The Auburndale Watch Company

The Auburndale Watch Company - First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch

The life of the pioneer has always been arduous. Not all succeed, and many disappear leaving no trace on the pages of history. Here, painstaking search has uncovered enough of the record to permit us to review the errors of design and manufacture that brought failure to the first attempt to produce a really cheap pocket watch. This paper is based on a study of the patent model of the Auburndale rotary and other products of the company in the collections of the National Museum, and of other collections, including that of the author. The study comprises part of the background research for the hall of timekeeping in the Museum of History and Technology. The idea of a machine-made watch with interchangeable parts had been in the minds of many men for a long time. Several attempts had been made to translate this conception into a reality. Success crowned the efforts of those working near Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1850s. The work done there formed the basis on which American watch making grew to such a point that by the 1870s watches of domestic manufacture had captured nearly all the home market and were reaching out and capturing foreign markets as well. In spite of this great achievement there remained a large untapped potential market for a watch which would combine the virtues of close time keeping and a lower selling price. Only a radical departure in design could achieve this. Rivalry between the several existing companies had already produced an irreducible minimum price on watches of conventional design. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 29934
Author: Battison, Edwin A.
Release Date: Sep 8, 2009
Format: eBook
Language: English