12/25/2023 0 Comments Waltham pocket watch![]() ![]() Waltham established the “American System of Watch Manufacturing,” a patented process that would eventually be adopted by Swiss clock- and watchmakers. Their collaboration would later become the Waltham Watch Company, maker of the first-ever mass-produced watches. Until the mid-19th century, watches were made like other artisanal goods, with most parts being fashioned one at a time, then assembled, to make an individual timepiece.ĭavid Davis, Edward Howard, and Aaron Dennison turned watchmaking on its head in the 1850s when they developed a plan for manufacturing their products on an assembly line with 100 percent interchangeable parts, a method based on the mass production of clocks, rifles, and other precision goods that had begun at the dawn of the 19th century and would finally be fully embraced during the Civil War. By the Middle Ages, the mechanical clock had been invented, but the pocket watch didn’t really exist until the 1600s. Timekeeping reaches back to the sundial of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. I’m referring of course to the pocket watch, and some of the finest examples were made by the Waltham Watch Company in Waltham, Massachusetts. To reveal them required that now-familiar reach into one’s clothing and the flip of a cover. Because more than 100 years ago, before the wristwatch was ever invented, time and its keeper were held precious, tucked away, close to the body. The gesture seems thoroughly modern, but it’s actually nostalgic. If you ask someone for the time these days, you’ll likely find that instead of checking his wrist, he reaches into a pocket and flips open his cell phone. From 1852 to 1957, Waltham produced more than 40 million of the highest-quality pocket watches.
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