Clocks · Alarm clock
Alarm Clock - Jerome & Co, Connecticut, c. 1850
- Maker / attribution
- Jerome & Co (Maker)
- Date
- c. 1850
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- United States
- Place
- New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
- Object type
- Alarm clock
- Dimensions
- 18 cm (Length), 9.5 cm (Width), 25 cm (Height)
- Holding institution
- Museums Victoria, Melbourne
- Accession / object no.
- ST 19358
- Catalogue title (original)
- Alarm Clock - Jerome & Co, Connecticut, circa 1850 (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number ST 19358), this is an alarm clock by Jerome & Co, made in New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America, dated c. 1850. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Clocks collection. Recorded dimensions: 18 cm (Length), 9.5 cm (Width), 25 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, black wooden case with gable top, Jerome & Co, New Haven, Connecticut, circa 1850. Chauncey Jerome developed new manufacturing techniques, including brass stamping of gears, that greatly expanded the mass-production of cheap clocks in the United States.
Physical description — Museums Victoria
Black wooden case with gable top and gilt design on door. Brass dial for setting alarm. Spring wound. Has a device to prevent over-winding. A star- like wheel fixed on the winding arbor has one tooth longer than the others and gears into another similar wheel with smaller equal teeth on the Geneva stop principle. The number of turns in winding is the same as the number of teeth on the star- wheel and then the longer tooth jams into the smaller space between the teeth of the other wheel.
Provenance
Loan & Subsequent Bequest from Mr John Askew, 23 Apr 1928
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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