Watchmaking in the United States
Watchmaking in the United States.—The following remarkable statements we clip from an article in the N. Y. Tribune of June 19. They show the marvelous progress already made in this country in the finer branches of industry. All these things tend to familiarize the world with American skill and genius, and give power and prestige to the American name. Thus they contribute though indirectly toward preparing our country to act its part in the great prophetic drama. The article commences thus: What is the time? American, decidedly. Ten years ago it was Swiss, or English, or French. Now, ask your nearest live, progressive, patriotic neighbor. The watch he pulls out in reply is labeled, not “Geneva,” nor “Liverpool,” nor “Versailles,” but “Waltham, Massachusetts.” Foreign watches are made by hand, no two exactly alike; each an individual; each subject to the nerves, caprice, idiosyncrasies of the maker. But our manufacturers began by making a watch like a steam-engine—solely by machinery, and with exact uniformity of parts. They have advanced steadily, learning, improving, perfecting, year by year. Their idea was purely American; their machines have all been invented, made, and run by Americans. All have originated with their own employees, just as the most ingenious improvements in California and Idaho quartz-mills spring from the working mechanics and miners. Indeed, the company are satisfied that the reason why we can make watches by machinery while no other nation can, lies in the average native ingenuity of the American mind. The nice minuteness of these machines is incredible. It is the crowning miracle of modern mechanism. The little scales in our national mints will weigh 1-5,000th part of an ounce of gold; but these automaton watch-makers are greater marvels. Here are instruments cutting threads, invisible to the naked eye, in screws of which 300,000 weigh only a pound! Here are exquisite sapphire knives, cutting metallic shavings of which 5,000 are required to make one inch in thickness! Here are microscopic diamond drills, boring into jewels, holes like a needle point! Here are inventions for measuring as well—machines which determine the 1-10,000th part of an inch, in pivot or jewel-hole, as easily and unerringly as the carpenter’s rule measures one foot on a stick of timber! The factory in Waltham is in a quiet enclosure of seventy acres, far from noise and dust. It is an immense structure, more than 300 feet long, with wings and cross-wings, inclosing great quadrangular courts. Its rooms are light and cheery, like parlors rather than the old close, foul, quarters of operatives. Three-quarters of a mile of work benches. Seven miles of steam, gas, and water pipes. Seven hundred and fifty employees under the ten-hour system. One-third are women. Hand-work implies variety. Machinery implies uniformity. It is mathematical, precise, like the operations of Nature. In a bushel of these most delicate pinions or wheels, for any given size of the American watch, each is exactly like all the rest. That is the theory. It proves strictly true with this qualification. In polishing an infinitesimal pivot, a tool may be slightly worn, or other cause imperceptible to the senses, may cause a microscopic variation in the cunning mechanism which your waistcoat pocket is to carry—a variation very shadowy, but still enough to make you just too late for the Washington train, or for paying your note at the Eighty-seventh National Bank. Therefore, each pivot is not only carefully fitted and adjusted in its place, but accurately measured by these miraculous machines, and a record made of its dimensions. So, when, in any part of the world, a pinion or jewel breaks, by sending the number of your watch to the manufacturers you receive through return mail a new wheel to replace the old, with absolute certainty that it will fit. And so with any piece. The American watch has some obvious advantages. It is American, from Alpha to Omega. It is cheaper at first cost than foreign competitors. It is simpler; it contains less than half as many pieces, and every new piece involves a new liability to break. It is easier of repair. Beside, the higher grades are warranted perpetually against all mishaps arising from any original defect or weakness. And it bids fair to be more durable. The business, which was bankrupt in 1857, has grown so rapidly that eight years later the Company manufactures 80,000 watches annually. It turns out a complete watch during every two-and-a-half minutes of the working day! The single factory in Massachusetts, under one roof, one supervision, produces more watches annually than all the watchmakers of old England combined! This tells the story. The laws of demand and supply are unfailing registers. Other watch factories are beginning to spring up, East and West; but the American Company of Waltham is the pioneer; and thus far practically, it has occupied the field alone. Its history marks the origin and growth of an important branch of our national manufactures. It not only proves that Americans alone can make watches by machinery; but watches which are cheaper, simpler, more durable, and keep better time, than the same foreign grades. It is American skilled industry, working by machinery and well paid, steadily displacing European skilled industry, working by hand, and ill paid. Most American watches are consumed at home, though orders begin to come in from Cuba and South America. But sooner or later we shall furnish pocket time-keepers for the world. It is Manifest Destiny.