WATCHMAKING, Modern. It is an ac cepted fact of borological history that the port able mechanism from which has been evolved the modern pocket watch had its origin in Ger many. And until the last half of the 19th cen tury the watchmaking industry was confined to a few European countries, particularly to Switz erland and England.
The methods employed by all European watchmakers involve a great degree of indi vidual skill on the part of the various work men, a skill which can be acquired only by years of application and experience. But as it is the custom in the watchmaking districts of Europe for the children of a family to adopt the line of work pursued by the parents, the acquisition of superior manual dexterity would tend to be both natural and easy. Such skill would, however, he within narrow limns. For instance, the members of a certain family would ra for succeeding generations be engaged in the realties of a given piece or portion of the watch, one faintly making wheels, another reg ulators, another dials, etc. The several pans produced by these various families being brought together by still others, who fitted them beach other end :sold them in the form of eololated -watches. Practically the same to aids went in use is the watchmaking dis tricts of England. But while watchmalthog in England has to a great extent declined. the Swiss are still largely engaged in the business, but their methods have been materially modi fied through the introduction of' American machines.
It may be properly said that Europeans made watches by long-used methods, while Ameri cans made a radical departure from established ways and originated a system, the foundation of which may be briefly stated as the substitu tion of impersonal machines for the acquired skill of the individual workman. A half cen tury of continued growth has given practical demonstration of the correctness of the theory on which this system was founded. It is con ceded to have had its theoretical origin in the mind of Aaron L Dennison, a young Boston watchmaker, who in 1849, after months of planning and endeavor, succeeded in enlisting the co-operation of Edward Howard and his partner, makers of accurate instruments of various forms. Having secured capital to the amount of $13,000, they built a small factory in Roxbury, where about four years was spent in preliminary work and in the production of a few hundred watches. In 1854 a new factory
was built in Waltham, Mass., about 10 miles from Boston. This factory, after numerous changmand additions, now exists as the oldest watch factory in America and the largest in the world. Here really began the manufacture of watches on what is now known as the American system, so that it may fairly be said that modern watchmaking belongs peculiarly, if not exclusively, to America. We have said that the American system of watch manufacture em ployed machines as a substitute for the ac quired skill of the individual workmen. The foundation of the system is that of practical uniformity in the form and dimensions of large numbers of any given parts of watch move ments, so as to permit of interchangeability.
Manufacturing on the basis of interchange ability may be said to have been in its infancy at the middle of the last century. Doubtless that system had its finest exponent at the time in the United States armory at Speingfield. Mass., where were manufactured muskets for the use of the army. Mr. Dennison believed that, notwithstanding the diminutive character of watch parts, as compared with muskets, it would be possible, by the employment of suit able machines, to manufacture large numbers of such parts of such exact uniformity as to be readily interchangeable. The original American watch factory was therefore planned on that theory. But to fully equip a watch factory with tools and machines capable of producing work in that systematic way, would involve the em ployment of very large capital The original factory was not fortunate enough to command sufficient confidence of capitalists to enable it to do more than make a beginning, but accom plished enough to demonstrate the practicability of the system. Its development has, however. been continuous, until at the present time machine watchmaking has to a limited extent been adopted in Switzerland, while the old methods of manufacture in England have de clined to such an extent that there now remains bin a small per cent of the former business.