Ordinarily
the relocation of a factory from one town to another would hardly be the fodder for all but the most arcane
and specialized of almanac-like features. But on this date in 1854 Aaron Lufkin Dennison
moved his four year old watch making
business to new facilities in Waltham, Massachusetts, setting the stage for
a revolution in industrial production first known as the American System of Watch of Watch Manufacturing. The principles of precision made interchangeable parts, use of specialty machine tools, and consistent
calibration measured by highly accurate instruments were soon applied to other industries ushering in a new phase of the industrial revolution that created the machines that increasingly shaped daily life.
It
was not an easy or smooth road. Dennison
would be beset by set back
after set back—failed early designs
and processes, bankruptcies, board intrigues, faithless partners,
and financial panics. The new plant in Waltham would slip from
his hands in bankruptcy in just three years, and he would be unceremoniously fired as machine shop superintendent in 1861. He would go on to found a number of
new businesses to see his dreams crushed time and time again.
Meanwhile
the factory, known as the Boston Watch
Company in 1855 would go through ownership changes and name changes,
finally becoming known as the Waltham
Watch Company in 1907 and famous for its railroad chronometers and quality pocket Watches. The
company’s direct descendent, the Waltham
Aircraft Clock Corporation manufactures that specialty product in Alabama.
Firms that purchased marketing rights to the Waltham name along with
some inventory and goodwill and since merged are now known as the Waltham
Watch Co. (Delaware) and markets imported watches. A former Swiss
subsidiary is now known as Waltham
International SA, and markets luxury
Swiss made watches to Japan and other international markets.
Dennison
was born on March 6, 1812 in Freeport,
Maine. His father was a shoemaker, the lowliest of the skilled
trades who taught music on the
side. The family moved to Brunswick when he was a boy. He got the minimal schooling of a boy
of his class—reading, writing, and
simple ciphering. He may have supplemented this with reading from books borrowed from
neighbors.
He
spent much of his childhood and youth at various jobs to help the family. He carried
hod for a bricklayer,
cut wood, and was a herdsman. By his teenage
years he was accomplished enough at his letters
and arithmetic to clerk at a local store before joining his father in his cobbler’s shop. Dennison
displayed his first interest in improving production
techniques by suggesting his father pre-cut
pieces to make shoes by the batch rather
than start-to-finish one at a time.
At
age 18, rather than formally apprentice to his father, Dennison bound himself to James Cary, a local clock
maker. During his apprenticeship he
apparently devised some sort of
machine for cutting gear wheels. The exact nature of the machine is unknown
but was probably a modification of an existing wheel cutter that allowed him to
press a few layers of metal at the same time, creating identical
gears with each impression. Again,
the idea was to provide parts in batches for future assembly. Cary so admired his apprentice’s skill and
ingenuity that he offered Dennison a partnership
at age 21.
But
Dennison knew he had to learn more or be stuck in a provincial shop. He headed to Boston to work for and study with the best American watch repairers. He
volunteered to work for three months at jeweler Currier & Trott without pay and then was hired by them. By 1834 at age 22, he felt confident enough
to open his own repair shop. But he gave
that up only two years later when he was offered the chance to work under
Boston’s most sophisticated master watch
maker, Tubal Howe of Jones, Low & Ball where he could
learn the techniques of the best Swiss and British
craftsmen.
He
stayed with Howe until 1839 when he left for New York City where he
spent several months with a colony of
Swiss watchmakers. Returning to Boston
he once again set up his own shop offering not only repair services but also
selling watches, tools, and repair
equipment. During this period he
perfected the Denton Combine Gage “upon
which all the different parts of a watch could be accurately measured.” This later became the Standard Gage of the industry and was just the first in the
specialty instruments he devised.
Meanwhile
Aaron established a second business with his younger brother Eliphalet Whorf Dennison, his former
partner in his old Boston repair shop.
Together they went into a specialty business manufacturing paper boxes for jewelry stores. The enterprise, filling an unmet niche, was a success. But after a few years Aaron withdrew from the
company to pursue his dream of manufacturing his own watches, leaving the firm
in Eliphalet’s hands. It continued to
prosper as the Dennison Manufacturing
Company and still exists today as Avery
Dennison Corporation a manufacturer of pressure
sensitive adhesive products which
recently sold its well-known envelope,
business stationary, and school
supply lines which continue to be marketed under the name Avery.
Thing
must have been looking pretty good for the 28 year old Aaron in 1840. After years of dedicating himself
single-mindedly to business he married Charlotte
Ware Foster who was connected to the Ware family of distinguished Unitarian clergy. Together they would have five children.
While
continuing to operate his businesses, Dennison dreamed of going into watch
manufacture. He developed a plan over
the 1840’s based on his old notion of producing parts in batches.
He
was specifically inspired by the success of the Federal Armory at Springfield,
Massachusetts in manufacturing muskets
for the Army using interchangeable parts. This made rapid production
possible in times of need, greatly reduced the cost of each firearm, and facilitated repair in the field using standardized
parts. Dennison was not the only entrepreneur impressed with the system. Samuel
Colt applied it to his pistols in
the mid 1830’s and contributed the innovation of assembly line production—assembly of parts in succession with semi-skilled workmen each performing a
specific task and sending the work to the next worker on the production
bench for the next step. Others were
adapting Springfield and Colt innovations in other fields including Cyrus McCormack for his reapers.
But the manufacture of watches, some of
the most complex machines of their time requiring scores of small parts
that had to be produced with precision, required whole new demands
compared to the few and large parts with relatively high tolerances of muskets, pistols, and farm equipment. Dennison planned it out in his head. By 1845 he had worked out a detailed plan
and constructed a scale model of a production facility. All he need now was a backer.
It took until 1849 to secure the support
and partnership of Edward Howard of
the manufacturing firm of Howard &
Davis and Howard’s father in law
Samuel Curtis. While
the partners erected a new factory next to the existing Howard & Davis
building in Roxbury for the new firm
of Dennison, Howard & Davis, Aaron
went to London to buy what parts
could not yet be manufactured in the States. He also hired English journeyman watchmakers, and studied the critical process of gilding brass parts. When he returned he completed the design
and construction of specialized machines for his production process.
But there were major problems. The new machines were not yet perfected, he
had trouble duplicating the gilding process, and the first watches
produced, an eight day watch with a
single mainspring barrel, did not
keep time accurately enough to be successfully marketed. Dennison needed a more skillful machinist to perfect his ideas and in
1852 he found one in Charles Moseley. He also brought on master watchmaker N. P. Stratton who designed a new 30-hour watch and perfected the gilding
process while Mosely rebuilt the machines.
The resulting watch was marketed successfully.
In fact sales were so strong that in 1855
the company moved to its expanded facilities in Waltham and adopted the new
name of the Boston Watch Company. Dennison oversaw production as the plant superintendent while Howard and a
Board of Directors managed the
business affairs.
Prospects looked as a good as the brisk
sales of the new watch, which was superior to anything but jeweler crafted one-of-a-kind watches then available from an
American manufacturer. Then the
devastating Panic of 1857—regarded
as the first world-wide depression devastated
sales and dried up the capital needed
to ride out the storm. The Boston Watch Company was forced into
bankruptcy.
Most of the machinery and watch inventory,
and some of the skilled workers, were taken back to Roxbury by Edward Howard,
who established the Howard Watch Company.
The buildings and large machinery were sold
at auction to Royal E. Robbins
who restarted watch manufacture under the name of Tracy Baker & Company.
Dennison was retained in the reduced capacity of superintendent
of the machine division. His
relationship to Robbins, however, was tense. Robbins felt Dennison “meddled” in
other divisions of the factory. Dennison
felt Robbins was losing track of his vision.
In 1861, just as the Civil War was about to greatly increase the market for watches
among officers who needed to be able
to coordinate battlefield movements and the exploding demands of war time
industrial production, Robbins
unceremoniously fired Dennison.
In the post-war period, Tracy Baker & Co. would change hands again and
become the American Waltham Watch
Company and finally simply the Waltham
Watch Company, for many years the largest American producer of time
pieces.
It took until 1864 for Dennison to find a backer for a new
firm, A. O. Bigelow. Together they formed the Tremont Watch Company. This
time the plan was a little different.
The Civil War had dramatically driven up wages for skilled workmen in
the North. Dennison figured out that the most famous
and skilled watch makers in the world
in Switzerland made significantly less than their American counterparts. In an early example of offshore outsourcing, Swiss journeymen would manufacture to
specification fine parts like escapements
and wheel trains while larger parts
including barrel plates, cases, faces, etc. would be made in the States where
the watches would be assembled.
Dennison and his family went to Zurich to make the arrangements.
While he was gone, the Tremont board, without consulting him, decided to
move the factory to Melrose to
produce a cheaper model watch entirely in their factory. The company was reorganized as the Melrose
Watch Company. Dennison resigned in protest.
He was essentially stranded in Europe. He remained in Switzerland trying
to set up a new arrangement with an American manufacturer without success. As Dennison expected Melrose failed by 1870.
In 1871 relocated to England where he tried to manufacture
watches from parts made in Zurich and plates from Tremont. Using capital raised by this venture he
helped organize the Anglo-American Watch
Company in Birmingham in 1874. He
and his English partners bought up the parts stock and some of the machinery of
Melrose, shipped it to England and began producing watches there for the first
time on the American System of Watchmaking.
In 1874 the company changed its name to the English Watch Manufacturing
Company. It turned out the reputation of
American production in England at this time was similar to the post-World War II reputation of goods Made in Japan harming sales. Dennison left the company about the same
time.
Dennison had a second business in
Birmingham manufacturing watch cases,
for which the main clients was, ironically, the Waltham Watch Company, the
descendent of the firm he had created.
With the addition of a partner the firm became Dennison, Wiggly & Company in 1874. Dennison remained in England managing this,
at last, successful, firm until he died on January 8, 1895 at age 83. His son Franklin
became managing partner. The name was changed to the Dennison Watch Case Company in 1905 and
continued to provide its products to the industry until 1965.
Dennison died with neither the fame nor the enormous wealth of other significant American industrial
innovators and businessmen. The
creator of the American System, which transformed manufacture and production in
profound ways far beyond the watch industry, spent almost 40 years in a kind of
exile.
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