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Thomas Mudge, inventor of the lever escapement. The lever escapement, invented by Thomas Mudge in 1754 [18] and improved by Josiah Emery in 1785, gradually came into use from about 1800 onwards, chiefly in Britain; it was also adopted by Abraham-Louis Breguet, but Swiss watchmakers (who by now were the chief suppliers of watches to most of Europe) mostly adhered to the cylinder until the 1860s.
Prior to 1850, watches in America were generally supplied either from England or Switzerland. [1] The idea for the Waltham Watch Company came from watchmaker Aaron Lufkin Dennison. Dennison was the son of a shoemaker, born in Maine in 1812. [2] He served as an apprentice to a jeweler for three years as a youth and had come to Boston in 1833. [2]
The watch was an 18-size, full plate design. In 1869, the National Watch Company won "Best Watches, Illinois Manufacture" at the 17th Annual Illinois State Fair, for which it won a silver medal. [3] The company officially changed its name to the Elgin National Watch Company in 1874, as the Elgin name had come into common usage for their watches.
From the beginning, wristwatches were almost exclusively worn by women – men used pocket watches up until the early 20th century. [23] In 1810, the watch-maker Abraham-Louis Breguet made a wristwatch for the Queen of Naples. [24]
Watches were worn during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), and by the time of the Boer War (1899–1902), watches had been recognised as a valuable tool. [184] Early models were essentially standard pocket watches fitted to a leather strap, but, by the early 20th century, manufacturers began producing purpose-built wristwatches.
With this, a domestic watch could keep time to within a minute a day. Lever watches became common after about 1820, and this type is still used in most mechanical watches. In 1857 the American Watch Company in Waltham, Massachusetts, introduced the Waltham Model 57, the first to use interchangeable parts. This cut the cost of manufacture and ...
These watches were made until the late 1920s, after the American parent company had collapsed. Ingersoll bought the Trenton Watch Company in 1908, and the bankrupt New England Watch Company in Waterbury, Connecticut, for $76,000 on November 25, 1914. [2] By 1916, the company was producing 16,000 watches per day in 10 models.
Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by Bohemian immigrant Joseph Bulova. [3] It was reincorporated under the name Bulova Watch Company in 1923, became part of the Loews Corporation in 1979, [4] and was sold to Citizen at the end of 2007.