Factory Wall Clock
date: label: date made
content: ca 1808-1824
label: date made
content: ca 1808
label: date made
content: ca 1808 - 1824
name: label: maker
content: Hanks, Benjamin
notes: label: Description
content: Benjamin Hanks and his son Truman (1782-1846) designed this wall clock for use in a mill. Within the clock’s white dial are five subsidiary indicators for both time of day and mill machinery operations.
label: Description
content: Made sometime between 1808 and 1824, perhaps as an experimental timepiece, the clock is a very early example of factory time control. At the time this clock was made, keeping track of workers’ hours was mainly the job of clerks. By the late 1880s, though, time accounting was mechanized in factories. Then the time clock, introduced to record automatically the times a worker entered and left the workplace, came to symbolize industrialization itself.
label: Description
content: Benjamin Hanks (1755-1824) worked in Mansfield, Conn., as a clock- and watchmaker and in 1785 established a foundry there for casting bells and cannons. About 1808 he moved to the area near Troy, N.Y., and set up an iron foundry. His brother Rodney established the first water-powered silk mill in the United States in 1810.
label: Description
content: Reference: David Todd and Richard Perlman, “An Early Factory Clock by Benjamin & Truman Hanks,” Bulletin of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors (February 1997): 21-29.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1994.0163.01
label: catalog number
content: 1994.0163.01
label: accession number
content: 1994.0163
objectType: label: Object Name
content: clock, wall, factory
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 66 in x 21 in x 9 5/8 in; 167.64 cm x 53.34 cm x 24.4602 cm
label: Measurements
content: weight: 6 in x 4 1/4 in x 3 1/4 in; 15.24 cm x 10.795 cm x 8.255 cm
label: Measurements
content: pendulum: 43 in x 5 in x 29/32 in; 109.22 cm x 12.7 cm x 2.286 cm
label: Measurements
content: hood: 22 in x 21 in x 9 19/32 in; 55.88 cm x 53.34 cm x 24.384 cm
label: Measurements
content: case: 63 1/2 in x 18 1/4 in x 9 1/2 in; 161.29 cm x 46.355 cm x 24.13 cm
label: Measurements
content: movement: 16 in x 16 in x 7 3/4 in; 40.64 cm x 40.64 cm x 19.685 cm