America's most important contribution to watch-making history was the development and first practical demonstration of truly efficient mass production methods for watches. To understand this unique legacy, it is necessary to examine why technical know-how alone failed to achieve this end in England, a preeminent contemporary watchmaking center, and why efforts in the Boston area, beginning around 1850, finally succeeded where earlier American efforts had failed. This year's NAWCC Seminar will bring together a distinguished group of scholars to address these and other intriguing questions. David Penney, past editor of the outstanding British periodical Antiquarian Horology, and Mike Harrold, prolific American horological author and Henry Fried Award winner, will set the stage for the birth of the American industry by describing preceding developments in the U.S. and abroad. Together with their fellow speaker George Collord, a leading student of early watchmaking technology, David and Mike will discuss the key innovations in production technology and labor organization that underlie America's success.

The interplay between technology, marketing imperatives, and craft attitudes subsequently gave birth to a wide spectrum of uniquely American timekeepers. In extensively illustrated presentations, Ron Price, Craig Risch, and Clint Geller will discuss how the particular features of these watches reflected the technical challenges and leading horological personalities of their day. Henry Fried Award recipient Philip Priestley will then help us place the accomplishments of American watchmaking in a broader context by describing its international impact. Between lectures and tours, seminar participants will have an opportunity to view an outstanding on-site exhibit of American pocket watches, documents, photographs, and other ephemera relating to the lectures. On Saturday afternoon, the educational program of the Seminar will culminate in a guided tour of the horologically significant gravesites in Mount Feake Cemetery, with its unsurpassed views of the Waltham watch factory, and the Charles River Museum and environs in historic Waltham. At the Charles River Museum, Chapter 8 and Chapter 174 volunteers will offer a special presentation on "Life in the Waltham Watch Factory", to give seminar participants a richer view of the human factors that underlie America's unique watch products.

The primary focus of the seminar will be the period beginning in 1857 with the sale of the bankrupt Boston Watch Company, and ending in 1875, by which time the American Watch Company of Waltham and E. Howard & Company in Roxbury (now Boston), both claiming succession to the Boston Watch Company, were turning out watches in a wide range of varieties and grades. Arguably, all the favorable fortune that Waltham subsequently enjoyed was based on the early commercial success of their "Model 1857" watch, inherited from their defunct predecessor. This seminal model was never the best available on the American market, but it represented a superior value compared with comparably priced foreign handmade goods. In so being, the Waltham Model 1857 established a secure market niche for American watchmaking. Ron Price, author of an extensively researched upcoming book on the Model 1857, will describe the origin and evolution of this critical watch design, replete with all the delicious minutiae cherished by collectors.

Figure 1. Appleton, Tracy & Company Grade Model 1857, S# 5341, Circa 1857, by Appleton, Tracy & Company. Full plate, gilded brass movement with 15 jewels in screwed down settings. Early movements like this one came with steel or gold balances and a simple regulator, but temperature compensated bimetallic balances were being sold by late 1857. The earliest dials were plain, like their predecessors, but soon were signed with the company name. The seconds bit was sunk on the AT&Co grade dial, but typically not on other grades until many years later. Some but not all such movements were sold in cases from the factory's own case department. This watch exemplifies Appleton, Tracy & Company's first effort to make a high grade watch. Photo by Ron Price

Waltham and Howard, together with other American watch manufacturers, strove aggressively to expand the initial market niche established by Waltham's workhorse full plates. By 1875, through these efforts, the market image of American watches had been transformed from that of "best buy" alternatives to icons of quality and desirability. The 1857-1875 period saw the introduction of divided plate and 3/4-plate watch designs, important escapement evolution, and numerous other advances in accuracy, reliability, utility, convenience, and cosmetic appeal. Damascening, nickel finish, raised gold, screwed down jewel settings, pendent winding and setting, safety barrels and pinions, Breguet hairsprings, micrometric regulation, adjustment to positions, and chronograph mechanisms all made their appearance in American watches during this period. After the reabsorption of the staff and machinery of the technically crucial Nashua Watch Company in 1862, the innovative charge at Waltham was led by the separately staffed and equipped "Nashua Department" of the factory. It was from this branch of the factory that Waltham's most superbly finished and technically advanced timekeepers would spring for the next three decades. Craig Risch will discuss the career and watch designs of Charles vander Woerd, whose machinery inventions helped propel Waltham's meteoric rise in the 1857-1875 period, and who served as the Nashua Department's foremost creative force.

Figure 2. American Watch Company Grade Model 1860,16-size gilded brass, keywind, 3/4-plate movement, S# 125,446, circa 1864, by the American Watch Company. This 16-size version of the original 20-size 3/4-plate Nashua watch design features N. P. Strattron's patented safety barrel, exposed stopwork, and C. W. Fogg's patented vibrating hairspring stud. This freesprung movement, with 20 jewels in screwed down settings and Breguet hairspring, aptly demonstrates the advanced nature of Nashua's watch designs. Even far more influential were the advances Nashua achieved in production machinery.

Figures 3A and 3B, left and right. American Watch Company Grade Model 1872, 16-size (with 17-size pillar plate) stemwind, lever set, 3/4-plate movement, S# 999,964, circa 1876, by the American Watch Company, with 21 jewels in raised gold jewel settings, gold train, Breguet hairspring, Fogg's safety pinion, Woerd's patented mainspring let-down screw, exposed winding wheels, elaborately damascened nickel plates, and fine, glass finished porcelain dial. This example also features Woerd's rare patented serrated compensating balance, shown in close-up in Figure 3B. In the centennial period, machine-made technical and decorative Waltham masterpieces like this watch won major international timing competitions against prestigious European makers. The profound impression these watches made on the leadership of the Swiss watchmaking industry changed horological history.

Attention is directed as well to the other direct offspring of the Boston Watch Company, E. Howard & Company, whose unique and eccentric production philosophy emphasizing quality, skilled finishing, and experimentation has made the products of this company beloved among modern collectors. The birth and demise of this fascinating enterprise coincide roughly with the beginning and the conclusion of the nineteenth century transformation of American watchmaking from a traditional craft to a modern, mass production industry. With their individual character, high craft content, and designs juxtaposing modern and traditional elements, no more quintessential symbol of this historic transition is to be found than E. Howard & Company watches. Dr. Clint Geller, author of four previous Bulletin articles on Howard watches, will discuss the development and evolution of the E. Howard & Company 3/4 plate movement beginning in 1862, showing how Howard's quest for excellence was expressed in his watch products. Based on a wealth of diverse data, he will elucidate in detail the heretofore inadequately documented and poorly understood grading system employed by E. Howard & Company on their early 3/4-plate movements. Mike Harrold and banquet speaker Tom McIntyre then join Clint and moderator Dr. Snowden Taylor for a panel discussion, with audience participation, comparing and contrasting the personal philosophies of three of the most celebrated and influential figures in early American watchmaking: Edward Howard, Aaron L. Dennison, and Royal E. Robbins.

Figure 4, left. E. Howard & Company Model 1862 ("Series III") 3/4-plate movement, S# 15,703, circa 1866-67, with 15 jewels, train plate jewels in screwed down settings, exposed stopwork, Mershon's patented compound rack and pin regulator, temperature-compensated bimetallic balance, and Reed's safety barrel with maintaining power. A very high grade example of the Howard Model 1862, and a scarce variety with gilt damascened finish. Howard watches like this were among the very earliest American watches to be adjusted to temperature, isochronism, and six physical positions. Photo by Harrold Visser

Figure 5, right. E. Howard & Company experimental side lever movement with helical hairspring, temperature-compensated bimetallic balance, unusual bar style plates, and 15 jewels in screwed down settings. S# 3,840, circa 1862, one of approximately eight Howard helical hairspring movements known, well exemplifies Edward Howard's penchant for technical experimentation. Photo by Ron Price

About the author:
Dr. Clint Geller is the founder of NAWCC Chapter 174, a national pocket watch research chapter of the NAWCC and a co-sponsor, with New England Chapter 8, of the 2002 National Seminar. Dr. Geller is General Chairman for the 2002 seminar, where he will present a talk based on his upcoming fifth article on E. Howard & Co. pocket watches.

* Article posted with permission from the June 2002 issue of the NAWCC Bulletin (Vol.44/3 No. 338) pages 358-360.