History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, and Life of Chauncey Jerome: Barnum's Connection with the Yankee Clock BusinessJerome, Chauncey
History
History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, and Life of Chauncey Jerome: Barnum's Connection with the Yankee Clock Business
Jerome, Chauncey
Clock and watch making -- United States
Every body knows that all of these
parts must be made very cheap or an O-G. clock could not be sold for one
dollar and a half, or two dollars. The weights cost about thirteen cents
per clock, the cost of boxing them about ten cents, and the first cost
of the movements of a one-day brass clock is less than fifty cents. I
will here say a little about the process of making the wheels. It will
no doubt, astonish a great many to know how rapidly they can be made. I
will venture to say, that I can pick out three men who will take the
brass in the sheet, press out and level under the drop, there cut the
teeth, and make all of the wheels to five hundred clocks in one day;
there are from eight to ten of these wheels in every clock, and in an
eight-day clock more. This will look to some like a great story, but is
one of the wonders of the clock business. If some of the parts of a
clock were not made for almost nothing, they could not be sold so cheap
when finished.
The facilities which the Jerome Manufacturing Company had over every
other concern of the kind in the country, and their customers in this
and foreign countries, are worth to the present company more than one
hundred thousand dollars. Their method of making dials, tablets and
brass doors was a saving of more than ten thousand dollars per year over
any other company doing the same amount of business; and I know that the
present company would not give up the customers of the Jerome
Manufacturing Company for ten thousand dollars per year: they could not
afford to do it. The workmen who came with me from Bristol, were an
uncommonly energetic and ingenious set of men. Many years they had large
and profitable jobs in the different branches, which encouraged them to
invent and get up improvements for doing the work fast, and in a great
many things they far surpass the workmen in similar establishments--all
of which have resulted to the benefit of the present manufacturing
company of New Haven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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