The Watch Factories of America: Past and Present

In just a few short years, a small band of mechanical geniuses & daring entrepreneurs transformed the American watchmaking industry from small-scale production by a few skilled artisans into the bustling factories of Waltham and Elgin, turning out millions of watches each year. Written by Henry G. Abbott, a contemporary of the founding fathers of American watchmaking, The Watch Factories of America tells the story of this transformation.

Originally published in 1888, the book covers American watchmaking from 1809 through 1888—written by an industry insider in the very year it covers, before the consolidations and failures of the 1890s and 1900s reshaped the surviving narrative. It is organized factory by factory across roughly twenty-seven chapters, with biographical sketches of the organizers, founding dates, the grades of movements produced, and at least some production figures. Coverage runs from Aaron L. Dennison and Luther Goddard through the American Waltham Watch Co., E. Howard, the Newark, Cornell, Marion, and United States watch companies, and on to Elgin, Illinois, Rockford, and Waterbury. Roughly fifty engravings are scattered through the text. (Hamilton, incorporated in late 1892, falls outside the period and is not included.)

“Henry G. Abbott” was the pen name of George Henry Abbott Hazlitt (1858–1905), proprietor of the Chicago horological publishing house behind much of the standard American horological reference shelf of the period, including the multi-edition Abbott’s American Watchmaker and Jeweler encyclopedia. An essential first stop for collectors and historians of 19th-century American watchmaking.