four minutes.
The watch which was at fault had always been accurate and so its owner
took it for granted that it always would be. But tiny particles of
dust and soot find ways of seeping into the most carefully protected
works of a watch, and every watch should be examined and cleaned
occasionally. So it was with the engineer's watch. A speck of coal
dust, perhaps, had caused his watch to stop for a few minutes and then
the jolting of the engine had probably started it running again. That
little speck of dust and those few lost minutes cost human lives.
This wreck occurred not many miles from Cleveland, Ohio, then and now
the home of Webb C. Ball, a jeweler, who as a watch expert, was a
witness in the investigation which followed. His interest thus aroused,
he worked out a plan which provided for a rigid and continuous system
of railroad watch inspection. The plan which he then proposed is now in
operation on practically every railroad in the country.
A railroad watch must keep accurate time within thirty seconds a week,
and is likely to be condemned if its variation exceeds that amount
in a month; it must conform to certain specifications of design and
workmanship which are only put into movements of a fairly high grade.
And the railroad man must provide himself with such a timepiece and
maintain it in proper condition, subject to frequent and regular
inspection by the railroad's official inspector. There is thus a
compulsory demand for watches of a definite quality and performance at
a reasonable price.
Expressly to meet this, the Hamilton Watch Company, of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, was organized in 1892, the year after the wreck which
started this reform. This company therefore represents an enterprise
founded for a specific purpose and concentrating upon a certain
specialized demand, although this does not mean that it is the only
company which caters to the needs of the railroad man. All of the great
companies produce timekeepers of the highest precision for railroad
use, but the Hamilton Company has devoted itself more particularly to
supplying this one field.
The Gruen Watch Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio, is typical of still
another line of endeavor—the beautifying and refining of watch-cases
and watch-works. Its founder, Dietrich Gruen, was a Swiss master
watchmaker. He came to America, as a young man, in 1876, married here,
and established the international industry which bears his name.
It might be said that his watch is not an American product, as the
Gruen movements are made at Madre-Biel, in Switzerland, and then
sent over to America to be cased, adjusted, and marketed. Perhaps the
most notable contribution of this company to the watchmaking industry
was to inaugurate the modern thin type of watch. This was evolved by
Frederick, the son of Dietrich Gruen, and was made possible by the
inverting of the third wheel of the watch, so that the whole train runs
in much less space than was previously required.
These four companies are by no means the only successful ones, but
they do typify the general trend of development of the American watch
industry from 1850 until near the end of the nineteenth century, when a
new and even greater era in the history of timekeeping was inaugurated.
The story of this development will be considered in later chapters.
In the period then closed, however, the ideal of Dennison and Howard,
which most people then regarded as an impossibility, was realized to
a degree which they themselves would never have thought possible.
Dennison died in 1898 and Howard in 1904.
Although watch-making is the creation of European genius and was
rooted in European experience, with boundless capital at its command
and carried on in communities trained for generations in the craft,
it is in this country that it has been brought to its fullest modern
development. The census figures, while incomplete and somewhat
misleading, are expressive of the amount of growth and of its
nature. According to these figures there were in 1869 thirty-seven
watch companies in the United States, employing eighteen hundred and
sixteen wage earners, or an average of less than fifty workmen; and
their combined product was valued at less than three million dollars.
In 1914, the last normal year before the Great War, there were but
fifteen such companies; the law of the survival of the fittest had
been operating. But these fifteen employed an average of over eight
hundred people, or twelve thousand three hundred and ninety in all,
and the combined value of their product was stated as over fourteen
million dollars. These figures are far below reality in that they do
not include the large volume of watches produced in clock factories.
American watch-making is typical of the difference between the American
and European industry in the nineteenth century. Here a complete watch
is produced in one factory, while in England, Switzerland and France
most establishments specialize in the manufacture of particular parts
and these parts are then assembled in other factories. Some fifty
different trades there are working separately to produce the parts.
And the manufacturer, whose work is chiefly that of finishing and
assembling, takes a large profit for inspection and for the prestige of
his name.
By the American system, a thousand watches are produced proportionately
more cheaply than a dozen; and a thousand of uniform model more
cheaply than a like number of various sizes and designs. Automatic
machines tend to economy of labor and uniformity of excellence. The
saving begins with the cost of material and ends with the ease and
quickness of repairs due to the standardization of parts.
Lord Grimthorpe said: "There can be no doubt that this is the best as
well as the cheapest way of making machines which require precision.
Although labor is dearer in America than here, their machinery enables
them to undersell English watches of the same quality."
It now remained for American ingenuity and enterprise to level the
ramparts of special privilege in the world of time-telling by producing
an accurate and practical watch in sufficient quantity and at a price
so low as to place it within the reach of all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"_The Watch That Wound Forever_"
The most important development in any affair is naturally the one which
concerns the greatest number of people. In the United States, it is the
people who count and nothing can be considered wholly American which
does not concern the mass of the population. We have already seen how
watch-movements were brought to a high degree of accuracy, and have
followed some of the steps by which the industry was developed in the
United States, but there remained one great step to be taken, and
that was the putting of an accurate watch within the financial reach
of almost every person. The way in which this was brought about was
thoroughly American.
In 1875, Jason R. Hopkins, of Washington, D. C., after many months of
patient labor, perfected the model of a watch which he thought could
be constructed in quantities for fifty cents each. He secured a patent
on his model, and with Edward A. Locke, of Boston, and W. D. Colt, of
Washington, sought to interest the Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing
Company, of Waterbury, Connecticut, in its manufacture.
Failing in this, Locke abandoned further effort so far as the Hopkins'
model was concerned. Hopkins, however, continued, and finally succeeded
in enlisting the active support and financial resources of W. B.
Fowle, a gentleman of wealth and leisure, who owned a fine estate at
Auburndale, Massachusetts. This led to the formation of the Auburndale
Watch Company. Within a few years, Fowle had sunk his entire fortune of
more than $250,000 in the enterprise, and the Hopkins watch had proved
a complete failure. In 1883 both Fowle and the Watch Company made
assignments.
There are many who still remember the great Centennial Exposition at
Philadelphia in 1876, celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the
declaration of American Independence. Those who were there may recall
the interesting exhibit of a huge steam-engine—at least, it seemed huge
at that time—and, in a glass case near by, a tiny engine—so tiny that
it could be completely covered by a small thimble. This midget steam
engine, with its boiler, governor, and pumps, was just as complete in
all of its parts as was the big engine. Three drops of water would fill
its boiler. It was a striking example of mechanical skill and fineness
of workmanship, for it had been made under a watchmaker's microscope
with jeweler's tools.
The most interesting thing about this little engine was that, unknown
to its designer, it heralded the dawn of Democracy in the Kingdom of
Time-telling, just as it then was helping to celebrate the birth of
American freedom. In the spring of 1877, Edward A. Locke, of Boston,
who two years before, as we have seen, had been interested in the
Hopkins' watch, visited the neighboring city of Worcester, and while
strolling along the main street, in a leisurely manner, he chanced
to glance in the window of a watch-repairer's shop. There he saw the
tiny engine which had excited so much wonder and admiration at the
Philadelphia exposition the year before.
For many months, Locke and his friend George Merritt, of Brooklyn, New
York, had been thinking and dreaming of the possibility of supplying
the long-felt and rapidly-growing need for a low-priced watch—a
pocket-timepiece that could be sold for three or four dollars. The
cheapest watch in America at that time cost ten or twelve. They had
searched in vain for a watchmaker who was ingenious or courageous
enough, or both, to attempt the making of such a timepiece.
Fascinated by the marvelous little engine, Locke stepped into the
shop and spoke to the lone workman at the bench near the window. This
obscure and humble watch repairer was D. A. A. Buck, the proprietor of
the shop and designer of the engine, who was soon to gain renown as the
inventor of the famous Waterbury watch.
For the sum of one hundred dollars Buck agreed to study the problem,
and, if possible, design for Locke a watch which would meet his
requirements. Day and night, for many weeks, he labored at this task,
and finally submitted a model. It was not satisfactory.
Worn by his labors and disappointed by his failure, he fell ill. Some
days later, Mrs. Buck sought out Locke and joyfully told him that her
husband had worked out a new design which he believed would correct
the defects of the former model and that, as soon as he recovered, he
would begin work upon it. Within a few months he had completed a second
model. This time he was successful.
Then began the struggle of Locke and his associates to interest capital
in the new enterprise. Most of the preliminary funds and factory space
were provided by the Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing Company, a brass
manufacturing concern at Waterbury, Connecticut, and the predecessor
of the present Waterbury Clock Company. Thus the new watch came to be
known as the _Waterbury_.
Within the next twenty-eight months many thousands of dollars had been
raised and expended before a single watch could be turned out for sale.
It was not until 1880 that the Waterbury Watch Company was finally
incorporated and ready for business. Then the factory proudly produced
its first thousand watches. They were perfectly good-looking watches,
but they had one important weakness—they would not run, because, as
it was found, the sheets of brass used in stamping out the wheels had
an unfortunate grain, and the wheels would not remain true. Another
thousand were made with this defect corrected. This time most of the
watches would keep time, but there still was a large percentage of
"stoppers." After more study, experiment, and expense, the product was
improved until only about ten per cent of the watches refused to run,
and the Waterbury watch was really on the market.
It was a wonderfully simple piece of mechanism, very different from
the ordinary watch. The whole works turned round inside of the case
once every hour, carrying the hour-hand with them. The mainspring was
coiled round the outside of the movement, so that the case formed a
barrel, and was wound by the stem. It had the old duplex escapement of
the days of Tompion and the dial was printed on paper, covered with
celluloid and glued to the plate. It had only fifty-eight parts, kept
time surprisingly well, was not much to look at, but was sold at the
then unheard-of low price of four dollars.
It was put on the market with real Yankee ingenuity. Some of us
remember when Waterbury watches were given away with suits of clothes,
and the pride with which, as youngsters, we exhibited our first watches
thus obtained to our playmates who were less fortunate. The nine-foot
mainspring required unlimited winding, which was one of its chief
joys, and our friends often solicited the privilege of helping in the
operation. Some of the more ingenious among us held the corrugated
stem against the side of a fence and made the watch wind itself by
running along the fence's length, while other children looked on
enviously.
In spite of the disadvantage of the time necessary for winding, perhaps
in part because of it, the Waterbury watch became famous the world
over and reached a very large sale for its day. It was more or less
of a freak contrivance. People spoke of it with a smile. Minstrels
opened their performances by saying, "We come from Waterbury, the
land of eternal spring"; and there is a story of a Waterbury owner in
a sleeping-car, winding until his arm ached and then passing it to a
total stranger, saying, "Here, you wind this for a while," with the
result that the stranger placed a large order for Waterbury watches to
be sold by his agency in China.
At the time that the Waterbury watch was well established, the world
had advanced to a point fairly approximating the life of to-day. All
the marvels of invention which had lifted so much of the earth's
manual labor from the shoulders of mankind and which had been expected
to shorten working-hours and to cheapen products until the standards
of living of all classes would be raised through the possession of
beneficial products inexpensively produced—these had gone far toward
establishing the factory system. Machinery had come into vogue in place
of hand labor. The steam-engine, the sewing-machine, the railway, the
steamboat, the cotton-gin, the threshing-machine and the harvester,
were indispensable aids. Photography and typewriting were novelties no
longer, and the phonograph was becoming familiar. Electricity had taken
its place as one of man's most valuable servants, able to transmit his
messages, furnish him with power, and turn his night into day. These
are but a few of the countless improvements that had contributed to the
rapid rise of this country as a manufacturing nation instead of one
chiefly agricultural.
Millions had already found employment in the factories, the
transportation systems, and other collective-labor establishments.
Schools had multiplied throughout the country. Trains, for the most
part, were run on schedule time. Business offices, accompanying the
development of the great industrial concerns, employed thousands. The
department store was beginning to appear. Public-utility organizations
and government departments were growing complex and extensive.
Thus, in every direction a stirring impetus was being given toward
those intricate modern conditions which depend upon the watch. The
lives of nearly all people were beginning to be touched by affairs that
demanded common punctuality a number of times every day—the hour of
opening factory, school, office or store, the keeping of appointments,
the closing of banks and of mails, and the departure of trains.
The times were bursting with need for a closer watch on time. From
the industrial president to the common laborer and school-child the
pressure of modern life, with its demand for punctuality, was making
itself increasingly felt.
Yet, strangely enough, watches were still regarded as luxuries. It was
not yet realized that they belonged among the implements which the
daily life required of all. The notion still held that the watch was
the mark of the aristocrat—a piece of jewelry rather than an article
of utility, a thing more for display than for use. And the prices of
good watches, according to the standards of the day, were such as to
perpetuate the idea.
It is no wonder then that, in spite of its crude characteristics, the
low-priced Waterbury watch attained a considerable sale. A watch was
a novelty, an uncommon possession among average people, and anything
approximating a real watch was assured of a large sale if within
reach of the ordinary purse. Therefore, the commercial failure of the
Waterbury Watch Company involves something more than a mere business
failure. Here is something which textbook economists may well undertake
to explain, since the article was good, the need unsupplied, the
competition feeble, and the profit satisfactory. The Waterbury watch
enjoyed an initial success but, in spite of satisfactory quality, its
sale gradually fell away, until, notwithstanding several refinancings
and changes of management, undeserved failure ultimately overtook the
first low-priced watch-venture. It was not the manufacturing problems,
such as had overcome Howard and had sorely tried Dennison, but the
problems of distribution which were the undoing of the Waterbury
Company, and here the importance and power of the middleman stand out
in an instructive way.
The conditions of the age demanded a cheap watch. Things to come could
not eventuate except through the ability of everyone to measure his
minutes. Almost from its first announcement, the Waterbury sprang into
demand, but later succumbed to false policies of sales. Eagerness
for the large and easy orders, which were momentarily attractive but
finally fatal, spelled ruin.
When first put out, the watch was sold through stores at a very
moderate price and proved to be such a sensation that it suggested
itself to ingenious merchants as a trade-bringer when offered as a
premium with other goods.
Sam Lloyd, the famous puzzle-man, was among those who saw this
possibility and he devised a scheme which resulted in the giving-away
of hundreds of thousands of Waterburys; it consisted of puzzles printed
on cards. These puzzles were so simple and yet so cleverly designed
that while anyone could solve them, each thought himself a genius for
his success in doing so. Lloyd's idea was to take his puzzles to
clothing stores all over the country and sell them with watches, in
order that those dealers might distribute the puzzles all over town,
together with an announcement of a guessing-contest. Each successful
contestant, upon return of the puzzle with its solution, was privileged
to buy a suit of clothes and get a Waterbury watch with it free of
charge.
Such was the magic of a watch in those days that the Waterbury
boomed the business of hundreds of clothiers, who, as in nearly all
something-for-nothing schemes, were careful to add more than the cost
of the watch to the price of the suit. Nevertheless the idea took
so well that Lloyd spread it into Europe, China, and other parts of
the world. Thus, the Waterbury watch became a familiar object in
many lands. Adaptations of the scheme, applied to other wares, were
carried out by him and by others until giveaway propositions became
the main channel of distribution for these watches. For a time, such
methods flourished and the regular trade of ordinary watch-dealers
correspondingly languished. But, finally, the scheme-idea lost its
novelty and pulling power. People would not forever buy clothes in
order to get watches. In the process, the Waterbury name had become a
byword for tricks in all trades. Shoddy clothes at all-wool prices had
become associated with it in people's minds. They stopped buying these
watches in ordinary stores because others "gave" them away. Regular
dealers cut the prices to get rid of their stocks, and this led to
further demoralization because customers never knew whether or not they
were buying at the bottom price. Dealers could make no money on them
under such market conditions and, because of this and of their shady
association with give-away deals, the Waterbury name became a stench in
the nostrils of the legitimate trade.
Thus, when the scheme-trade died away and the company again turned
its attention to the watch-dealers whom it had forgotten in the flush
of its easy success, it found no welcome. It had forsaken its source
of steady customers and was now forsaken in return. After floundering
about in several further reversals of trade policy and causing the
loss of further investment for its backers, the Waterbury name was
abandoned and the company reorganized as the New England Watch Company.
As such it ventured into new fields of watch manufacture and offered an
elaborate variety of small and fancy watches and cases, and numerous
models, sizes, and styles of movements sold on vacillating marketing
policies. Never did it attain a genuinely sound footing, however, for
it vacated its field of fundamental and distinctive usefulness, viz.,
the production of a reliable, low-priced, simple watch, to meet the
advancing requirements of its day; it had gone back to the view-point
of the watch as an ostentatious or ornamental bit of vanity. Hence
the old Waterbury business was compelled to close its doors, and in
the fall of 1914, the first year of the Great War, was bought out at a
receiver's sale by a firm who had replaced it in the field of supplying
watches for the masses. This firm rededicated the organization to its
original mission, modernized its mechanical equipment, and revived the
Waterbury name after a lapse of twenty years, until to-day, through the
employment of judicious sales-methods, the factory is more successful
than ever it was in its earlier days.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"_The Watch That Made the Dollar Famous_"
The next development is so typically American that it is difficult to
picture it as occurring in any other country.
Heretofore, the history of timepieces had been that of an easily
traceable evolution, for each of its steps had grown naturally out
of those before it, and the various improvements had been made by
mechanics trained in the craft. Yet now, strange to relate, two
young men from a Michigan farm, with no mechanical training, entered
the field almost in a casual manner, and in less than a generation
not only became the world's largest manufacturers of watches but
effected the most radical development in the whole story of telling
time—involving, as it did, the introduction of interchangeable parts,
quantity-production, and a low price.
These results might seem at first, to be due to a matter of accidental
good fortune. On the contrary, they were an example of evolution
quite as logical as any that had preceded and were perhaps even more
significant. The whole development came as the direct product of
observation, analysis, initiative, perseverance, and hard work—the
element of good luck being conspicuously absent.
All history gives evidence of the occasional need of a new impulse
derived from outside, and bringing with it a fresh view-point. There
seems to be a tendency in human enterprise for any development after
a time to lose its original rate of speed and to spend itself in
complexities. The people who have brought it about appear to lose their
power to see things simply and in a big way; and, on the contrary, they
grow technical and occupy themselves with minor details. Whereupon
the progress of development becomes slower and slower, and threatens
to stop entirely. Then over and over again, there is the record of
the advent of some fresh new force from an unexpected direction which
restores youth and vigor.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century, watch-making seemed
ready for such an impulse. As we have already seen, it had long
been developing from within along technical and professional lines.
Excellent and costly timepieces that were marvels of accurate mechanism
had been produced. That part of its work had been well done, but the
industry was in danger of losing its human touch. Watches were being
viewed more as articles of manufacture and merchandise than as of
wide-spread human service in meeting a general public need.
In a sense, therefore, the industry was unconsciously waiting the
coming of a non-technical man who knew the public at first hand and
understood people's requirements, who was not fettered by tradition,
who had a vision of universal marketing and distribution, and who was
not held back by a fore-knowledge of difficulties. It was exactly this
vision which Robert H. Ingersoll had of the industry and he developed
it with the assistance first of his brother, Charles H. and later of
his nephew, William H. He did not "discover" the dollar watch, as many
think, but grew toward it during the course of a dozen years.
It came about, as already stated, in a manner that was typically
American. Young Ingersoll left his father's farm near Lansing,
Michigan, in 1879, at the age of nineteen, and went to New York to
seek his fortune. He was entirely without technical training save
in farming, but he had a considerable first-hand knowledge of the
needs and desires of what Lincoln called the "common people." Finding
employment for a time, he saved One Hundred and Sixty Dollars, and,
with this large capital, started in business for himself in the
manufacture and sale of rubber stamps. Before long he was able to
send back to Michigan for his younger brother, Charles H. Being of an
inventive turn of mind, he devised a toy typewriter which attained a
considerable sale as a dollar article. This was followed by a patented
pencil, a dollar sewing-machine, a patent key-ring and other novelties
of his own creation.
In the course of time, the products of other manufacturers were added
to the list. Thus the brothers soon found themselves with an embryo
manufacturing and wholesale jobbing business. The business grew,
and the next development was that of a mail-order department. In
this branch they were pioneers and preceded by some years the famous
mail-order houses of Chicago and elsewhere. Their catalog ran into
editions of millions of copies. Next, the Ingersolls became pioneers in
another sales-plan. They developed the chain-stores idea, starting with
a retail specialty store in New York, and following it with six others.
Incidentally, they found themselves among the largest wholesale and
retail dealers in the country in bicycles and bicycle supplies.
All of this was a strange but none the less effective preparation
for watch-making and the marketing of watches by millions. Robert
Ingersoll, who had remained in the selling and promoting end of the
business, knew little about watches, but since he was constantly
engaged in traveling about the country and in talking with merchants
and others, he was gaining a great fund of knowledge as to human needs
and market possibilities.
Presently he became convinced that his business, in spite of its
prosperity, lacked something vital. He grew dissatisfied with handling
a succession of unimportant novelties. It began to dawn upon his mind
that these things were hardly worth while as a subject for a business,
since they satisfied only passing fancies on the part of the public.
He must find something which was really worth while, something which
filled a real human need on a large scale and yet in a new way. If this
something could be found, and the incredibly large buying power of the
great American public could be focused upon it, there was hardly any
limit to the business which would result.
When this belief had crystallized in the form of a definite conclusion,
he began at once to search for the "big idea." The "big idea" had long
been waiting for him to reach this state of mind. It had been looking
him in the face for many days had he but been ready to perceive it.
On the wall of his room in a Brooklyn boarding-house there hung a very
small "Bee" clock. It was unobtrusive and apparently unimportant. He
had glanced at it hundreds of times with no thought beyond that of
learning the time. Suddenly, it ceased to be a clock and became an open
door into the future. Its ticking became articulate with a new meaning.
[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF A GIANT INDUSTRY
_This picture shows one corner of the huge plants which produce twenty
thousand Ingersoll watches a day._]
"Everyone wishes to tell time," it said. "There is not one of the
millions who crowd the cities, travel the highways, or spread over the
country districts, who does not wish repeatedly during his waking-hours
to know what time it is. Sometimes he is in sight of a clock, but
more often he is not. Here and there is a man with a watch in his
pocket. That man has a chance to be efficient; but good watches
cost money, and most people cannot afford them. Here am I, a tiny
little ticking clock; I am a good timekeeper and I am cheap. Make me
a little smaller, sell me for a dollar, and you can put the time into
everyone's pocket."
At this point, the non-technical man, who knew nothing about watches,
but who understood human needs, realized that something had happened;
he pondered deeply and began to investigate. He took the little clock
to a machinist in Ann Street, New York, and together they studied the
possibility of reducing it in thickness and diameter. Presently it was
discovered that both the New Haven and the Waterbury Clock Companies
had already produced articles that embodied these conditions. This
somewhat checked enthusiasm until it was recalled that neither of
these products was an especial factor in the time-telling field. The
manufacturers had merely made mechanisms; they had not grasped the Big
Idea of universal service.
The timepiece of the Waterbury Company was the smaller, and Robert
Ingersoll decided to test his mail-order market, buying first, one
thousand clock-watches at eighty-five cents each, and afterward
contracting for ten thousand more. These articles were offered in
the mail-order catalog for 1892 at a dollar each, for the sake of
price-uniformity with the other dollar specialties upon which the firm
was concentrating. This was done, however, in a small way. It was not
desired to sell too many on such an unprofitable margin, but merely to
test the dollar-watch idea, hoping that manufacturing charges might
ultimately be brought down through quantity production.
These so-called "watches" must not be confused with the Waterbury
watch; that, as already described, had been the output of another
company. The "watches" marketed by the Ingersolls and bearing their
name were in reality thick, noisy, sturdy little pocket-clocks, wound
from the back. They were crude and clumsy affairs compared with
present-day styles but were, nevertheless, reliable timekeepers.
The public responded to the idea of dollar watches, although these
proved to sell faster in gilt cases than in nickel, and still faster
when a five-cent gilt chain was added. The next year, came the World's
Fair in Chicago and the odd little mechanism with an appropriate design
stamped upon its cover attracted some attention from the visitors.
Thus was born the Ingersoll watch, although it bore slight resemblance
to the watch of to-day. This is due to the fact that an immediate
policy of experiment and improvement was inaugurated. During these
changes, however, several points remained fixed. One of these was that
the watch must be in no respect a plaything, but a practical accurate
timekeeper, not liable easily to get out of order. The second was the
definite association with the price of one dollar, so that it became
possible to refer to it humorously as "the watch that made the dollar
famous;" and the third was that it should have a sturdy ruggedness of
construction that would defy ordinary hard usage.
Each of these points had its social value—that of the last-named being
the fact that the dollar price put the possession of a real timepiece
within the reach of multitudes who were engaged in forms of activity
wherein a delicate timepiece would be apt to get out of order.
The Ingersolls soon became convinced that they had a worthy object
for promotion, and they did not entertain the slightest doubt as to
the existence of a waiting public. There passed before their minds a
picture of the millions of farm-boys who did not know when it was time
to come into dinner, of the millions of working-men who had nothing
to guide them in reaching the factory on time, of millions of clerks
and school-children and of still other millions comprising the bulk of
American homes where more good timepieces were needed.
Their problem, therefore, resolved itself into two main divisions—those
of manufacture and those of sale. The manufacturing end involved a
contract with the great plant of the Waterbury Clock Company, by which
this factory was to produce the goods according to the specifications
and under the name, trade-mark, and patents of the Ingersolls. This
arrangement continues to this day, but has been supplemented, as the
line has become more extended, by the acquirement of two factories
of their own, one in Waterbury, Connecticut, and one in Trenton, New
Jersey. To-day the three plants produce an aggregate of about twenty
thousand watches a day. Before such manufacturing results could be
obtained, however, there were many structural problems to be solved. It
was not so easy as it sounds to build a practical and accurate watch
within the narrow limits of a dollar and still leave a profit for both
the manufacturer and dealer.
The solution began with the adoption of the "lantern-pinion," but
the principal difficulty was that which had baffled both Howard and
Dennison—the problem of producing the extremely minute separate
watch-parts in large quantities by machinery, and yet with such
exquisite precision that all parts of one kind should be absolutely
interchangeable. By dint of unwearied patience and much scientific
research, this problem was finally solved, and it is said that
Henry Ford got his idea of quantity-production from the manufacture
of the Ingersoll watch. Incidentally, it was demonstrated that
low production-costs carry with them high wages. In the field of
watchmaking, no element was more necessary than the skill of well-paid
workers.
In the meantime, the public was waiting, but it did not know that
it was waiting. It was going about its business quite unaware that
mechanical and manufacturing problems were being solved in its behalf.
There were no eager millions standing about demanding watches in order
that their lives might be run more closely upon an efficient schedule.
Therefore, simultaneously with the consideration of mechanical and
manufacturing problems came those of sale, which will be discussed in
the next chapter.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
_Putting Fifty Million Watches Into Service_
If this were purely a story of the development of timepieces as
mechanisms, there would be little to add to the preceding chapter, save
to detail the refinements and improvements by which a cheap, clumsy,
but reliable watch gradually discarded its defects, while retaining
its virtues, and the manner in which it developed into a variety of
styles and sizes. Essentially, however, this is a story of _Man_ and
_Time_, of human needs as served by timepieces. The most perfect piece
of mechanism in a showcase is like a stove without a fire; it is a mere
possibility of service, whose value does not begin until it is set to
work.
We have arrived, then, at a time when a small percentage of the total
population carried accurate timepieces and was able to profit by the
more efficient adjustment of its actions thus secured. We have seen how
the promising experiment of the Waterbury Watch Company failed in an
attempt to equip the masses with watches, principally through defects
in its system of distribution, and we have noted the appearance of
another low-priced watch dedicated to a similar experiment.
It is obvious, therefore, that if the Ingersoll firm has already
been able to place fifty million separate watches in the service
of humanity, something unprecedented must have taken place in the
all-important field of distribution. It is significant that Robert
H. Ingersoll first called his watch the "Universal;" indeed, his
chief contribution to the development of the watch is the idea of
_universality_, a word that makes us think more of people than of
manufacturers' methods. Having, then, a watch that was universal in
its possibilities as well as in name, and being keenly aware, through
his own tastes and experiences, of the needs of the vast mass of the
public, his greatest problem became that of universal distribution; in
short, it was a selling-problem. At first, there could be no definitely
formulated plan; various methods must first be tried out. From these
experiences there gradually arose an adequate system of reaching the
millions of people who needed watches.
In this, Mr. Ingersoll had effective cooperation. He was the pioneer,
the salesman, the promoter, the one who knew men in the widest sense
and had the faculty of getting results. His brother, Charles H., was
the internal administrator and constant counselor. Later, there was
added to the firm a nephew, William H., who was both a student and an
analyst. He scrutinized trade-tendencies, deduced theories from what
he saw, and gave them wide application in actual tests. Together the
members of the firm worked out sales-principles of equal opportunity
and equal treatment—words that had long constituted a slogan in
politics but were something of a novelty as applied to business. In
other words, they based their plans upon the _consumer_ rather than
upon the _factory_, and upon the idea of goods sold _through_ the trade
rather than _to_ the trade. It took some time, however, to perfect
their system of distribution but, when finally developed, it was the
outgrowth of wide and varied experience.
The firm made its first sales-efforts on the watch through its own
mail-order catalog. The results brought some encouragement, but proved
that in itself this method could never bring the volume of sales
necessary for a high-geared, uniform quantity of production.
The next recourse was to the so-called "regular trade-channels"—the
jobbers and retailers. But these dealers displayed little interest.
They were not promoters of new lines, but distributors of those for
which a market already existed. The jobber sold what the retailers
required; the retailers what the public demanded. Robert Ingersoll's
original loud-ticking watch impressed them more in the light of a
curiosity than as a trade-possibility. In particular it failed to
appeal to the jewelers, since they felt it to be out of keeping with
the beauty and value which characterized their stocks of jewelry and
silverware. They reasoned, also, that sales of the new timepiece
would interfere with those of their higher-priced watches, thus failing
to grasp the fact, since proved to be true, that its use would greatly
enlarge the sphere of their sales through cultivating a general
watch-carrying habit.
[Illustration: Waltham Thin Model Type of the Finest American Watch
Ingersoll Waterbury Radiolite "Tells Time in the Dark"
Elgin Lady's Wrist Watch
The Hamilton Famous as a Railroad Watch
Ingersoll Yankee The Modern Low-Priced Watch
Swiss Man's Wrist Watch
TWENTIETH CENTURY WATCHES
_Here is represented the final stage in the development of modern
timepieces. Though of graceful lines, they are designed for accuracy
and utility, and are ranged in price to fit every purse._]
Some effort was made with outside trades, but these generally
considered watches to be out of their line. Nevertheless, in the course
of time, persistent effort began to bring results. Occasionally jobbers
made purchases, and here and there a jeweler or hardware dealer offered
the watches for sale. When the firm felt justified in spending some
money for advertising, the public began to learn at first hand of
the Ingersoll watch, and the sales gradually increased. Many people,
however, expressed doubt as to the quality of a timepiece that could be
sold for a dollar, and the Ingersolls replied with a guarantee that has
since become famous.
Then, in the natural course of business, competition developed from
the marketing of inferior goods, and the firm found it necessary to
place its name on the dial for purposes of identification. In spite of
all difficulties, there grew up in course of time a very considerable
public demand. Whereupon certain dealers undertook privately to raise
the price in order to increase their profits. This situation was met
by emphasizing the price more prominently on the boxes and in the
advertising, a policy which soon put an end to price-raising but led,
in some instances, to the even greater difficulty of price-cutting.
The better known became the price, the greater became the temptation
to dealers of a certain class to advertise its reduction in order to
bolster up "bargains" upon other goods. This naturally demoralized the
sales of neighboring dealers and caused them to lose interest in the
line. Thus, instead of increasing the sales, the reduced price proved a
serious selling obstacle.
The same difficulty has been encountered by other manufacturers of
widely advertised goods, and some of them have sought through the
courts to compel adherence to their prices, the argument being, as in
the case of the Ingersoll watch, that price-cutting does not serve the
interests of the public but tends to interfere with sales since it
obstructs the channels of distribution. At this writing, the question
in its legal phase has not yet reached a final decision in the courts,
but the Ingersolls have solved it in a practical way, since their
trade-policies have brought about the voluntary cooperation of the
retailers.
Such cooperation, however, was not to be attained at once. It came
about through much study and after much experience. It involved the
assembling of a large amount of data upon commercial economics and a
deep inquiry into the fundamental principles of retail distribution.
It proved necessary to weigh and compare recent and important factors
in the retail situation. For example, because of the fact that so
many manufacturers were giving indiscriminate discounts for quantity
purchases, it had become profitable to establish huge department
stores, chain-stores, and mail-order houses whose scale of operation
made it possible to handle goods in large amounts.
For a time, the Ingersolls, in common with other manufacturers, gave
discounts for purchases in quantity; later, as the business grew and
its distribution problems were more scientifically studied, they saw
more clearly the way in which the principles of equal opportunity and
equal treatment could be applied.
It was in this spirit that the firm began to ask itself whether the
large distributors were really more efficient than the small retailers;
whether they actually earned the extra amount which they were paid
for selling each watch, and whether it would be a healthful thing
for the country if all retail business were transacted through such
organizations—in short, whether restrictions to such a system were
really consistent with the theory of commercial democracy.
Approached from this standpoint, the answer was found to be in the
negative. A careful research among stores in all sections of the
country showed unmistakably that the cost of selling in a small store
was actually less than in the department store, the chain-store, or
the mail-order house. Viewing the sale of each watch as an individual
transaction, it was seen that a small store in some far-off country
village gave quite as valuable service as did a large store in a
metropolis, and therefore should be paid as much. Consequently, the
Ingersolls introduced a selling-plan which, under the conditions, was
as revolutionary in the field of retail distribution as the discovery
of Galileo had been in that of clock mechanism. Yet it was merely that
of a flat-price schedule; in other words, it was a provision that the
dealer buying one dozen watches, or even one single watch, should pay
exactly the same price as the dealer who bought ten thousand. Quantity
discounts were definitely abandoned.
Naturally, this plan met with cordial response from the countless small
retailers scattered throughout the length and breadth of the country,
and the close relationship thus established led to other logical
developments in the way of cooperation, such as that of display devices
suited to the needs of these dealers, a simplified accounting system to
increase their efficiency, and various measures of a similar nature.
In the meantime, a constantly increasing advertising appeal resulted
in a rapidly growing demand from the public, and this, in turn, made
possible the assuring a uniform quantity of output, which was in itself
the basis necessary for maintaining uniform quality. Thus practical
experience and scientific trade-study were formulated into what has
come to be recognized as a definite commercial philosophy, namely, that
of uniform quality, uniform quantity, uniform demand, uniform price to
the dealers and uniform price to the consumer—a statement of principles
in which, as in the works of a watch, each part must be geared to every
other to insure effective operation.
During the time that these business principles were being formulated,
the line of watches was also in process of development with the goal
of universality in view. Thus, it was presently realized that while
the dollar watch was essentially a man's timepiece, watches were also
needed by women and by children. Accordingly, smaller models were
developed to meet these needs. At a later date, the Ingersoll business
principles were extended into the field of jeweled watches, when the
factories of the Trenton Watch Company and the New England Watch
Company were acquired. At the date of the present writing, there are
more than a dozen models, each of which is adapted to a different need
and use, but the manufacture of no model is undertaken unless there is
a market for at least a thousand watches a day.
And the latest development as this is written is the time-in-the-dark
watch.
Do you recall a soldier in the "foreword" waiting in the darkness for
the perilous moment to go "over the top" with his eyes fixed upon
the luminous hands and figures of the watch strapped to his wrist?
This watch may now be named; it was the "Radiolite." How it came into
existence in time to go into the Great War is a story in itself.
This story is the latest step in that steady progress of
democratization by which accurate timetelling, once a privilege of the
few, became the possession of the many.
A good many people wish to tell time in the darkness as well as in
the light, and if these people could afford to, they bought expensive
repeaters. Such watches, however, cost hundreds of dollars, so that
while telling time in the light had come within the reach of everyone,
telling time in the darkness was still possible for very few.
Therefore, the watch could not yet be held to be of equal service to
all humanity in every one of the twenty-four hours. This equal service
at any moment was finally made possible in a somewhat extraordinary
manner.
In the year 1896, Monsieur and Madame Curie startled the world with the
discovery of radium. They found that certain substances emitted rays
that would pass through solid matter as light passes through glass or
as the wind blows through a screen. They were finally able to secure
tiny quantities of a whitish powder, salt of radium, which gave forth
an energy that acted upon everything brought near to it and this energy
they calculated, would be protected uninterruptedly for three thousand
years. Up to the present time, radium and radioactivity are subjects
of constant study and research, but radium exists in such small
quantities and is so enormously costly that comparatively few have had
a chance to experiment with it.
It seems a little strange to think of using the most precious substance
in the world—many times more costly than diamonds—in order to bring
time-telling-in-the-dark within the reach of every person, but this is
exactly what has been done.
People had long been experimenting with paint made from phosphorous
in order to give off a glow in the darkness which would be sufficient
for time reading, but phosphorus has its limitations; it must first
be exposed to light before it is taken into the darkness, and if a
watch-dial treated with phosphorus is buried in the pocket it cannot
absorb enough light in the daytime to be luminous at night. With
radium, however, the problem was solved. It was found that this amazing
substance would affect certain other substances, causing them to shine
for years in the darkness by means of their own light.
Thus it became possible to develop a luminous coating which the
Ingersolls applied to the hands and figures of their "Radiolite"
watch and, presto! the problem of telling time in complete darkness
was mastered to the advantage of every buyer. The inexpensive watch
revealing the hour with equal visibility in inky darkness as in
bright daylight had become a reality. In passing, it is interesting
to note that the experiments with the watch-face led to many other
developments, such as luminous compasses, gun-sights, airplane guides,
and the like.
Then came the World War, and the wrist-watch which had been often
ridiculed as effeminate (although it is hard to explain why, since it
was first adopted as an obvious convenience in the Army and on the
hunting-field—two of the most masculine spheres of activity it would
be possible to imagine) was seen at once to be the most easy means of
knowing the time in actual warfare. Millions of watches, consequently,
were strapped to wrists of soldiers and sailors, and the obvious
advantages of the luminous dial placed it in enormous demand. Thus it
came about that the scene described in the opening pages was typical of
countless instances upon various fronts.
Although a matter of surprisingly few years, considered
chronologically, there is a long distance, measured by the scale of
progress, between the moment when a young man, glancing casually at the
clock on his bedroom wall read wonderful possibilities in its face,
and the time when the firm he founded was able to take note of such
achievements as these:
[Illustration: TELLING TIME BY DARKNESS
_Many a soldier waited in the darkness for the perilous moment to go
"over the top," with his eyes fixed upon the luminous hands and figures
of his Ingersoll Radiolite._]
Factory facilities producing an average of twenty thousand accurate
watches a day; distribution facilities including the cooperation of a
_voluntary_ "chain-store system" of more than one hundred thousand
independent retailers, all operating upon a common plan and under
common prices; a product that has come into the most wide-spread use
not only throughout the United States but in the farthest regions of
the inhabited earth—which has, in fact, in itself served to turn back
the tide by which watches formerly flowed from Europe into America, so
that it now proceeds from our shores toward those of Europe and other
lands; a name which has become as well known as any in commercial
and industrial life, and better than all, the appreciable raising of
the efficiency of the human race through universally promoting the
watch-carrying habit and putting fifty million timepieces into service.
It is altogether an Aladdin tale of modern business.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
_The End of the Journey_
Did you ever, at the end of a journey—perhaps across water, or up to
the top of some high hill—look backward to the place from whence you
came, and wonder that it seemed so far away?
Now as we have completed our journey together through the history
of man's struggle to gain knowledge and control over time, we are
impressed with the great contrast between Time as it was to mankind in
the beginning, and Time as it is to us to-day.
The caveman, with whom we began this story, lived close to nature,
taking his sense of time from her as he took all else. Morning was when
the light came, and he waked and was hungry; noon was when the sun was
highest, and night was the time of lengthened shadows and the state of
darkness. We see these same things, but, for us, they have not the same
meanings. We count the time by hours and minutes, and we reckon these
by machines which we have made, called clocks and watches. These mean
so much more to us that, when we set all the clocks forward another
hour to save daylight, it seemed to us as if we had changed the actual
time. It was practically as if we had performed the miracle of Joshua,
who in Bible story, made the sun stand still, or the miracle of Isaiah,
who made the shadow go back ten steps on the dial of Ahaz. After a few
days, we did not feel as if we had set the clocks; we felt as if we had
made the sun wait for us, and the very day come earlier.
And so it is with the seasons. The caveman called it spring when the
swallows came, and autumn when the leaves changed their color. But we
judge of these things by the calendar; we say that the spring "is very
late this year," or that the "leaves are beginning to turn early." We
have a proverb that one swallow does not make a summer; no, nor do all
the swallows, so far as we moderns are concerned. It is summer for
us upon a certain day, no matter what the swallows do, but for the
caveman, summer was when the swallows came, whenever that might be.
It is like that to-day among primitive peoples. The Turk who listens
for the crowing of a cock or the braying of an ass to tell him of the
hour, or calls the cat to him to look at its eyes and judge the time by
the shape of their pupils—he is more like the caveman in this than like
ourselves. So is the South Sea Islander, who knows the season of the
year from the direction of the trade-winds. So is the patient savage,
who cares little as to how long he must wait for the creature he is
hunting to come near the spot where he lies hidden.
How different it all is with ourselves! We rise at a certain hour, and
so many minutes later we have our breakfast. At such a time, we must be
at work. Our work itself is all made of appointments one after another,
or of tasks to be finished within a certain time. Our meals, our hours
of rest, our meetings with our friends, our recreations, and our
pleasures—all these, until, again, at a certain time we go to bed, in
order that so many hours of sleep may make us fit for the next day, are
measured by the clock and counted out by the tick of a toothed wheel or
the regular swing of a pendulum.
We say that the savage has no sense of the value of time. We have, and
it is by that fact largely that we are better off than he. Value means
measure; you cannot value a thing unless you can measure it exactly.
And so because we can measure time, we can see what time is worth to
us, and make it worth more. The savage keeps an appointment—when he
happens to make one. But we, because we know how long it takes to reach
a certain place, or how long a time we need or wish to spend with a
certain man, can make and keep many appointments. We can travel like
the wind from place to place, because in measuring time we can measure
speed, and therefore we can make speed safe and possible. We can talk
to a friend a thousand miles away, or signal by electric waves around
the world. We do these things because our sense of time has told us
that the old way of sending letters and messages was too slow. And so
we have set to work to invent ways that should be quicker. We should
never have had the telephone, the cable, or the wireless, unless we had
cared about time and been able to measure it.
The caveman lived, perhaps, as many years as we—but how much did he
do in those years? We, who have learned to measure years and to allot
each day or hour to sundry tasks, have made ourselves able to do far
more in a life-time—many times more. We do not live a greater number of
years, but it is as if we lived many lives in one. We speak of time as
we speak of money, of saving and wasting and spending. Well, Time is
Money, as Ben Franklin said, but it is something more—Time is Life. And
we think of our lives as so much time at our command, and therefore we
can make the most of them. The gulf between us and the primitive men is
a contrast of living less or more, and our _more life_ comes in great
measure from our having learned to _measure time_.
Everyone has read the story of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp. You will
remember that the poor boy came into possession of a lamp which quickly
made him the richest and most powerful person in the world, since,
through owning it, he could control the service of a mighty _genie_,
able to perform the most incredible tasks.
The modern man—every man—is something like Aladdin, only he is much
more powerful. He has the _genie_ of steam to work for him when he
pulls the lever, and the _genie_ of electricity ready to serve him if
he but press a button. He has many other mighty servants that modern
science has given to him, but greatest of all, most useful of all, is
the _Slave of the Watch_ which lies in his pocket—mighty Time himself.
This ability to record time and therefore, to control it, is perhaps
the greatest of all man's triumphs. Only see what it has done for
him! Have you ever thought of yourself as a person of no special
importance?—why, you have far more actual power than was possessed by
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or Charlemagne!
You can command forces and can accomplish results that would have made
any of these proud autocrats stare in wonder. If you do not stand out
above your age, as they did above their ages, it is simply because
millions of other people besides yourself also possess these powers.
It is undoubtedly true that we are to-day a race of giants, and it is
also true that each of our powers is directly or indirectly due to the
common fact that we all can keep track of time. For consider that what
mankind can accomplish to-day depends upon the ability of people to
work together, and that working together would cease if people had no
accurate means for telling time.
For example, you make a railway journey upon a matter of importance to
you. The first thing that you do is to examine a time-table on which
is shown the minute when the train is due to leave. You calculate to
yourself how many minutes you must allow for reaching the station, and
then look at your watch to see how long you will still have for other
work. If you had not watch or clock, or you were dependent merely upon
the position of the sun, you might go to the station several hours
ahead of time in order to be "on the safe side." During the hours thus
saved you can accomplish a great deal of work. It is as though your day
had been made several hours longer.
Unseen in your pocket, your watch ticks steadily. You trust it
absolutely, and you know that it will be faithful to its trust.
Occasionally you glance at it and, when the hand reached the limit of
safety, you start for the train. You reach the station three or four
minutes before train-time and find the tracks clear; no train is in
sight.
This however, does not cause you the least uneasiness. You merely take
your watch from your pocket and look expectantly up the line. Perhaps
a minute before the train is due, you hear a distant whistle, then the
approaching roar of wheels upon the rails, and, just as the watch-hand
reaches the proper moment, the train itself whirls round the curve and
draws up to the station, exactly on time.
As you proceed upon your way, you notice how other people at other
stations are also meeting their schedules and conserving their time.
You see the conductor glance at his watch as he gives the engineer the
starting-signal. You realize that the whole transportation system is
merely an enormous piece of clockwork and that it, in turn, is a part
of the vaster clockwork of modern civilization.
Turn where you will, there is nothing that you can do and nothing that
you can use which is not dependent upon the ticking of clockwork. The
locomotive which pulls your train, the cars in which you ride, the
rails over which you pass, all of these are products of factories, but
the factories are run upon the time-basis; there is no other way in
which they could be run.
The workmen in these factories leave their records upon time-clocks
when they come and when they go. If the workmen were not there at
the same time, the work could not be done, since most of modern work
depends upon the ability of people to work together at the same task.
Even if one man were late, it might lose time for many. The clothes
that you wear come from other factories where other workmen have
time-clocks and watches. The buildings that you see from the windows
were put up on the time-basis and were paid for according to the
movement of the hands upon watch dials.
[Illustration: TIME PIECES VITAL TO INDUSTRY
_Without the ability to record time, and, therefore, to control it, the
complex web of human activity would become hopelessly tangled._]
You buy a newspaper, making sure that you are getting the latest
edition, and it is at once as though you looked into a great mirror
reflecting the activities of all the world, but all of the
dispatches bear a date-line, and many of them are also marked with the
hour.
Before the days of newspapers, people felt themselves to be a part of
the lives of their own immediate neighborhood and knew only vaguely
of what went on at a distance, but now each day one feels himself to
be a part of the great human family and can sometimes make his plans
with reference to things that may be occurring thousands of miles away.
But the newspaper itself is a product of clockwork; there is perhaps
no institution whose workers keep closer track of the passage of the
minutes.
In view of all these things, does it seem too much to claim that if
all the timepieces in existence were destroyed and men were given no
other means for telling time, civilization would swiftly drop to pieces
and man would find himself traveling backward to the conditions of the
caveman?
But there is one thing in our modern timekeeping which we still have in
common with the first men who ever kept the time. We still go by the
sun and the stars and refer all our measure to that apparent revolution
of the heavens which we know to be really the motion of our world
itself. As did those wise men of old Babylon, so do we even now, spying
upon the mighty master clock of the universe to correct all our little
timepieces thereby. A man sits alone in an observatory, with his eye to
a telescope. That telescope is of a certain kind, called a "transit."
It is fixed upon the meridian, the north-and-south line in the sky
over that place. And a thread of spider-web across the lens marks for
him the exact position of the line, in the very middle of his field of
view. So as he watches, he can see one star after another come into
view at one side of the glass and pass across it to the other side and
disappear. He is watching the world go round.
A certain star appears, one which his calculations have told him will
cross the meridian at a certain particular instant. Beside him is an
electrical device connected with a clock, which marks off seconds at
intervals round a revolving drum. The star draws nearer to the center
of his field. As it crosses the hair-line, the observer touches a key,
and the precise instant of its crossing is recorded upon the drum, to
within a fraction of a second. Since the clock has marked its record of
the seconds there, the clock can be corrected by the star.
Now, if that man had been a priest in Babylon, he would have kept his
knowledge as a means of power to himself and to his equals. If he
had been a dweller in a somewhat later age, he would have kept it to
himself no less, either because people would not believe, or because
the claim of too deep knowledge of the secrets of nature might put his
life in danger. But he is a modern, and so his knowledge is for all who
seek it.
On some tall building in a distant city, a time-ball hangs suspended
at the top of its pole, and people pause to look up at it. They hold
their watches in their hands. Upon the tick of noon, an impulse will
come from the observatory, and the ball will drop. Then those who have
been looking will set the hands of their watches and pass on. At the
same instant, the news of noon will be flashed by telegraph across the
land, and by wireless to ships at sea. The whole Western Union system
will suspend business for a little, while the lines are connected and
the observatory at Washington ticks off the seconds. Everywhere there
are electric clocks, automatically controlled by some master clock,
which, in its turn is governed by the observatory time. So we all, as
a matter of course and without thinking, set our watches by the star.
Civilization every day catches step with the heavenly bodies.
Back of all that we see of life, therefore, stands the great fact
of measuring time, and those who are engaged in giving to man the
instruments for this purpose have a special responsibility. Perhaps the
ancient peoples were not so far wrong when they permitted time-telling
to be a privilege of the priests. It is far more than a matter of
moneymaking; it is a fixing for humanity of the standards of daily
life; it is a duty which lies at the foundation of modern efficiency;
it is even a sacred trust.
Therefore, the man who makes or sells unreliable timepieces is false
to his trust. Through his action people are thrown out of adjustment
with the world about them, and they, in turn may seriously interfere
with the plans of many others. It is hard to believe that there are
some people who still look upon a watch as "jewelry," or that there
are some dealers who are more interested in the watch-case than in the
movement it contains.
The watchman of olden times was a public officer. He was chosen for
his reliability, and people felt confidence when he called the hours.
The watch-dealer of to-day is in a somewhat similar position; he has
a serious duty to his community. He is not chosen by the public, and
yet, even more than the watchman, he is a public servant since the
watches that he puts into people's pockets are their principal means of
adjustment to the busy affairs of life. In a sense, he supplies them
with the basis of their efficiency. His duty is that of supplying the
largest practicable degree of accuracy to the largest possible number
of people. The _Slave of the Watch_ will not obey the owner of an
inaccurate timepiece.
Time itself is elemental; it had no beginning, it can have no ending.
It is like a great ocean which flows round all of the earth, and
neither begins nor ends in any one place. But time for any man is
exactly according to his use of it. It is as though a man were to go
to the shore of the boundless ocean, with a tin cup in his hand. If he
could get no more than a cupful of water, it would not be because of
any limit in the amount available, but merely in his means for carrying
it away. Should he have a pail, a barrel, or any larger receptacle,
then the water would belong to him in a correspondingly larger amount.
Thus, time each day presents itself equally to everyone upon the earth,
but some receive it in cups, some in pails, and some in barrels. Some
make of their day a thing of no results, while others fill it with real
achievement. Those who achieve are they who have learned to value time,
and to make it serve them as the mighty _genie_ that it is.
These are the wonders which Kipling had in mind when he wrote:
_If you can fill each unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the earth and everything that's on it,
And, what is more, you'll be a man, my son!_
APPENDIX A
_How It Works_
Having traced out the history of the clock and watch mechanism all
the way from De Vick's first clock and the clumsy old Nuremberg Egg
down to the perfect time-keeping device which we have today, it may
be interesting to look a little more closely at the result of so many
years and so many inventions—to see what its parts are, and how they
are put together, and to observe how the wonderful little machine does
its work.
Modern clocks and watches are nearly enough alike in their structure
and way of working, so that if we understand the one, we shall
easily understand the other also. The differences between them are
few and slight and easy to explain. So let us take for our example a
typical modern watch movement, which is easily the more beautiful and
interesting mechanism of the two.
First of all, as we saw in the days of De Vick and Henlein, a watch,
or a clock, is a _machine for keeping time_. So it must have three
essential parts: first, the power to make it go; second, the regulator
to make it keep time; and third, the hands and face to show plainly the
time it keeps. Each of these three parts is itself made up of several
others.
The power or energy which runs the watch is put in to it by the winding
which coils up the mainspring. The outer end of this spring is attached
to the rim of the main wheel (1) and after the spring is wound this
wheel would whirl round and let the spring run down instantly if
there was nothing to stop it. The teeth on this wheel, however, are
geared into the second or center pinion (as shown in illustration at
"A") which makes it run the entire movement while running down slowly
instead of flying round and uncoiling at once.
As we will see later, the spring-power is transmitted through the
train of wheels and the lever (7) to the balance wheel (8) which lets
the escape wheel (5) turn a little each time it swings, while it
simultaneously receives, by means of the lever from the escape wheel,
the "impulse" or power which keeps it running. Thus the swinging of
the balance lets the mainspring down gradually while drawing its power
from it. The spring is made as thin as it can be and still have power
enough to make the watch go. For a modern watch, this is about one
flea-power. One horse power, which is only a small fraction of the
power of the average automobile, would be enough to drive all the
millions of watches in the world.
The center pinion into which the mainspring is geared is attached to
its staff to which is also fastened the large center-wheel (2) so that
the spring cannot turn this pinion without also turning the center
wheel. But the center wheel is, itself, geared into the third pinion,
which is attached to the third wheel (3), and this again is geared into
the fourth pinion attached to the fourth wheel (4). The fourth wheel
gears into the escape pinion which revolves with the escape wheel (5),
so that none of these wheels or pinions can turn except when the escape
wheel does. But there is a constant pressure from the spring on all of
these wheels, which together constitute what is called the train.
The escape wheel, therefore, wants to turn continually and if it was
not restrained it would revolve rapidly, letting the movement run
down. But it is retarded and can only turn from one tooth to the
next, each time the balance (8) turns. This action is secured by
connecting the balance and the escape-wheel by means of the lever (7),
one end of which forms an anchor shaped like a rocking-beam, called
the pallet (6). In the pallet are two jewelled projections called the
pallet-jewels which intercept the escape-wheel by being thrust between
its teeth, letting it turn a distance of only one tooth at each swing
of the balance as the pallet rocks back and forth.
The other end of the lever is fork-shaped, having two prongs. On the
staff with the balance instead of a pinion as all the other wheels
have, is a plain, toothless disc called the roller, from the lower
side of which projects a pin or rod made of garnet. This is called
the jewel-pin or the roller-jewel. The roller being fastened to the
balance-staff, of course, turns just as the balance turns and with
it the jewel-pin. And the lever is just long enough and is so placed
that every time the balance turns, the jewel-pin fits into the slot
between the prongs of the lever-fork carrying it first one way, and
then, as the balance comes back, the other way. Thus the lever is kept
oscillating back and forth, rocking the pallet and withdrawing one
pallet-jewel, releasing the escape-wheel just long enough to let it
run to its next tooth before the other pallet-jewel is thrust in to
stop it. It is a beautiful thing, to watch, like the beating of a tiny
heart, or the breathing of a small quick creature. The hairspring (9)
almost seems to be alive. And indeed, it is in a way, the very pulse of
the machine.
[Illustration: _A Modern Watch Movement_]
There is only one more important point to understand. You know how the
power gets as far as the escape wheel from the mainspring, and how
the motion of the balance lets the escape-wheel revolve a tooth at a
time, but you have still to learn how the power which keeps the balance
rotating reaches it from the escape-wheel through the lever. Here is
the most interesting feature of a watch movement.
After the balance has been started, its momentum at each turn starts
the lever when the jewel-pin strikes it, but unless the balance was
constantly supplied with new power it would soon stop, and the watch
would not run. It will be noticed, however, from the illustration, that
the teeth of the escape-wheel are peculiar in shape and very different
from those of the other wheels. The ends of the pallet-jewels are also
cut at a peculiar angle.
Now, each time just before the jewel-pin starts to shift the lever from
one side to the other, the latter is in such a position that one of the
pallet-jewels is thrust in so that its side is against that of one of
the teeth of the escape-wheel, keeping it from turning. But the instant
the lever commences to move it begins to draw this pallet-jewel outward
from the tooth until the corner of the jewel passes the corner of the
tooth. Then the escape-wheel is released and the power that is behind
it makes it turn quickly, and on account of the shape of the tooth,
it gives the pallet-jewel a sharp push outward, swinging the lever,
causing it at the other end to impart a quick thrust to the jewel-pin,
thereby accelerating the speed of the balance and renewing its momentum.
Thus the balance receives the power to keep it in motion, swinging
it as far as the hairspring allows. The hairspring then reverses it
and swings it until the jewel-pin again starts the lever in the other
direction, releasing the escape-wheel from which it receives another
"impulse" and so on as long as the mainspring is kept wound. A watch in
perfect time ticks five times to the second. That means 18,000 swings
of the balance every hour, or 432,000 in a day. And in that time, the
rim of the balance travels about ten miles.
A clock is essentially only a larger and stronger watch, just as a
watch is a clock made small enough and light enough to be carried about
conveniently. But the working of the two is practically the same. They
are but different members of the same family, varying types of one
time-keeping machine which is among the most ingenious and valuable
things that man has made.
One interesting thing to know about a watch is that if it is keeping
good time, it will serve for a fairly accurate compass. So if you are
ever lost in the woods, your watch may help you out again. Lay it flat
face upward, and point the hour hand toward the sun. Then South will
be in the direction half way between the hour hand and the figure 12,
counting forward as the hands turn in the morning hours, and backward
in the afternoon. This is because the hour hand moves around the dial
just twice as fast as the sun moves around the sky, making a full
circle in twelve hours while the sun makes its half circle from horizon
to horizon.
Now, the sun is always to the southward of you as you are anywhere
north of the equator. At noon, the sun is practically due South. At
that hour, both hands of your watch are together on the figure 12 and
the hour hand pointing at the sun points in that direction. At 6 a.m.
the sun is nearly East, so if the hour hand, now on the figure 6 is
pointed eastward toward the sun, then South would be in a line just
over the figure 9. At 6 p.m., the sun being in the west and the hour
hand pointed at it, South would be half-way back toward the figure 12,
or just over the figure 3. For other morning or afternoon hours, the
same reasoning holds true.
APPENDIX B
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OF MEASURING TIME—(Sir) H. H. Cunnynghame, M.A., C.B.,
M.I.E.E. Archibald Constable & Co., London, England, 1906.
TIME AND ITS MEASUREMENT—James Arthur. (Reprinted from
_Popular Mechanics Magazine_.) Chicago, Illinois, 1909.
TIME AND TIMEKEEPERS—L. and A. Mathey. (Pamphlet.) 1877.
TIME AND TIMEKEEPERS—Adam Thomson. T. and W. Boone, London,
England, 1842.
TIME AND TIME TELLERS—J. W. Benson. Robert Hardwicke, London,
England, 1875.
TIMEKEEPER INVENTED BY THE LATE THOMAS MUDGE, THE—By Thomas
Mudge—his son. Printed for the author, London, England,
1799.
TOWER CLOCK AND HOW TO MAKE IT—E. B. Ferson. Hazlitt and
Walker, Chicago, Illinois, 1903.
UNIVERSAL CLOCK ADJUSTER—Eleazar Thomas Perdue. Richmond,
Virginia, 1877.
WATCH, THE—Henry F. Piaget. Third edition. A. N. Whitehorne,
New York City, 1877.
WATCH ADJUSTERS' MANUAL—Charles Edgar Fritts. Charles E.
Fritts, London, England, New York City, Toronto, Canada,
1894. (Third edition revised.)
WATCH AND THE CLOCK, THE—Rev. Alfred Taylor. Phillips and
Hunt, New York City, 1883.
WATCH AND CLOCK ESCAPEMENTS—Keystone. Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, 1904.
WATCH AND CLOCKMAKER'S HANDBOOK, Dictionary and Guide. F. J.
Britten. E. & F. N. Spon, London. Spon & Chamberlain, New
York City. (Tenth edition), 1902.
WATCH AND CLOCKMAKING—David Glasgow. Cassel & Co., Ltd.,
London, England; Paris, France; Melbourne, Australia, 1897.
WATCH BALANCE AND ITS JEWELING, THE (A lecture)—C. T.
Higginbotham. (South Bend Watch Co.) 1907.
WATCH FACTORIES OF AMERICA, THE—Henry G. Abbott. Geo K.
Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1888.
WATCHMAKER AND MACHINISTS' HANDBOOK—Wm. B. Learned. G. K.
Hazlitt & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1897.
WATCHMAKERS' AND JEWELERS' HANDBOOK—C. Hopkins. John P. Morton
& Co., Louisville, Kentucky, 1866.
WATCHMAKERS' AND JEWELERS' PRACTICAL HANDBOOK—Henry G. Abbott.
Fifth edition revised and enlarged. Geo. K. Hazlitt & Co.,
Chicago, Illinois, 1892.
WATCHMAKERS' HANDBOOK—Claudius Lanier.
WATCHMAKERS' LATHE—W. L. Goodrich. Hazlitt & Walker, Chicago,
Illinois, 1903.
WATCHMAKERS' TABLES—The American Jeweler, Chicago, Illinois,
1914.
WATCHMAKING IN AMERICA—Reprint from Appleton's Journal.
Robbins, Appleton & Co., 1870.
WATCH REPAIRING—F. J. Garrard. Crosby Lockwood & Son, London,
England, 1903.
WATCH TESTS—A BOOKLET OF TABLES—F. M. Bookwalter, Springfield,
Ohio, 1911.
WATCHWORK, TREATISE ON—H. L. Melthropp, M.A., F.S.A. E. & F.
M. Spon, London, England, 1873.
WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF CLOCKMAKERS OF LONDON, THE—CATALOGUE OF
THE MUSEUM OF—Second edition. Blades, East and Blades,
London, England, 1902.
WORKSHOP NOTES FOR JEWELERS AND WATCHMAKERS—Compiled by
Charles Brassler. Jewelers' Circular Publishing Co., New
York City, 1892.
APPENDIX C
_American Watch Manufacturers_
(CHRONOLOGY)
Judged by the number of failures which have marked the development
of the American watch industry, watch manufacturing might well be
characterized as a perilous business. While it has proved profitable
for a few, it also has swallowed many fortunes.
There were no watch companies in America until 1850, although a few
attempts were made to manufacture watches in the United States prior to
that time—by Luther Goddard, who established the first American watch
factory at Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, in 1809 and made several hundred
watches from 1809 to 1815, when he finally abandoned the business; by
Henry and James F. Pitkin at East Hartford, Connecticut, from 1838 to
about 1845 and by Jacob D. Custer at Norristown, Pennsylvania, from
1840 to 1845.
Except for a few companies whose organization and speedy dissolution
had small, if any, effect upon the industry as a whole, the following
briefly outlines the history of American watch manufacturing companies
from the real beginning in 1850 to the present day:
_1850_
The American Horologe Company of Roxbury, Massachusetts, organized;
name changed same year to The Warren Manufacturing Company; in 1853
name was again changed to The Boston Watch Company, the principal
stockholders of which organized The Waltham Improvement Company to
buy land and buildings for The Boston Watch Company at Waltham,
Massachusetts; moved into the new factory at Waltham in 1854; failed in
1857 and company's business was bought in by Royal E. Robbins, watch
importer of New York City and Tracy & Baker, watch case manufacturers
of Philadelphia; in 1858 The Waltham Improvement Company increased
its capital and purchased the business and property of The Boston
Watch Company and re-incorporated under the name of The American Watch
Company; in 1885 the name was changed to The American Waltham Watch
Company and in 1906 the name was again changed to The Waltham Watch
Company, its present name; in 1913 the Company purchased the business
of the Waltham Clock Company.
_1857_
E. Howard & Company of Roxbury, Massachusetts, was organized by Edward
Howard; in 1861 the name was changed to The Howard Clock & Watch
Company; in 1863 the company practically failed and was reorganized
under the name of The E. Howard Watch & Clock Company; in 1881 the
Company again practically failed and was again reorganized under the
name of The E. Howard Watch & Clock Company, with Edward Howard as
President, as he had been in the preceding organizations; in 1882
Howard withdrew as President and severed his connection with the
Company. From that time forward the Company gave increasingly greater
attention to the manufacture of clocks, although it continued to
manufacture the Howard watch until about 1903 when it entered into a
contract with The Keystone Watch Case Company of Philadelphia, under
which The E. Howard Watch & Clock Company transferred to The Keystone
Company all rights to the use of the name "E. Howard" in connection
with the manufacture of watches and also changed its own corporate
name to The E. Howard Clock Company. Later the company failed and
was operated by receivers until 1910 when a new company of the same
name was organized and purchased the property of the old concern. The
Keystone Company purchased the factory of The United States Watch
Company at Waltham, Massachusetts, and began the manufacture of watches
under the name of The Howard Watch Company.
_1859_