American Watch Industry And Pocket Watches:
The Witness Of An Era And Pioneer To An Industry
Watchmaking, considered as an uncommon or rather rare trade by many people today, is truly deemed a hidden gem by the fewer others. With the rapid advance of technology in the past few decades, the watch industry has also been re-shaping itself rapidly along with the fast-forwarding market; the popularization of quartz watches in the 70s and the more up-to-date smartwatches offer modern customers with some of the most accurate time-keeping features which a mechanical watch cannot compete with.
However; the mechanical watches are always deeply appreciated by the true watch enthusiasts, for the attractive nature of mechanical-timekeeping itself, and the history is hidden behind it; and to understand how and where our modern Watchmaking is derived from, studying the history of watchmaking is a must.
Watchmaking as an industry was once gigantic here in North America, especially in the United States; from the mid-to-late-19th century until shortly after the Great Wars, it had arguably the biggest watchmaking industry over the Swiss for almost a century-long. Pocket watch, out of all products made by the American watch industry, surely best defines it. American watch industry represented by its pocket watches witnessed some of the most significant eras in the history of the United States, and together they help to shape the modern-day watch industry. Both the industry and its product reflect changes brought to the nation through the Second Industrial Revolution, and as a result, it popularized and further perfected mechanical watch as an instrument for precision timekeeping.
The Witness Of An Era
American watch industry was a result of the second industrial revolution, and American pocket watches witnessed the history of the United States from before its civil war until after the Second-World-War; both the industry and its products acted as an integral part of the nation. American watchmaking industry witnessed the nation stepping into a new age of machine-manufacturing through the Second Industrial Revolution. According to The Elgin Watch Collectors Site, the American watch industry was founded in the 1850s and pioneered to make massive production of high-quality watches using interchangeable parts manufactured by machines on production lines. Leading into the 1870s, along with the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution, the Americans had almost mastered the techniques on auto-machine production lines for watches from adapting to new manufacturing systems and inventing a variety of new power machines and tools. They had almost developed every machine to precisely manufacture any high-quality watch part at a lower cost and higher efficiency than the Swiss and the English. The result of establishing and mastering the machine-manufactured watchmaking system led the American watch industry to a huge expansion on both its operation scale and international market share.
According to American Watchmaking: A Technical History of the American Watch Industry 1850–1930 by M.Harrold, the total production of jeweled watches(donut-shaped gemstone set on pivot-end to reduce gear friction, usually equipped in relatively expensive watches)in United States in 1880 was 3 million, and the number had increased by over 7 times to 23 millions in 1900.
With no doubt, the American watch industry had its booming time during the second industrial revolution, in response to the dramatic expansion of the industry.
As stated by E.Niiler in his article, during this time, the industry expansion also led to the expansion of a wealthy class of entrepreneurs and the middle class of workers. Plenty of job positions were needed for the industry as new industries were making significant growth in both domestic and international markets. It is evident that the American watch industry was the key witness on how the nation developed through the second industrial revolution and how it was benefitted from it; the success of the American watch industry is the success of the nation’s second industrial revolution, it witnessed the elevated status of United States through the gilded-age, to a position where it has never been before.
An Integral Part Of Living Back In The Days
American Pocket watches, on the other hand, as the major product of the American watch industry, also as the common timekeeping instrument prior to the popularization of wristwatches, performed an extremely important task during the time when it was in fashion. Pocket watches made by the American watch industry played an irreplaceable role in people’s living back then, they were designed and manufactured to be keeping accurate time to ensure its reliability while performing important tasks. The second industrial revolution expanded the spread of the American railway system; according to E.NIiiler, the total length of the American railway increased largely between 1865 to 1916, from the initial 35,000 miles to 254,000 miles. Pocket watches were used on the railway and trains as timekeeping instrument in order to ensure the safety of commute and keep tracks of operation schedules, as when two trains move on the same railway in opposite direction, controlling of their movements become necessary and vital to avoid accidents.
Furthermore, regulations and standards toward these watches used for railroad service were made to ensure reliable performance. K.Singer suggested from his research that, although some of these regulations could be dated back as early as the 1850s, there was not a unified code on the time inspection standard, nor unified requirements on the watches. The standard requirements for a qualified railroad pocket watch were set by W.Balls and approved by the official in early 1890, with a maximum tolerance of inaccuracy at plus or minus 30 seconds per week, followed by a list of other detailed requirements, to ensure the safety of railway commute. It is evident that American pocket watches as the major product of the industry back then, played its integral part in the American history of public transportation, the fact that it monitored the train operations on every single American railway track is enough to make it inseparable from the railroad-time history, not to mention the strictly practiced standard watch code was taken seriously for its duty. Therefore, it is obvious that the American watch industry and pocket watches are both the results and witnesses of the second industrial revolution in the United States.
The Pioneer Of Modern Industry
Clearly, the modern watch industry would not be the same without the American pioneers, for its contribution to the popularization and perfection of the modern watch mechanism. Machine-manufactured watches with interchangeable parts made owning a watch possible for almost everyone, and by perfecting the American-lever watch mechanism, time-keeping was brought to a new level of accuracy. Watches were not for everyone to afford until the massive production of American pocket watches. According to M. Harrold, watches could not be afforded by an average person although the living standard had been raised through the first industrial revolution by the 1850s. During the same era, the European watchmakers were still following the traditional crafting methods to hand-make watch parts, which means a watch has to be returned to its original maker for repair or maintenance. According to M. Harrold’s research, watches imported from England or Switzerland that were being sold in the United States were priced far higher than an average working-man could afford(Average wages less than 1$ per day). However, this situation did not last long with the introduction of the new American Machine-manufactured watch industry, by the 1860s-1870s, the industry achieved the quality which human hands could not possibly achieve and higher efficiency than any handcrafting method.
For the above reasons, it is not hard to tell how great the American watch industry has influenced the international watch industry until modern days, as modern-day watchmaking generally adapt to the American machine-manufacturing system, for it offers nothing but affordability and convenience to modern consumers;
thus, the American watch industry should take credit for the popularization of modern mechanical watches. The pioneer industry should also take credit for further perfecting the most common modern watch mechanism, improving timekeeping accuracy, as it is the primary function of such an instrument.
According to the Prize Essay on the Construction of a Simple and Mechanically Perfect Watch, by legendary watchmaker M. Grossmann, he argues that some watches made by the traditional European watchmakers were more of a fancy object rather than a scientific instrument for the purpose of time-keeping. M. Grossmann also complimented the interchangeable part system which was introduced by the American industry and indicated that it was also adopted later on by the French and the Swiss system, for it perfectly identifies each and every part of the watch. According to the essay, it is also indicated by M. Grossmann that due to the fact that some traditional European watchmakers such as the Swiss, would build watch movements not based on mechanical science but rather the taste of customers, which leads to irregularities and inconvenience. M. Grossmann used American watchmaking as a favorable example indirectly, and through his analysis on the construction of simple and mechanically perfected watch from part to part, he emphasized the advantages using typical features that were built into the common American watch movements. Not to mention the Americans have achieved a higher accuracy standard in their railroad watches(minus or plus 30 seconds per week) than the up-to-date Swiss COSC standard(which works out to a minus 28/plus 42 seconds per week).
Even today, some countries still use mechanical watches on the railroad to ensure the safety of commute. Last but not least, the favorable Lever-mechanism left so much of an influence on the development of modern watch mechanism, for it has proved its extraordinary capability in precision-timekeeping, that its influences are seen in most of the mechanical watches today, as most of the mechanical watches nowadays adapt to Lever-mechanism. Therefore, the American watch industry deserves its credit for the contribution to the entire watchmaking history, for it popularized the modern mechanical watches and further improved its function.
Conclusion
The American watch industry represented by its pocket watches, as the outcomes of the second industrial revolution which took place in the United States, witnessed the rise of a nation and changes brought by the rapid progress of technology and offered some of the greatest contributions in the international watchmaking industry. It was a vital industry of the growing nation, the products of the industry brought changes to people’s lives and became a necessary part of their life. The machine-manufactured system made watches become affordable for almost everyone, and furthermore improved the primary function of watches as a time-keeping instrument.
I truly believe that the hidden gem will always be there to shine.
