This submit is a part of a collection, Studying Time at HSNY, written by HSNY’s librarian, Miranda Marraccini.
In the event you’ve been being attentive to my articles, you will know they typically be aware the ways in which ladies present up peripherally in our library assortment at HSNY: as loving inscribers and nameless college students; underage or endangered staff in watch factories; and horological vacationers marveling at public clocks.
The ladies I am writing about at the moment, nevertheless, will not be on the margins. They’re primary characters of horology, folks with enduring affect as authors, collectors, and makers. Many had an influence past their lifetimes, and all overcame gendered boundaries to their participation in horology.
The Early Writers: Mary Sales space, Mary Howitt
From the Nineteenth century comes the story of two Marys, each feminine pioneers in horological writing. Mary Sales space, a polymathic American writer, was the primary editor-in-chief of “Harper’s Bazaar,”one of many first trend magazines within the nation. She wrote or translated no less than 47 books in seven languages, together with a number of that had been influential in gathering help for anti-slavery causes throughout the Civil Struggle.
She printed “The Clock and Watchmakers’ Guide” in 1860, a collection of technical and historic writings by completely different authors initially written in French. Now we have a replica in our library at HSNY. She’s listed because the writer, however using the initials “M. L. Sales space” on the title web page suggests the writer was conscious {that a} girl’s identify on a horological textbook won’t be a promoting level. (The writer, John Wiley, nonetheless exists, and focuses on technical and scientific publications.)
Although she calls herself a “compiler” within the preface, Sales space has completed far more. Her preface relates a succinct historical past of timekeeping from the primary water clocks to probably the most exact marine chronometers, demonstrating her personal data of the subject.
Six detailed fold-out plates present how you can assemble watches. A number of plates image the within of an 18th-century watch from completely different viewpoints (see picture 1). The work is deeply historic, and highlights technical options of various watches from well-known watchmakers of earlier centuries.
Picture 1
On the opposite aspect of the Atlantic, prolific Victorian writer Mary Howitt printed “My Uncle the Clockmaker” in 1845. Our copy is signed in pencil, in a fragile hand, “Miss Elizabeth Nichols from her sister Eunice,” displaying that ladies really learn this ebook, and located it attention-grabbing sufficient to present as a present. It is a part of a collection referred to as “Tales for the Folks and their Kids.”
Howitt’s “tales” are a loosely linked set of tales about British nation life. Within the story, Nicholas, the younger son of a gentleman, apprentices himself to a clockmaker, a lot to the chagrin of his father who sees it as a “degradation.” His mom, nevertheless, acknowledges the value of his new career: “The primary gold watch which he might put collectively to his personal satisfaction, was introduced by him to her on her birth-day [sic], and was worn by her with delight.” A shrewd buyer, she appreciates the worth of unbiased watchmaking. Nicholas quickly units up a profitable commerce, superb “the nation folks, who had been prepared to hold watches as giant as turnips” together with his “pretty little gold and silver watches.”
Nicholas singlehandedly begins a rage for watches in his small group: “…what wonders had Nicholas to exhibit and clarify to the purchasers. The consequence was, that scarcely an individual inside twenty miles spherical was now glad together with his watch. She or he will need to have one of many new development…There was no discuss however about levers, escape actions, chronometers and engine-turning, and decorative engraving of instances.” A lot of the remainder of the ebook takes place with out Nicholas: on the top of his commerce, he mysteriously disappears, solely to reappear in disguise many years later to rescue his household property together with his entrepreneurial fortune. It is a Victorian story of triumph for anybody who has felt undervalued as a watchmaker, or certainly anybody whose mother and father disapprove of their chosen profession!
The Correspondent: Emily Faithfull
In contrast to the authors above, the Nineteenth-century author and activist Emily Faithfull addresses the subject of feminine watchmakers–in her case, ladies and ladies working on the Elgin manufacturing unit in Illinois. Faithfull, who was British, visited America for the primary time in 1872 and included an account of the Elgin manufacturing unit in her ebook, “Three Visits to America” (1884).
Faithfull was a ladies’s rights pioneer who advocated for the employment of ladies in many alternative trades together with printing and watchmaking. On her first go to to America, she recounts receiving an engraved watch with a letter that reads: “The fingers of the numerous working-women who’ve been busy in its fashioning are thus prolonged to you in sincerest appreciation of the work you might be doing ‘in serving to others to assist themselves.'”
Intrigued, she visits the manufacturing unit years later, the place she sees ladies working with lathes, making hairsprings, and chopping jewels. She writes approvingly: “In London it takes an apprentice seven years to study what a woman machinist turns into a proficient in after the primary twelve months’ work.” Girls are “incomes good wages” at Elgin, however they nonetheless are paid lower than males. The mix of the manufacturing unit system and feminine staff implies that “whereas it takes about seventy hours of expert hand labor to fabricate a watch [in England], it may be produced [in America] in thirty hours by woman operatives.”
An unsigned 1869 article from “Harper’s New Month-to-month Journal” incorporates an analogous account of ladies and younger ladies working within the Elgin manufacturing unit (then referred to as the Nationwide Watch Firm), work which might generally be harmful (I coated this in my article about kids’s books at HSNY).* In line with the article, workers “are equally divided between the sexes” and ladies are incomes six to 12 {dollars} per week, whereas males are incomes three {dollars} a day. The Harper’s article, in contrast to Faithfull’s ebook, is illustrated. Picture 2 reveals rows of ladies at work within the “prepare room,” some working lathes in entrance of tall home windows on the proper.
Picture 2
As I’ve mentioned in a few of my different articles, ladies had been a ubiquitous presence in watch manufacturing from the 18th century onward. In Twentieth-century America, ladies suffered ghastly sicknesses on account of radium publicity whereas portray luminescent dials. Feminine college students studied alongside males at watchmaking faculties, as evidenced by the signed notebooks we’ve got at our library.
Though ladies signed their names on dials as early because the 18th century, few ladies have achieved recognition as particular person watchmakers; Rebecca Struthers, mentioned under, is one trendy instance, as is Danièla Dufour, although they’re not at all the one ones.
The Collector: Laura Hearn
Among the many many catalogs of watch collections we maintain in our library, one stood out to me due to the identify on the backbone: “Mrs. George A. Hearn’s Assortment of Watches.” Though at the moment there’s a thriving group of feminine watch collectors, that is the one catalog I’ve present in our assortment with a girl’s identify on it (effectively, practically, as a result of it is nonetheless below her husband’s identify).
Like many feminine collectors, Laura Frances Hoppock Hearn collected alongside her husband, George A. Hearn. An article about her probate within the New York Instances in Might 1917 talked about her bequest of a set of laces to the Metropolitan Museum, in addition to the gathering of “many historic and quaintly-wrought timepieces.”
In line with an obituary from the “Brooklyn Each day Eagle,” Hearn, who was “characteristically a New Yorker,” was “deeply within the metropolis and its progressive life and growth.”
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Hearn loaned her watches to the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in 1907, and had a catalog of the watches privately printed in the identical 12 months. A take a look at the frontispiece of the ebook (picture 3) reveals that Hearn collected large names in horology like Berthoud, but in addition stunningly ornamental enameled watches in numerous shapes, just like the butterfly within the middle of the picture. Our copy of the catalog incorporates the Hearns’ joint calling card (picture 5), together with their tackle on East 69th Avenue, then, as now, an costly old-money tackle in New York Metropolis (one thing you will acknowledge in case you watch “The Gilded Age”!).
Picture 5
One other feminine collector of the identical period, Jeannette Atwater Dwight Bliss, lived a block away from Hearn on East 68th Avenue. Alongside her banker husband, George T. Bliss, she purchased 1000’s of high-quality artwork objects, together with clocks, and examples of European structure, which had been later donated to the Newark Museum. Different well-known feminine collectors embody royals like Queen Elizabeth I and Marie Antoinette, Austrian author Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Fabergé collector Marjorie Merriweather Submit, and French ornamental arts collector Jayne Wrightsman.**
Fashionable Authors
Within the twenty first century, extra ladies have entered into the world of printed horological scholarship. One ebook that I typically advocate to researchers in our library is Genevieve Cummins’ “How the Watch was Worn: A Style for 500 Years.” In line with a overview by our library’s patron, Fortunat Mueller-Maerki: “It has been about 500 years since folks began carrying timekeeping units round with them on their our bodies, so it’s a bit stunning that till now there has by no means been a publication devoted to the query of ‘How one can put on a watch?'”
Cummins’ actual achievement on this ebook is sourcing greater than a thousand historic photos of individuals of all genders sporting watches in all method of unusual types: on the wrist or on a sequence, sure, but in addition on a chatelaine, as a hoop, embedded in a purse or lighter or snuffbox, as a pin, or as a hair accent.
Picture 6 reveals a variety from the ebook targeted on nurses, all sporting watches that helped them care for his or her sufferers. Picture 7 options ring watches, buttonhole and cufflink watches from the late Nineteenth century to the late Twentieth century, in addition to promoting supplies.
Picture 6
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A current web analogue to this ebook could be Malaika Crawford‘s “How To Put on It” articles for Hodinkee, during which she pairs a selected watch (say, the Tudor Black Bay Fifty-Eight) with couture, classic, and generally avant-garde garments and equipment.
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For different horological books by ladies with a broad historic sweep, I like to recommend Francesca Cartier Brickell‘s “The Cartiers”(picture 8) or the Nineties bestseller “Longitude”, by Dava Sobel. Each, after all, can be found for perusal on the HSNY library. Rebecca Struthers is the uncommon feminine writer in our assortment who can be a acknowledged watchmaker, having based a workshop close to Birmingham in 2012. In line with her official biography, Struthers is the primary watchmaker in Britain to earn a Ph.D. in horology. She lectured at HSNY in 2017.
Struthers’ “Arms of Time: a Watchmaker’s Historical past of Time” goes large: it makes an attempt to inform the whole story of horology from antiquity onwards. In line with a overview, Struthers’ educational background makes it potential for her to contextualize current developments and make us see that they are nothing new, actually–watchmakers have been inventing, scheming, and generally dishonest, all alongside. Picture 9 reveals the British and American editions of the ebook from our library, that are gorgeously illustrated by the writer’s husband Craig, who can be a watchmaker.
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Struthers additionally addresses how the gender hole between so-called “males’s” and “ladies’s” watches originated within the Nineteenth century and widened from there. At the moment, the entire concept of gendered watches is the topic of thriving dialogue, with completely different manufacturers taking distinct approaches to the query of whether or not and how you can market watches primarily based on gender. Though it has not traditionally been a typical subject of scholarship, a number of current books deal with ladies’s watches, together with “Jewels of Time: the World of Girls’s Watches,” by Roberta Naas.
Struthers says on this New York Instances interview: “The business remains to be extremely male, white and center to higher class, and with that we’re dropping a lot potential expertise.” HSNY addresses this imbalance at the moment by providing scholarships to underrepresented teams together with feminine, Jewish and Black watchmaking college students. Though ladies have at all times been a presence in horology, I hope this text helps shine a lightweight on ladies’s continued persistence, and the way they’ve their fingers in each a part of the business, from the metallic to the advertising.
*The Harper’s article has been credited to Faithfull in different sources, however this appears not possible because it was printed in 1869 and Faithfull writes that she first visited America in 1872.
**Because of Bob Frishman for compiling a few of this data in “Horology’s Nice Collectors,” a publication related to the 2022 NAWCC Annual Time Symposium.
