THE HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK
Of all of objects the human race has created, the clock, through its measurement of the passage of time, is one of the most powerful. It is especially prevalent today, in this modern world where, as country music band Alabama put it, we’re “in a hurry to get things done… rush and rush until life’s no fun.” Clocks impress upon us the importance of staying on schedule, of not being late, of knowing what to do and when to do it. The grandfather clock, especially in the American South, did (and does) a very similar thing. In fact, the in my own home, I can constantly hear it ticking and chiming and creaking; as a result, I am consistently aware of two things: the grandfather clock itself and the passage of time. Now, let’s talk about the effect of the grandfather clock on lives in the past.
The grandfather clock is an object of great cultural significance, especially in the American South. Its design and usefulness made it unique in the world of clocks, and it had a profound impact. The grandfather clock was a fixture of plantation life around which life revolved, for it told the family and workers when to work, when to eat, and when to rest. Grandfather clocks are cultural artifacts that indicate authority, and they also organize people and objects in space, especially in the Civil War era South. The grandfather clock had an impact upon the lives of the working class, meaning in the lives of the middle class, and power in the lives of the highest class, especially in the American South.
Before we begin our discussion of the grandfather clock, we must first discuss its place in history. Its power and prestige are weighty indeed, but the legacy of the clock goes far beyond this alone. After all, man has been measuring time for thousands upon thousands of years (with varying degrees of accuracy). In his book Time and Timekeepers, author Willin Milham discusses the history of how man kept time. According to him, The first object used to tell time was the sundial, which “originated in Babylonia at least as early as 2000 B.C.”(31). From there, it spread worldwide. Following that, the water clock was invented, though it did not begin in one spot. Rather, multiple countries and cultures are credited with creating different versions of the water clock (Milham 48) . After this, by 1360 A.D., the mechanical clock made an appearance on the world stage, invented by Henry de Vick for Charles V of France, and it was very simple, striking only the hours (Milham 81). Beyond this, several clocks were created at similar times, from 1500–1658: tower clocks (the same as the first mechanical clock, but more carefully made), cathedral clocks (extraordinarily intricate in design), and domestic clocks (the well-to-do could afford these) (Milham 89). All of this leads to 1658, when the first pendulum clock was invented and the grandfather clock was born. Now, with this background, we begin our analysis of the grandfather clock.
Thanks to its heritage, the grandfather clock has the prestige of being a relatively accurate ancient clock. To prove this point, analysis of its origin and design is necessary, beginning with how it was made. According to The Well Made Clock, a company that makes and sells clocks, Galileo Galilei was the first to come up with the idea of using a pendulum in a clock, but unfortunately was unable to design a working version of a tall, pendulum clock. It was not until Christopher Huygens that the grandfather clock, or long case clock, came into being in 1656. Due to the nature of the long pendulum, the soon to be called “grandfather clock” was much more precise than any of the clocks of that day (The Well Made Clock). There are some logical extrapolations that can be made from this information. This newfound precision had many effects upon the lives of the working class of western man. The lives of the people became more regulated, timed more accurately; they no longer looked to the sun for their working hours, but to the machinations of the clock, a man-made machine. The clock told them what to do and when to do it. It told them when to go to work, when to eat, when to stop working, and when to sleep. Thanks to the grandfather clock, the lives of workers were divided into more regulated time frames. Lateness was no longer quite as socially acceptable, for now it was possible to know the accurate time, and there was no excuse to be given. Thus, the grandfather clock not only had an impact on working schedules, but also social schedules seen as necessary for polite society.
In America, the clock had social implications that depended upon the home in which the grandfather clock was found. According to Franklin Gottshall in his book Reproducing Antique Furniture, a grandfather clock was treated differently depending upon the class of home it resided in. This fact is primarily design based. As is well known, the grandfather clock is a tall clock; the homes of the rich were the only ones with ceilings tall enough to accommodate said clock. Thus, in the houses of the middle class, the clocks were mutilated. Since their ceilings often were lower than the height of the grandfather clock, the clock could not fit. So, the families would remove the top and bottom of the clock (Gottshall 100). These actions caused the clock to lose some of its prestige and grandeur, and therefore the clock did not have quite the same presence in the middle class home as when it was full-sized.
In the houses of the rich, however, the full-sized grandfather clock held power over the servants and the family that resided within the home. Its height and face personified it, and its ornateness reminded them who was in power, and who had control of the paycheck (or in the case of slaves, who held their lives in their hand). This imbalance of power segregated the people into separate areas. The slaves’ and servants’ lives were dictated by their owners and employers; their were told what to do and when by the clock. At this time, serve lunch. At this time, prepare tea. At this time, take dinner in the kitchen, away from the owning family, and so on. As demonstrated, the grandfather clock held sway over (and, it could be argued, enhanced) the power divide and imbalance between owners and servants.
In his book Working Drawings of Antique Furniture, author Frederick Bryant provides information that correlates with this knowledge. According to him, very few grandfather clocks in America have identical cases. This is due to the way some people could afford clocks. First, they would buy the inner working of the clock, which they would then hang on the wall without a case. From here, they would have to work to save up money to pay the local cabinet maker to come out and make the outer case for the clock (Bryant 31). This allowed grandfather clocks to be more affordable to those who typically would not have the money for such an expenditure. This also could have resulted in areas where certain styles of grandfather clocks were popular because the cabinet maker was comfortable and proficient with a certain style and design.
Undoubtedly, these cabinet-maker-made clocks were not nearly as ornate as the clockmaker-made clocks of the rich. As a result, to correlate with what Gottshall said, these cheaper clocks were different in terms of dividing power. They did not reflect the same amount of power as did the ones in the homes of the well-to-do, for their design was more plain. They were made out of cheaper materials, and were more likely to be cared for by the owners when they had time (rather than servants whose jobs it was to do so). For these reasons, the cabinet-maker-made clocks showed age and wear more quickly. In contrast, the grandfather clocks owned by rich families were made out of expensive materials and woods. They were better cared for because the servants of the household were tasked with that specific job. In addition, the grandfather clocks of the rich had the wealth and influence of their owner behind them. Thus, because of its grand physical aspect, the grandfather clocks in the homes of the rich did a much more effective job of segregating the people within the home.
Clocks and timepieces held tremendous power in the American South. In his book Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South, author Mark M. Smith discusses how clocks affected Southern culture and the daily lives of both slave and free. He says, “ … white southerners attempted to parlay their clock and watch ownership into a tool of power…” (38). In other words, the clock helped slave owners demonstrate power. It follows, then, that the grandfather clock gave owners power over those who worked in the home. Smith also tells a compelling story at the opening of his book. A man was watching an overseer as he directed slaves in their work. The driver suddenly “called out that it was twelve o’clock.” The slaves immediately leapt to different task (Smith 2). If the timepiece had such power here, in the open air, how much more power would the grandfather clock hold within the home? This suggests that the grandfather clock greatly regulated the days of the slaves within the house. Just as tasks were regulated outside based on the machinations of a comparatively tiny pocket watch, so the man-sized grandfather clock regulated the work of those inside the residence. Smith points out that “… clock time could be used to regulate, measure, and exploit labor both free and slave” (38). Everyone’s days were regulated by the clock. The masters had to submit to the clock in order to implement it, and the workers submitted to the masters who submitted to the clock. Thus, the clock reigned supreme.
There is another interesting aspect of the grandfather clock not yet touched upon in this essay. The fact that the grandfather clock represented power has been discussed, but there is something else that it represents: the grandfather clock could, in some aspects, symbolize the physical lives of its owners. To explore this facet, I, the author, interviewed my grandmother Bebe. (She was the one who sparked my interest in the clock, and she bought my family’s clock back in the mid-1990s.) She said that the reason that she chose to buy that particular clock was that the face of it had scenes that depicted the work associated with agriculture. Each corner of the face had a carved picture of the work associated with a season on a farm. She and my grandfather were farmers, so the artwork specifically motivated her to purchase the clock. With her testimony, I began to think, was this possibly the case for many clocks in the Old South? The clocks may have been designed to show what industry the family was in or the interests. The original owner may have been a farmer as well, and as a result, my family now has a clock with a clock with carvings related to agriculture on it. By looking at this, one can see that, in a way, the grandfather clock had a formal meaning (wealth/power), and a more informal one (this varied from clock to clock and simply showed the lifestyle or business of the family). Thus, the grandfather clock held meaning in nearly all areas of life. (For more information about my interview with my grandmother, click below.)
As shown by the data presented in this paper, the grandfather clock had a profound impact on the lives in which it was involved, and is a cultural artifact that indicated authority and also held power over the lives of people from all walks of life, directing their activities. For the working class, it enslaved them to its precise schedule. For the middle class, it showed told them the times to keep for work and for play while keeping the servants at bay. And for the upper class, most especially in the American South, it completely segregated entire races of people, relegating one to a position of extreme authority and the other to complete serfdom. Thanks to its rich heritage, history, power, and prevalence, the grandfather clock is a fascinating object of study whose impact is felt far beyond the years in which it was prominent.
“A Brief History Of The Grandfather Clock.” The Well Made Clock, 21 Jan. 2014, www.thewellmadeclock.com/brief-history-grandfather-clock/.
Bryant, Frederick J. “Grandfather Clock.” Working Drawings of Colonial Furniture. The Manual Arts Press, 1922, p. 31.
Gottshall, Franklin H. “Grandfather Clock.” Reproducing Antique Furniture. Crown Publishers, 1971, pp. 100–101.
Kruse, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Barrett. “Interview with Bebe.” 21 Oct. 2018.
Milham, Willis I. Time and Timekeepers. Macmillan, 1945.
Smith, Mark M. Mastered by the Clock Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South. University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
