Document text
Francis Donovan
Thomaston, Connecticut
May 12, 1939.
CONNECTICUT CLOC+AICERS
From the simple dignity of Colonial style to the stream-
lined designs of modern age; from the painstaking, leisurely
methods of craftsmen.‘whose processes depended almost exclusively
upon the coordination of hand and eye.)to the robot labor of the
machine this in brief is the story of the clock industry
over the past century and a quarter as it is reflected at the
Seth Thomas plant, one of the first and one of the most famous
of the clock factories of New England.
Relatively gradual until recent years, the transitionj has,
153-e-eni accelerated with the advent of lthe depression, and the
merging of the old company into a large corporation. New methods,
new machines, and a system of work production entirely alien to
eloolqnaking tradition have revolutionized the industry at Seth
Thomas, r he past iseveral yearsAa subsidiary of the
i4 t t
General Times Instruments Corporation.
The clockizaker of the past, trained after aptitude tests
to a particular operation, made skillful by years of diligent
application[t_o his jobk is being replaced wherever possible by
younger workmenLadaptable to change, with the physical stamina
requisite for the operation of (t-grtrireliiiiiisachines
A Lfail greater percentage of work than would have been
thought;Ossible short years ago is now done by women and girls.
The emphasis is no longer upon craftsmanship, but upon speed,
proponents of the new system contending that the remarkable pre.
as a comparison is possible 4 the flamboyant Victorian architect-
ure.
In sharp contrast, both as to nomenclature and design, are
the clocks manufactured by the company today. The current
catalogue contains such models as the "Corona", the "Duplex"
I
combines a pen and pencil holder) the "Vista", the "Talson",
the "Delart", the "Anita", the "Verna", the "Banner", the "Janet",
the "Floret", the "Sunset", the "Vogue". These models are exotic-
ally modern, exert their appeal through such features as "recessed
dials", gol!ilated hands protected by convex glass, and silvered
metal mats. Retailing at prices ranging from seven to fifteen
dollars, they tare designed to blend harmoniously with the decorasq
raz; of the ;lira ii-oPIREiEnriaanlihave found a ready market.
There is also the "Delray63 with hour markers of "modern character",
silver plated; and the wilatindescribed in the catalogue as a
"distinctive clock in durable Ivory Catalin with stars to mark the
hours."
At the other extreme, the old.fashioned cabinet and wall
clocks, still popular with the conservative, have retained the
fine lines of the originals and remain little changed, even
mechanically. The tambour remains a highly popular model.
Recurrent demand for the old-fashioned types is notedben!i7fastroIiyi in i
the company catalogue.
Period Design Clocks Oat of the days of stage coaches
and hardy frontiersmen, and picturesque clipper ships, back
when a ruddy glow from the burning log in the massive fireplace
I added a note of cheer and comfort to the family circle came a
period of design with unusual charm and loveliness." (To which
_
the old employees of the company add a fervent Amen.
retaining outwardly at least the features of[Egi
early models are chimes and banjo clocks. One of the most
popular of the latter has a reproduction of Mount Vernon on
its cabinet, with a miniature of George Washington above,
aft
and the dial surmounted by ant esas wings wide spread.
_ J
Early catalogues are not available, but old employees of the
company declare this model was manufactured from their earliest
recollection.
A pamphlet distributed by the company describes briefly
the history of the clock industry in America. Ebenezer
Pamela, who began making clocks in his native town of Guilford
in 1712 was the first clo4aker in Connecticut and is known
'I as the father of clemaft king in the state. Parmelets clocks
contained brass works. After the Revolution brass was scarce
and cloekmakers turned to the use of wood.
In 1797, Eli Terry was granted the first clock mechanism
patent issued by the United States patent office. In 180814t.
.e/ ts,11 A ee,f.ttrl
-airs-xs-aitsumerng-aantsicat for the delivery of four
,..._
thousand clocks, and in the same year he made the first 500
clocks ever produced by machinery in this country. In 1814
Terry perfected a 30 -hour wooden shelf clock which made older
models obsolete. Those shelf clocks were turned out by the
hundreds. In 1808 a company formed by Seth Thomas, Eli Terry
and Thomas Headley manufactured one.day wooden clocks which
sold for eleven dollars; and Marsh and Gilbert in 1820 put on
the market an eight -day wooden wheel clock, beautifully carved
and expensive.
Eli Terry's tower clocks weretvery:popular and accurate.
An original Eli Terry clock with wooden works still operates
in the tower of the 1838 Congregational Church in Terryville*
just across the way from the Town Hall. When the Terry Tower
clocks became profitable merchandise* the Seth Thomas Clock
Company decided to enter that branch of the industry. Pur-
chasing the A. S. Hotchkiss Tower Clock Company of Williamsburg,
New York, in the early 1870's, the Seth Thomas firm first
attained fame by making the Centennial Clock for Independence
Hall in 1876. Tower Clocks for the Colgate Company in New Ybrk,
one with a forty -foot dial and another with a fifty -foot face*
are among the better known products of this firm.
Drastic changes in the industry came in 1837 when the art
of rolling brass into sheets was discovered* and in 1842 thou-
sands of 30 -hour movements of brass were being madejwith clocks
selling for $2.50. There followed a long and prosperous period
during which the styles in clocks, as previously described, be-
came somewhat heavy and ornate but the mechanics of the industry
remained comparatively stationary. The expansion of the business*
however* was directly responsible for the importation of
German cloclOakers, who even more than their Yankee predecessors*
adhered to the traditions of craftsmanship and:Who were regarded
in their time as artists of the trade.
Several of the company's pensioners recallk nostalgically*
the days when every operation in the manufacture of clocks
called far the skilled hand** the careful judgment of craftsmen
trained by their fathers in one particular phase of the work.
That the industry, or that portion of it exemplified by the
Thomaston concern, is still in a state of flux can be seen by
the fact that a number of operations known to 01°014:Makers
since the beginning of the industry on a large scale have
been made obsolete within the past two years.
"Wheel truing", for example, has been virtually abol-
ished. Wheels were once "staked" by hand, whereas today they
are turned out by a staking machine, operated, incidentally,
by a woman.
Says the company's pamphlet: "Modern clock movements
consist of a maze of wheels and pinions made on special high-
speed precision machines. The intricate mechanism requires
expert care and careful lubrication. Many pins and pinions
are so small that they cannot be examined and measured with
ordinary tools. A tool maker's microscope cheeks the parts
to a tolerance of one ten.thousandths of an inch. Gears are
machined from solid blanks on special gear -holding machines.
The foundation of a clock movement is two plates in which are
held all the pinions, wheels, escapements, etc. These plates
are drilled in pairs on multiple spindle drill presses, then,
with the drills acting as guides, countersinking spindles form
sockets in the plates.
"To the assembly line come thousands of parts all made to
fit identical clock movements. Parts are added as the move-
ment progresses along the line, and at the end the finished
movement is checked and adjusted for tolerances. After assembly
the clock movement is mounted in long lines and ran for a period
of time during which it is further checked and inspected."
These processes are in direct contrast to the time-honored
7
methods of olocl4naking which they have supplanted. It is a
r,
common assertion eilwthe clockmakers of the old school, for
example, that many of them could "put a clock together from
start to finish;" that if a particular tool was needed for
their work, it was not unusual for a man to take time off, go
to the tool roam and make it himself, rather than risk:mis-
understanding. This leisurely procedure was possible without
loss of money for the operator because in many cases he was
paid on a straight hourly basis, or because his piecework
price was high enough to enable him to take time off from his
operation and "make it up" later an in the day.
Under the Bedaux system, which has been in effect at the
company for more than three years, suoispir-preseelime-Tretwo.
ossible* This system, whichfhas changed the nature of the
ndustry at Seth Thomas with bewildering rapidity is declared\
y its sponsors to be the most efficient method yet devised
or the use of concerns paying their employees by "piecework."
t4 ilItrieflarr-the system (operates as follows "T‘ worker is
oarefullyttimed on every operation by men 1trained tfort eh 1
7os) by the company, allowance is made for adverse working
conditions, and a oprice"/ or piece -work scale, is determined
under which the job isLh!Roeforth done* There is a base rate
on each operatio5...La_nlaal hourly rate below which pay is
not supposed to falls but wotkere lain tha
_
7heen permitted to put ing flower rates. Formerly, the price was
established by the roam foreman after a period of experiment,
,a man usually well acquainted with all phases of the work)' and
workers contend that such a person is better qualified for the
itti-1
8
purpose than an office -trained clerk who has no actual bench
or machine experience*
I ----Union organizergliiiiiiiiia;;Iare encountering difficulty
_
in recruiting a sufficient number of workers from the large
bloc of female help* Many of oeejaii(working at their
tt ec_ie
lb:trot factory jobs, are gn''' bitp-10412rignorance oflunions, their
;aims and operationamuirSiii-lreaiiiatedi 'by orggalspra
Satisfied with small pay, and heedless of requests to attend
union meetings, these younger women workers, who at present
comprise a large percentage of theL!!!!!1!!_rnglforce,
cannot be overlooked by organizers if the fifty-one per cent
of the factory personnel necessary to the granting of a union
charter is to be obtained*
tic cat54
The installation of the,system three years ago was
bitterly opposed by many of the workers and a local union was
formed which after several ineffectual parleys with company
officials effected a short-lived strike* A number of adjust-
ments were made, and the strikers returned to woilk, but the
union shortly thereafter passed out of existence* Dissatis-
faction has again crystallized and at this writing an attempt
is being made to form a union as an affiliate of the American
Federation of Labor*
e t`'
e Bedaux systemtit mentioned in passing solely
1-Tfatritic effect on the industry and -ti
date treatise could well ignore it*I
because
cording to common report
'which indubitably has basis n in3 other clo
areeiiiing-clO-seiTtreloperationIaf the system
king concerns
and its
eventual installation in neighboring clock factories (at Bristol)
-Vvrelleh-t&nlithe industry.
4_44
is not impossible.
That cloolii6akers of the old school should be actively opposed
to a system so foreign to everything which they had been taught
canj:6--CiiiCedi-lbe wondered at. Unable to adjust themselves to the
speed which is a requisite of the new method* firm in the belief
that good clocks can be made only under the old system* they have
presented a problem which the company has met by a retirement
planiw lies rapidly decimating their number at the factory.
They gather now in little groups upon the streets of the town
or in selected hangouts to discuss gloomily that6M di Iwhich
While allowance must be made for the bitterness with which
the old timers of the industry view sweeping change, their belief
that the work of the craftsmen was more solid and enduring is
worthy of consideration. Instances where clocks of the old regime
have given satisfactory service for fifty years and more have
been recorded recently in the local press.
Their wholesale condemnation of modern methods* however*
overlooks such extenuating circumstances as changing business
conditions'a competition which is fiercer today than at any
time in the history of clock manufacture* and a constantly narrow-
ing market.
Worthy of note also, as a precursor of the new trend* is the
fact that new "hands,"1 hired in recent months have been almost
exclusively girls and boys in their teens. Company officials
have made no open declaration of policy* but are reportedly seek-
ing younger workers because of their plasticity their greater
adaptability to requirements of the system.. Female labor is like..
10
wise more in the ascendant today than at any previous time,
inasmuch as many jobs formerly suitable only for men are now
t 4
done with relative ease by women machineseperatere. Rates of
pay for woman workers average ten cents per hour less than
those of men, and this factor has acted as a depressant upon
the prosperity of the town.
Prior to the merger of the company, exchange of workers
with other clocnking concerns was a common occurrence/ but
due to the general tightening of the employment situation, the
policy of "local help first" adopted by several neighboring
manufacturers, and the lessening demand for the "craftsman"
type of worker, this practice is rapidly disappearing.
One of the larger factories still favoring, more or less,
traditional methods of clock manufacture is the Ingraham Company
of Bristol, and this plant in former years absorbed many Seth
Thomas trained men. A catch phrase of the craft in years gone
by was "Seth Thomas trains tam and Ingrahams hires tem." It
6
was also the proud boast of the local compintwas the equivalent
of a ticket to immediate employment in any clock factory in the
country.
picture has been changed notably with respect to the
Ingraham company during the past year. Although a number of
Seth Thomas trained workers are still employed at the Bristol
plant, many were laid off during a recent business lulljin order
that Bristol help might be retained. Those remaining were given
to understand that they would be more kindly regarded by the
company if henceforth they made their homes in Bristol.
At the Seth Thomas factory as has been pointed_ the
installation of the new system, with its jPrePondei'arJ emphasis
on machine work, has reduced to a minimum the demand forit;e7
worker trained in the old-fashioned way. Thus, the influx of
A
workers from neighboring clock companues has been less during
the yast three years than ever before.
At the same time there has been a considerable increase
in the number of clerical workers and technicians, and many
of these persons have been sent to Thomaston from other subs.
sidiaries of the General Times Instruments Corporations. The
company maintains a research department, a modernized sales
and advertising department, and has installed a "personnel"
manager who interviews prospective employees and acts as a
buffer between the help and executive offices. This is a de-
parture from the old methods under which a man was usually
hired directly by the foreman of a roam, who obtained first
the sanction of the superintendent.
These innovations are viewed with immeasurabl acorn by
the old cloc4makers, who point out that an office force number-
ing less than a dozen persons was deemed sufficient "in the
good old days," when, they assert, the total number of employees
was greater than at present.
College --trained men are comparatively numerous, whereas
in former years it was unusual for any but major executives to
have had more than high school education. The present foreman
of the plating roam, for example, is a graduate of Sheffield
Scientific School, Yale University, Many of the office employees
are younger men who have majored in business administration at
nationally known universities, the company apparently favoring
-12
this type of applicant over the graduate of the old.fashioned
business school. But these bright young men aretal7held in
contempt by the ousted clockmakers."What do they know about
the clock business? All theory)-. that's all, just theory."
Company paternalism today is an impersonal, long...distance
business* compared to the almost feudal type of employee
employer relationship of the past. The late Aaron Thomas*
known to his workmen affectionately as "The Old Man" exemplified
to a high degree this paternalistic quality. Mr. Thomas took
exceptional interest in the affairs of his employees; it was
not uncommon for him to assist them in a quiet* unostentatious
way in times of financial stress, and his gifts to the town in
which he was born and spent his life were many. In tribute to
"the Old Man," the entire working force of the factory accom-
panied his funeral cortege to the cemetery JbirTb on the day
of his burial.
Thus a relationship which undoubtedly proved of advantage
to the company has vanished* and in its stead there is the
vague shadow of the corporation, huge* impersonal, intangible*
and to the average worker* judged from informal conversations*
somewhat sinister.
To encourage the feeling of fellowship between employees*
the traditional "happy family" ideal* the company has organized
softball and bowling leagues* and intra-department athletic
contests of varied types. Athletic associations which are also
active socially have also been formed for both men and women*
and there is a foremanss association holds weekly meetings
at which there is invariably a guest speaker and entertainment.
-13
All this furnished the 01°04/makers of the old regime
with material for sardonic comment* but the young recruits
to the industry for wham it was primarily instituted have
been enthusiastic.
All but lost in the shuffle has been the Tower Department*
the activity of which is now at an all time low. Occupying
astonishingly little space in the company's big new building*
as compared with former years, and with only a handful of
employees assigned to the work* this once important department
is close to the vanishing point. Orders for new tower clocks
are few* though there is considerable repair work. Tower clocks
manufactured by Seth Thomas since the inception of this branch
of the business in 1870 literally girdle the globe* having been
sent to more than a hundred different countries, Whether the
decreasing demand for this type of clock is due to business
slump or is symptomatic of the approaching demise of the tower
clock industry is problematic. It will be recalled that Seth
Thomas has manufactured the largest tower clocks in the world*
including the famous Colgate clock, which weighs more than
four tons.
A type of clock unknown in former years* however* but which
now furnishes one of the most important sources of revenue for
the concern* is the popular electrically -impelled movement.
After an experimental period which preceded by a few years the
absorption of Seth Thomas by the western corporation* the factory
succeeded in producing a successful electric movement. These
movements are constructed with comparatively few parts* the
motor being the important element, and arefinettmekeepers.
It was thought by many that they would entirely supplant the
spring movement* but there is a steady demand for the latter
variety which makes this development unlikely. The electries
have* however* to some extent out into the production of the
spring -wind movements with a proportionately bad effect on the
skilled cloclimakers.
Further products of the modern age are various devices
requiring clock mechanisms* such as fire alarms* water meters*
timers of different types* lock works and the like* which
serve to palliate to a certain extent the havoc wrought by
radical change.
In summation* it may be stated that the greatest change
ginning of the economic debacle* and it is
has come within the fast ten years* or roughly* since the be.
in the cloclfraking industry in this representative
I
emialeobvious
t1that the primary cause of change has been the depression.
The sale of the old concern* previously in the hands of one
family for its entire existence* with the resulting disappear4-
ance of the more personal type of employer -employee relation.
ship; the institution of the Bedaux system with its emphasis
on speed as opposed to leisurely methods; the manufacture of
exotic types of clocks in an effort to catch a vitiated public
fancy; the employment of young girls and boys in increasing
numbers and the retirement of skilled clodkmakers* all have
been the result of economic expediency.
It seams likely that another ten years will see the passing
of clociiirring of the old type entirely* even in those few
companies now retaining the old methods of manufacture* and the
-15
cloc
er as a craftsman will exist only in the memories of
a few ancient pensioners scattered throug.hout the Connecticut
towns and cities where clocks have been made for nearly one
hundred and fifty years,