Pocket Watches · Watch
Watch by Keller, Helen, Switzerland, ca 1865
- Maker / attribution
- Keller, Helen (associated person); Rossel & Fils (maker)
- Date
- ca 1865
- Historical period
- Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
- Country of origin
- Switzerland
- Place
- Switzerland
- Object type
- Watch
- Dimensions
- gold (watch case material); brass (watch movement material); gold-plated, copper alloy, porcelain-enamel, glass (overall material); overall, watch: 2 5/8 in x 1 7/8 in x 1/2 in; 6.6675 cm x 4.7625 cm x 1.27 cm; overall, case: 2 1/2 in x 2 1/2 in x 3/4 in; 6.35 cm x 6.35 cm x 1.905 cm
- Holding institution
- National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
- Accession / object no.
- ME.335239
- Credit line
- Phillips Brooks Keller & Mrs. Gordon Erwin
- Catalogue title (original)
- Helen Keller's Watch
Record summary
Held and catalogued by National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC (object number ME.335239), this is a watch by Keller, Helen, made in Switzerland, dated ca 1865. The Atlas places it in the Industrial Revolution period (1850 – 1900) of its Pocket Watches collection. Recorded dimensions: gold (watch case material); brass (watch movement material); gold-plated, copper alloy, porcelain-enamel, glass (overall material); overall, watch: 2 5/8 in x 1 7/8 in x 1/2 in; 6.6675 cm x 4.7625 cm x 1.27 cm; overall, case: 2 1/2 in x 2 1/2 in x 3/4 in; 6.35 cm x 6.35 cm x 1.905 cm. The record is illustrated with 4 photographs.
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
Description
This unusual watch, originally made to tell time in the dark, made the perfect present for Helen Keller. Deaf and blind from the age of nineteen months, Keller (1880-1968) grew up to become an accomplished writer and renowned champion for human rights.
Description
In 1892, when she was twelve, Keller met John Hitz, the superintendent of Alexander Graham Bell's Washington, D.C. establishment for the deaf, the Volta Bureau. Hitz, a retired diplomat, was the proud owner of a Swiss-made "touch watch." This uncommon watch has a case studded around the edge with pins that correspond to the hours on the watch dial. A revolving hand stops at a point between the pins that corresponds to the hour and approximate minute. With the hand and pins as locators, it was possible to feel the approximate time in the dark or, in the case of a diplomat like Hitz, discreetly. Hitz presented the watch to Keller, who prized it and used it her entire life.
Description
Once, in 1952, Keller accidentally left the watch behind in a New York City taxi. She feared it was lost forever. With ads in newspaper lost-and-found columns and the help of the head of the city's pawnbrokers, she recovered her prized possession from a hock shop.
Historical context
Industrial Revolution (1850 – 1900)
American interchangeable-parts manufacture; railroad time standards; Swiss and German factory systems.
Machine production with interchangeable parts, pioneered by Waltham (1850s) and adopted by Elgin, Longines, Omega and others, made reliable lever watches widely affordable. Keyless winding became standard, railroad watch standards were introduced (1890s), and Swiss and American industries competed globally.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Precision & Scientific Horology
Atlas type guide
Pocket watches
The pocket watch was the dominant personal timekeeper from the late seventeenth century until the First World War. Its development tracks the history of the escapement: verge watches with fusees until the late eighteenth century; Thomas Mudge's lever escapement (c. 1755) and the cylinder escapement popularised by George Graham and later by Swiss makers; and the Swiss and English lever watches of the nineteenth century. Lépine's bar-bridge calibre and keyless winding made watches thinner and easier to use.
Industrialisation transformed the trade: American factories such as Waltham (from 1850) and Elgin produced interchangeable parts by machine, and Swiss makers responded with their own mechanisation after the 1876 Philadelphia Exhibition. By 1900 a reliable watch was affordable to millions; the finest makers continued to produce complications and precision watches.
What to look for
- The escapement: verge (crown wheel), cylinder, duplex, English or Swiss lever.
- Key winding (a square arbor in dial or back) or keyless crown winding.
- Signatures and serial numbers on the movement, dial and inside case back.
- Hallmarks, case maker's marks and gold or silver standards stamped in the case.
- Dial material: enamel, silver, gold, later printed metal.
Dating clues
- Verge watches dominate before c. 1800; cylinder watches c. 1770–1900; lever watches after c. 1820.
- Keyless winding: increasingly common after c. 1860.
- Manufacturer serial number lists exist for Waltham, Elgin, Longines, Omega, Patek Philippe and others.
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.
Read next:Verge escapementDetached lever escapementFuseeIdentification Centre
Related records
Pocket Watches · 1801-1900
Pocket watch, Switzerland, 1801-1900
Science Museum Group, London
Pocket Watches · 1801-1900
Swiss or French movement with horizontal escapement including "Jumper" mechanism, damaged (cylinder broken), incomplete (dial etc. missing) no.390, 1801-1900
Science Museum Group, London
Pocket Watches · 1818–1902
Pocket watch, Switzerland, 1818–1902 (Sörmland Museum SLM_item_305547)
Sörmland Museum
Pocket Watches · 1818–1902
Pocket watch, Switzerland, 1818–1902 (Sörmland Museum SLM_item_305548)
Sörmland Museum
Pocket Watches · ca. 1850
Watch by Eugène Bornand, Switzerland, ca. 1850
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Pocket Watches · circa 1850-1870
A. Golay Leresche watch, circa 1850-1870
Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva
Pocket Watches · 1850
Pocket watch by D Bachelard et Fils, Switzerland, 1850
German Clock Museum
Pocket Watches · 1850-1899
Pocket watch by GT, Switzerland, 1850-1899
Science Museum Group, London