Clocks · Alarm clock
Alarm Clock - Ansonia Clock Co, 1880s
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1880s
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Alarm clock
- Dimensions
- 13 cm (Length), 8 cm (Width), 17 cm (Height)
- Holding institution
- Museums Victoria, Melbourne
- Accession / object no.
- ST 19746
- Catalogue title (original)
- Alarm Clock - Ansonia Clock Co, 1880s (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number ST 19746), this is an alarm clock, dated 1880s. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: 13 cm (Length), 8 cm (Width), 17 cm (Height). The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Summary — Museums Victoria
Alarm clock, 'Peep O Day' carriage clock, Ansonia Clock Co, 1880s. Founded in 1850, Ansonia manufactured their mass-produced and inexpensive clocks in both Ansonia, Connecticut and Brooklyn, New York.
Physical description — Museums Victoria
The nickel on brass metal case is embossed and plated on the front with Father Time. Has glass panels and a handle. Behind the metal front there is a willow pattern scene on cardboard. A cardboard dial is stuck in front of this scene. Spring wound; lever escapement.
Inscriptions & marks
Back of case is marked 'Trade Mark Peep O Day Carriage' and 'Patented June 8, 1880'.
Provenance
Loan & Subsequent Bequest from Mr John Askew, 24 Aug 1982
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Factory production transformed the clock into an everyday object. American makers (Seth Thomas, Ansonia, Waterbury) and German factories (Junghans, Gustav Becker, Lenzkirch) sold millions of shelf, wall and alarm clocks worldwide; France produced standardised Paris movements and carriage clocks; electric time distribution began.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
Atlas type guide
Alarm clocks
Alarm work is among the oldest clock functions: monastic clocks woke monks for night prayers, and Renaissance table clocks often carried an alarm disc set by a pin. A separate spring or weight is released at the set time and drives a hammer against a bell. Some early alarms also lit a candle by striking a flint — the 'tinder pistol' alarm.
The cheap, mass-produced alarm clock arrived in the second half of the nineteenth century. American firms such as Seth Thomas and Westclox (the 'Big Ben' of 1910) and German makers such as Junghans and Kienzle made millions of drum-shaped alarms with pin-pallet escapements. Electric, quartz and digital alarm clocks followed in the twentieth century.
What to look for
- A separate alarm-setting dial or disc and an extra winding key.
- Twin bells on top (common after c. 1920) or a bell enclosed in the base.
- Pin-pallet escapements in inexpensive factory alarms.
- Trademarks and patent dates on dial or back.
Dating clues
- Renaissance alarm table clocks: sixteenth to seventeenth centuries.
- Drum alarm clocks: from the 1870s.
- Luminous dials with radium paint: c. 1910–1960.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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