THE ROMANCE OF THE WATCH
"I asked Dad last night why he didn't have a Willard clock here in the
store instead of the one we've got," confided Christopher to McPhearson
the next morning, "and he was quite sore about it. He said that in the
first place a balcony clock of Willard make would cost a fortune and
probably could not be bought, anyway; and then he added that we already
had a Jim-dandy clock made by one of the Willard apprentices. I didn't
get the chance to ask him what he meant by that."
"Our clock is a Howard, one of the best makes there is," McPhearson
explained. "Years ago Edward Howard, the founder of the Howard Clock
Company, began clockmaking as a pupil of Aaron Willard, Junior. Howard
was a boy of only sixteen at the time, and for five years he studied
clocks under this excellent tutelage. Do not imagine, however, that this
balcony clock of ours was made by Mr. Howard himself. What your father
meant was that built into the background of the Howard Company were the
Willard traditions and ideas."
"Then really Aaron Willard hadn't much to do with our clock," remarked
Christopher, disappointment in his voice.
"Not directly, no. Still you have no cause for complaint on that score.
The Howard clock is a more modern product, that is all. Mr. Howard, like
Mr. Willard, left his imprint on both the American clock and watch
industries, holding for years a very unique place in their development.
Moreover he founded a great business that now gives to us clocks of
almost every design. Many are for the interiors of public buildings such
as halls, stores, churches, offices, and railway stations. Others are
for towers or steeples. Some have illuminated dials and some are
electric watch clocks. Therefore do not waste your tears lamenting that
your father does not possess an old Willard balcony clock. It would be
an interesting thing to own, I don't deny that; but what you already
have is as good a timepiece as can be procured anywhere. No one blushes
for a Howard clock or needs to blush. Mr. Howard, along with Willard,
deserves great credit for building up this successful business of his,
for when he began it he started out all by himself in a little shop not
over thirty feet square."
"It's a wonderful thing to found a big business, isn't it?" reflected
Christopher.
"Yes, to set going a flourishing industry that not only provides bread
and butter for hundreds of workmen but also furnishes the public with a
well-made commodity that it needs is a great service to civilization,"
said McPhearson. "Edward Howard, as I told you, had a generous part in
doing this, not only in the clock world but also in the realm of
watches."
"How did he connect up with the watches?"
"Well, you see, early America had very few watchmakers," was the reply.
"There were, it is true, numerous persons who dubbed themselves
watchmakers and who, like myself, could repair a watch; but they could
not make one. Therefore watchmaking as an industry did not exist in this
country. So about 1850 Mr. Aaron Dennison, a Boston watch repairer,
conceived the idea of starting such a business. Already he had discussed
plans with Edward Howard, and now the two men entered into partnership
and after raising considerable capital they constructed a small factory
in Roxbury. To fully appreciate the difficulties of their venture, you
must keep in mind the fact that previous to this time watchmaking had
never been conducted along modern lines. There was no such thing in the
world as a factory system where every part of a watch was made beneath
one roof. Instead, as I believe I told you, watches were made in
different places--the wheels at the home of one man, the springs at that
of another, and so on, after which the various parts were assembled, put
together, and adjusted. This was the plan followed in France, England,
and Switzerland, and the one which with certain modifications is to a
great extent still followed in those countries. And in our own land
there was not even as much of a system as that, watches being made on a
very small scale by individual workmen. It was this scheme of affairs
that Aaron Dennison and Edward Howard determined to change."
"They took some contract on their hands, I should say."
"A bigger contract than you realize, son," the Scotchman answered. "A
bigger one than they fully realized, I guess. It is fortunate we do not
see all our obstacles when we set forth on an undertaking, for if we did
many an enterprise would be abandoned before it was even begun. These
two men, now--in the first place they had no machinery; nor was there
any to be bought. Moreover, there was nothing to pattern watch machinery
after. It had never been made. So, you see, it was one thing to give a
man tools and leave him to achieve with them a specified end, working
toward the desired result as he went along; and quite another to invent
a brainless device that would mechanically reach the same end.
Numberless difficulties must be overcome. To manufacture watches in
quantity it was imperative that the parts be interchangeable. They must
not vary even an infinitesimal degree or the whole delicate organism
would be thrown out of adjustment. It was not an industry where
hit-or-miss methods could be glossed over; on the contrary, every part
of the process must be absolutely accurate. Do you wonder people were
skeptical as to the possibility of making such a mad undertaking a
success and hesitated about putting money into it?"
"I suppose the public rated it a wildcat scheme," responded Christopher.
"Yes, it seemed very impractical to business men. When you have to build
up a factory system from the machinery itself, you have something
gigantic on your hands. And that is the task on which Mr. Dennison and
Mr. Howard embarked. I suppose nobody will ever appreciate the trials
those dauntless pioneers went through. Four years they worked in their
Roxbury factory and only had a few hundred watches to show for all their
toil. Nevertheless the experience taught them many things and chief
among these was the fact that they must have more room. Accordingly in
1854 they put up a new factory at Waltham, Massachusetts, and it is this
structure, standing to this day, that was the first building of the
Waltham Watch factory."
"So the Waltham Watch factory is the grandfather of all the others, is
it?" commented Christopher.
"It is both the oldest and the largest," declared McPhearson. "It also
is the place where the factory system of watch manufacture had its
beginning. The general disbelief of the public was, however, a great
obstacle to the prosperity of the infant enterprise. Often both Mr.
Dennison and Mr. Howard were bitterly disheartened. The outlay for
constructing machinery, buying materials, and experimenting licked up
capital with terrifying rapidity. Had not two Boston men, Mr. Samuel
Curtis and Mr. Charles Rice, had faith enough to back the project
financially, it certainly would have gone to pieces. Even as it was
quantities of money were sunk before any results were forthcoming. The
parts of a watch are so small and so delicate that to produce machinery
that would make them and make them so that one did not vary from another
by so much as a hair-breadth--well, there were moments when it seemed
almost futile to try to do it. For, you know, if any part of a watch is
even so much as one five-thousandth of an inch out of the way, it is
good-by to the watch. It won't go--that is all!"
"I had no idea such a variation as that would count for anything,"
gasped his listener. "Why, it must have been terrible to figure
machinery down to that point! I shouldn't think Mr. Dennison or Mr.
Howard would ever have wanted to look at another watch."
"I imagine there were times when they didn't," was McPhearson's grave
response. "But for all that they persisted. Fortunately they made a
pretty good team, so far as training went, for Mr. Dennison was
perfectly familiar with repairing, and Mr. Howard with the construction
of watches. Notwithstanding this, however, neither of them had any
knowledge whatsoever as to certain details of the business--how to make
a dial, temper hairsprings, polish steel, or do watch-gilding
properly--and none of their men had either. As a result every one of
these separate arts and many like them had to be studied and mastered
from the foundation up, and after the chiefs themselves had experimented
and found out how to turn the trick they had to teach their men what
they personally had learned."
"Great Scott! I'd have given the business away to anybody who wanted
it," burst out Christopher.
"So would almost anybody else, I fancy," agreed the Scotchman. "But they
kept right on sticking at it. It wasn't their courage that gave out in
the end; it was their money. They simply could not continue to pull
along under so colossal a burden. Therefore after three years they sold
the business (operated at that time under the name of the Boston Watch
Company) to Mr. Royal Robbins, and he reorganized it and christened it
the Waltham Watch Company."
"It seems kind of a pity they had to sell it," mused Christopher with
regret. "The worst of the battle was over by that time."
"Yes. At least the foundation of the enterprise was well laid."
"What became of Mr. Dennison and Mr. Howard?" asked the boy.
"Mr. Howard went back to Roxbury to his first factory and there the
Howard Watch and Clock Company was formed. The saying goes that it is a
long lane that has no turning. Certainly every one familiar with Mr.
Howard's early struggles must have rejoiced in the success that
ultimately came to him. Mr. Dennison had in the meantime left the
Waltham company; but when it was reorganized he returned to it and
remained there several years to lend his invaluable aid to the new
firm."
"And did the concern go ahead after that?"
"Yes, it had reached calm waters by this time. Besides, when the Civil
War arose and the rate of gold went up, watches brought very high prices
and the company coined money. With it they were enabled to branch out
and not only improve their home plant but put up factories elsewhere.
Some of these were not, to be sure, successful; but as a whole the
business thrived wonderfully. Offices were established in London, and
America began to take her place among the big watchmaking countries of
the world."
"Hurrah for Uncle Sam!" laughed the boy.
"Rather I say hurrah for the fellows who fought his watch battle for
him," was McPhearson's somewhat curt retort. "For the watch business has
never been one easy of development. You can blunder along and turn out
poor, carelessly made stuff in certain lines of trade and get by with
it. The public does not always know a good product from a bad one, and
all except the expert can be easily fooled. But a watch proclaims its
own worth. It has to go and has to keep accurate time or all the world
will know it. If it fails to do the work it was bought to do, people
won't buy it. Therefore that these results may be reached and a
satisfactory article put on the market there must be money enough to
house a large plant, pay skilled and high-priced workmen, supply the
best of material, and tempt into the industry men of brains. Many a
watch venture has gone on the rocks for the lack of these assets.
"Once on its feet, however, a well-manned American watch concern has all
it can do. It need have no qualms about foreign rivalry, for no European
country has ever yet been able to build up a factory system that could
touch that of the United States, either in quality or quantity of
output. As a result most nations have given over trying to. Our watches
can be made cheaper and hence in greater numbers than those of other
lands, and we now practically control the watch market. The era when a
few watches were made by hand and afterward sent to a local astronomer
or distant observatory to be tested out has passed. Even before the
United States Naval Observatory was established the Waltham Watch
Company had an observatory of its own. Now we have graduated even beyond
that point and each noon the official time is telegraphed or broadcast
from Arlington to all parts of the country."
"We do whizz ahead, don't we?" meditated Christopher, absently twirling
between his fingers a screw he had picked up from McPhearson's bench.
"I should say we did," was the enthusiastic reply. "That screw, for
instance! In the infancy of watchmaking it took a good factory worker a
whole day to make from eight to twelve hundred screws. This seems a vast
number until you recall that each watch requires from thirty to fifty of
these small articles. At that rate, you see, it would not take long to
use up all the screws a mechanic could turn out. Now, so marvelous has
machinery become, that a single operator can tend half a dozen or more
machines, every one of which can produce from four thousand to ten
thousand screws a day. This gives you some idea of the proportionate
increase in watch parts. For in a big country like this we have to make
lots of watches to supply those constantly clamoring for them. Long ago
a watch was either a toy or a luxury; but now every person you meet
carries one. The price is such that he can afford to. But more than
this, a watch is absolutely indispensable in our present manner of
living. From morning to night we rush to crowd into our twenty-four
hours everything we can possibly crowd in; and in order to do this we
must keep careful track of the minutes and hours. Hence the demand for
watches has multiplied almost beyond belief and there are now a great
many watch factories."
"What are some of them?"
"I'll mention a few as nearly in the order of their founding as I can,"
McPhearson answered:
"The E. Howard Company of Boston, organized 1850.
"American Waltham Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1859.
"Elgin National Watch Company, Elgin, Illinois, 1870.
"Rockford Watch Company, Rockford, Illinois, 1874.
"U. S. Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1883.
"Hamilton Watch Company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1892.
"These are some of the oldest and best known firms."
Christopher thought a moment.
"Of course I've heard of some of them," remarked he. "The Hamilton
everybody knows. It is advertised in almost every magazine."
"The Hamilton watch came into being under interesting and, I may say,
tragic circumstances. One day a bad railroad accident happened out near
Cleveland, Ohio, and when the calamity was investigated evidence proved
that neither of the engineers on the unlucky trains that collided was
really to blame. The trouble was that their watches did not agree. There
was a difference of four minutes between them. Both timepieces were good
ones that never before had led their owners astray; but on this fatal
day they were responsible not only for the deaths of two blameless
engineers but also a number of mail clerks. It is strange, isn't it,
that the public must always experience a terrible lesson before it wakes
up to safeguarding human life? Let us have a fire in which many persons
perish, and we begin to move heaven and earth to inspect buildings and
install fire escapes; or let a lot of people die from shipwreck and we
cannot buy life belts fast enough. But we always wait until _after_ the
disaster has occurred before we do it. Thus it was with this fatal
railroad accident. Once the catastrophe had happened and the poor chaps
were dead, a set of rules was established whereby men employed on trains
must carry watches of a specified quality. No cheap article was to be
allowed in future. And not only must the railroad worker purchase such a
watch, but he must keep it cleaned and properly regulated."
"That was all very well to decree," replied Christopher, "but how could
the authorities make sure such a rule would be obeyed?"
"Ah, the railroad took no chances of being fooled," was McPhearson's
instant reply. "A watch inspector was appointed whose duty it was to
examine every important official's watch once in a stated period and see
that it conformed to the requirements. If a watch failed to keep up to
the standard set--by that I mean if it lost or gained more than a very
trifling amount a week--it was condemned and ordered to be discarded and
a new one had to be bought."
"But how about the men?" put in Christopher, a hint of disapproval in
his tone. "What if some of them couldn't afford to purchase these
fine-running, expensive watches? Being told to toss your watch out the
window and get another isn't always possible."
"It was to meet the objection that you have just raised that a week
after the wreck the Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster was organized.
It aimed to manufacture a good, close-running watch at a moderate price,
and it fulfilled its promise. The proposition was a sound business one,
too, for all over the country men were employed to whom correctness of
time was of vital importance--switch-tenders, motormen, engineers,
conductors, not to enumerate the thousands of other working people to
whom being prompt at ferries, trains, cars, and their job was
imperative. So, you see, the age provided a distinct market for a
high-class article of this sort and the Hamilton Company was intelligent
enough to realize and seize it. Good business is seeing your chance,
grabbing it, and then holding onto it."
The lad smiled.
"Of course there are times," continued McPhearson, "when it is possible
to create a market out of whole cloth. If, for instance, you can think
of something that would be useful to the public, something they
themselves have never happened to think of before, you can bring it to
their attention by clever advertising and make them want it. That is the
method the Waterbury Watch Company followed in launching their goods
back in 1880. For a long time two Massachusetts men had been wondering
whether an exceedingly cheap watch that would be within the reach of
even quite poor people could not be made. Such a commodity, they argued,
could not fail to have an extensive sale. The problem was who could they
find to construct this sort of timepiece? Then on a fine day Mr. Locke,
one of the men, saw in the window of a Worcester jeweler a miniature
steam engine that had previously been exhibited at the Philadelphia
Centennial. Immediately the thought came into his mind that a workman
who could construct such a perfect toy must be both ingenious and
inventive, and he went into the shop and offered Mr. Buck, the maker of
the wee engine, a hundred dollars to produce for him a cheap watch of
the type he had in mind."
"Was Mr. Buck ready to try the stunt?"
"Yes, he agreed to see what he could do," was the reply. "So he got to
work and after a little while had a model ready. But, alas, it did not
prove to be much of a watch, and the poor man, having toiled and worried
about it day and night, finally went to bed sick. But of course that
wouldn't do. He had had the money and therefore was bound either to pay
it back--a thing he was in too straitened circumstances to do--or he
must stick at the problem until he solved it. Both he and his wife were
honest people who understood this. Accordingly Mrs. Buck begged that her
husband be given a little more time. He had, declared she, a better plan
in his head which he would try out as soon as he was able."
"What did Mr. Locke say to that?"
"Both he and Mr. Merritt, his associate, consented to wait a little
while and at the end of a few months Mr. Buck was as good as his word
and brought them the model of a watch that was exactly what they wanted.
Thus far the enterprise went all right." The clockmaker paused.
"You sound as if things began to happen afterward," suggested
Christopher.
"Well, to tell the truth, they did. In the first place money had to be
raised to put the venture on its feet. As a good deal of this capital,
together with factory facilities, was offered by a brass manufacturing
firm at Waterbury, Connecticut, there the plant was installed. But like
every other watchmaking project this one swallowed up a great many
dollars before any watches were to be seen. Then at last the first
thousand were triumphantly turned out and, to the chagrin of the firm,
proved to be anything but a success. Some difficulty with the brass used
prevented their running properly."
One would have thought, to hear Christopher's sympathetic exclamation,
that all his earnings had been invested in the unlucky enterprise.
"The second thousand were better," went on the Scotchman, "but still
they did not go well; this meant more money to improve the machinery
and still more delay in putting the goods on the market. Then at length
after the watches had been doctored until only a small percentage of
them stopped they were offered for sale."
"Did people buy them?"
"If they didn't it was not the fault of the Company," chuckled
McPhearson. "Certainly every inducement was held out to purchasers. Not
only was the price of four dollars within reach of the most meager
purse, but the watches were dangled as bait before the eyes of all sorts
of covetous bargain hunters. Sometimes you were coaxed into buying a
suit of clothes to get one; sometimes one came with a big order of
groceries or maybe as a premium for selling soap. Not infrequently they
were awarded as prizes for subscriptions to magazines. They were so
hawked about that the whole country heard of them and quantities of them
were sold."
"The firm must have got rich," put in Christopher, much interested.
"It didn't," was the prompt contradiction. "On the contrary, after
several years of struggle, it failed. The public is fickle, you know,
and the novelty of owning a cheap watch wore off. Moreover, the product
got a bad name and failed to be taken seriously. It required a great
deal of time and energy to wind a watch with such a long spring as this
one had, and I must agree that those who made jokes at the expense of
the poor Waterbury were well within their rights. Furthermore, the
watches had been linked up with inferior commodities and when purchasers
found, for example, that they had been gulled on the suit of clothes
they acquired with the watch, instead of cursing the clothier they took
out their wrath on the watch company. Then, too, the firm, in order to
get their wares distributed, had parted with them at so small a margin
of profit that nothing was made on them. The entire scheme from
beginning to end showed poor generalship. What wonder such an enterprise
went down?"
"And is that the end of the story?"
"By no means," retorted the Scotchman. "Far from it. The management took
their experience as wise people do and years later began over again,
afterward reaping greater success than they had ever known, all of which
proves that it never pays to give up."
"Haven't lots of other kinds of cheap watches been made since?"
"Yes. The Ingersoll is one. It is the result of several years'
experiment with a dollar watch. At first a thick, clumsy contrivance
that wound from the back like a clock was introduced, and from this
stepping stone Ingersoll developed a second and third type, each an
improvement on the original. Having thereby convinced himself that the
dollar watch was not only possible but would sell, he got the Waterbury
Company to put out his idea for him; now the Ingersolls have in addition
two factories of their own, and the three together average an output of
about twenty thousand watches a day. In a country as big as ours,
however, the great problem is to get goods known from east to west, and
from the north to the south, and this obstacle of distribution was the
one the company encountered. How was the country generally to know there
was a good dollar watch? Owing to the scant margin of profit on which
the watches were sold, it did not pay large retailers to carry them.
Neither could they find even standing-room in a shop like your
fathers'." With dancing eyes the Scotchman regarded Christopher.
"Moreover," he went on, "although Ingersoll guaranteed his watch, tricky
competition arose. Other firms borrowed the name as a label for their
own poor goods; some merchants took the Ingersoll watch and ran up the
price on it, privately pocketing the profit. To outwit such practices
the company not only printed their name on the dials of their watches
but they carefully printed the exact price on the boxes in which they
were packed. You would have thought this would have forever put at an
end any foul play, wouldn't you? But even these precautions were
circumvented by sharpers who advertised their wretched wares as
marked-down Ingersolls. Thus the company was compelled to fight inch by
inch for its rights."
"I'd no idea business was such a mess," ejaculated Christopher. "And
what happened to the Ingersoll people finally?"
"Providentially a turn came in their affairs," was the answer. "It is an
ill wind that blows nobody good, the saying goes. In every calamity
lurks some good and for the Ingersoll Company, at least, there was good
in the Great War. Again we see a clever manufacturer grasping his
opportunity. No one knew better than Ingersoll how costly striking
watches were; he also sensed that soldiers who were fighting could not
be supplied with endless numbers of watches nor even if they were would
they always be where they could show a light. Nevertheless there would
be hundreds of men in the trenches and on the battle fields who through
long stretches of darkness would wish to know what time it was. Many
would be on guard and compelled to remain awake; and many more would be
unable to sleep from terror, homesickness, or because they suffered from
the various discomforts war brings. What, therefore, could be a greater
boon than a cheap watch with an illuminated face? It was to answer this
emergency that the Ingersoll Company turned out their Radiolite Watch."
"I suppose the dial had phosphorus on it," rejoined Christopher.
"No. Phosphorus was found to be entirely impractical for the purpose,
because, you see, phosphorus must at intervals be placed where it can
absorb the light in order to retain its brilliancy. Now as a man's watch
stays most of the time in his pocket, a watch dial treated with
phosphorus would have no opportunity to regain its phosphorescence.
Hence the Ingersoll Company developed a sort of radium coating for their
dials. It probably was not actually made from radium because there is
not enough of it to be found in all the world even if a watch company
could afford to buy it up. Just what this magic watch dial was made from
was Ingersoll's secret; but anyway it did what it was guaranteed to do
and instantly leaped into popularity. Many and many a soldier off on
the battle front blessed the makers of these watches, I guess. As for
the company--no longer were they obliged to wrestle with the problem of
getting their goods known, because from one end of our country to the
other, as well as far overseas, their watches became a byword." The old
Scotchman stopped as if tired with telling his long story.
"Now," added he, "I have roughly sketched for you the tale of
watchmaking in America. There is much more that might be related but you
yourself, by using your eyes and ears, can fill in the gaps. Just
remember this one fact--that it was your own land that developed and
brought to its present high grade of efficiency the factory system of
making watches. You have no cause to apologize, either, for your
country's handiwork. We do not by any means always hold first place in
the products we put out. Many nations can give us points along certain
lines of industry. But in this field we are supreme and have given the
world something for which we need not blush. So, say I, three cheers for
Uncle Sam! Sometime if you can manage it, make a trip through one of our
up-to-date American watch factories. Examine the numberless machines
that represent so much patient and intelligent study. Then come home
grateful to our watch pioneers for what they have handed on to us."