New Haven Clock Company

Making Time

Lost in New Haven holds an extensive collection of clocks, watches and gadgets produced by the New Haven Clock Company across its over one-hundred-year existence. The clock company is a fascinating case study of urban history as the very process of industrialization and its enormous social implications in many ways drove the demand for its product. As industrial capitalism revolutionized labor, it became increasingly important for the common person to precisely keep time. In addition to the onset of the railroad era, industrial labor presented a seismic shift in the relationship between people and time. 

Laborers punching out at the Ford Motor Company. Source: Getty Images

As you move deeper into Lost in New Haven, you will find beneath a mounted Winchester rifle a small collection of artifacts that speak to the working conditions of the industrial laborer. This collection comes from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, an armament manufacturer that was active in New Haven from 1866 to 2006. 

The first artifact to note is the large punch clock. Industrial laborers were expected to adhere to strict shift schedules with long working hours. Such conditions called for each moment of the day to be accounted for. The next artifacts of note in this collection are the two historic photographs of the factory workers which offer a glimpse into the New Haven manufacturing workplace. Finally, these artifacts all rest upon a work table and bench that were salvaged from a local site of industry. Together, this selection of artifacts characterizes both the labor conditions of a facility like the New Haven Clock Company and the type of industrial capitalism that brought time keeping into everyday life.

The clock face department at New Haven Clock Company. Source: Carolyn Cooper, New Haven Clock Company Catalog 169 (found in “Carriages and Clocks, Corsets and Locks: The Rise and Fall of an Industrial City”)
The location of the Winchester Repeating Arms (upper left) and New Haven Clock Company (lower right) factories are annotated over this 1909 map of New Haven from the City Improvement Committee. This map prepared by Cass Gilbert and Frederick Law Olmsted appears to propose a ring of green spaces to counter the sprawling industrial city at the height of its manufacturing power. Source: New Haven (Conn.). Civic Improvement Committee. City of New Haven map.. BRBL_00473A. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/15827715.

Sources:

E. P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” Past & Present, Volume 38, Issue 1, December 1967, Pages 56–97, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/38.1.56.

Paul Bass, “Winchester’s Lost History Comes Alive,” New Haven Independent, October 30, 2020, https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/winchester_factory_community_book.

“The Hours in Lowell: The Manufacturing Establishments of New England,” Voice of Industry, June 26, 1845, https://www.industrialrevolution.org/10-hours-featured#tenhoursinlowell.

 

The pendulum clock of the New Haven Clock Company can also be located within a narrative of the transformation of the company, its products and its market throughout the years. These different historical stages of the company can be traced in the collection of clocks in Lost in New Haven. From the pendulum clocks to missile timers, the variety of products tells its story of time-making, from its boom in the 1880s to its eventual bankruptcy in the 1950s. The New Haven Clock Company was incorporated in 1853 by American clockmaker Chauncey Jerome. The company’s most enduring product is the pendulum mantel clock as shown on the top shelf of the display. These beautiful clocks were in production since the very beginning of the company for almost 100 years! As the business grew, the company started producing more delicate and portable timepieces such as pocket watches in the 1880s and wrist watches in the 1910s. This shift in production was tuned to a market that was integrating timekeeping deeper into the social realm and closer to the body. At this time, the company was hiring more than 600 workers, mostly immigrants from Ireland and Italy. By the start of WWII, the company was employing 1500 workers and producing more than 3 million timepieces per year. This period of extensive growth can be seen in the mantle clocks of the collection.

During the second world war, clock production was halted and the company pivoted its manufacturing capacity toward military products. Among them were timers for missile detonations and electrical and mechanical time switches to be used in mines. The wartime period brought an enormous disruption to manufacturing and to the market. These changes permanently shifted the trajectory of the company and its New Haven presence.

 

 

After the war ended in 1945, the company’s name was changed to New Haven Clock and Watch Company, likely in an effort to abate new global watchmaking competitors. The methods of assembly that were developed in the wartime period were positioned toward the massive shift in consumer activity that followed the war. To revive the business of consumer clocks and watches, the company started producing small, colorful, plastic clocks and watches that would appeal to a larger audience. This line of products also sought out cultural references, as seen in the Oreo cookie clock and the comic strip wrist watches. Additionally, the company attempted to enter the automobile clock market as private vehicle ownership soared. However, as markets globalized and large competitors swallowed the market, the company’s financial difficulties worsened resulting in bankruptcy in 1956. The decline of the company is also reflected in the surrounding urban context as urban renewal began to clear the vestiges of the industrial city.

Sanborn Insurance Maps from 1924, 1960, and 1973. Source: Sanborn-Perris Map Co., issuing body. Insurance Maps of New Haven, Connecticut. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/11188891.

While the end of the New Haven Clock Company parallels the broader industrial decline in New Haven, the factory provided a space for an ever-changing cast of characters working and living in the crumbling remains of the former factory. For more than fifty years, the factory saw a host of underground activities occupying various corners of the building. A group of artists, the Paper Mache Video Institute, occupied the north corner of the factory and used it as exhibition and workshop space since 1978.

In the early 1980s, a group of mime artists led by Dimitri Rimsky called Petaluers turned part of the factory into Hamilton Street Lofts, an artist’s live/work community. A few full-scale models of the loft were built and still remain on the top floor of the north wing.

Between 1985 and 1995, there existed in the southwest corner two clubs, the Brick N’ Wood and Kurt’s 2, the former being a R&B club and the latter being the largest LGBTQ club in Connecticut at the time.

After the closing of Kurt’s 2 in 1995, the building became a strip club with multiple names and ownership until its closing in 2019. In this photo taken after the bar had closed, we can see a counter not dissimilar to the one found in Lost in New Haven. Similarly, in this 1911 Saloon Map we can see the vast network of social life that supported the industrial laborers in factories such as this. The artifacts of this labor-supporting social life are visible throughout the Lost in New Haven space, yet, interestingly, after the industrial facilities were shuttered, this social life moved into the very buildings that once were the site of labor. When talking about the history of the New Haven Clock Company, people usually mention its heroic past of designing time. However, these informal settlers were the de facto stewards of the building that kept it alive for more than half a century.

Source: Saloon Map of New Haven. 1911. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/15827725.

 

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