Joseph Ives Wagon-Spring Shelf Clock
date: label: date made
content: 1825-1830
name: label: maker
content: Ives, Joseph
notes: label: Description
content: Joseph Ives—a Bristol, Connecticut clockmaker notable for his inventiveness but lack of business success—first introduced wagon-spring clocks in the 1820s. This example dates from about 1825, when he was working in Brooklyn, N.Y. Ives’ wagon-spring clocks had conventional brass movements, except for one feature: the strings that ordinarily would have held the weights were connected, through intermediary pulleys, to the free ends of what looked like a leafed wagon-spring on the bottom of the case.
label: Description
content: Ives resorted to his wagon spring because coiled steel springs—common on European clocks—were not produced in the United States until the middle of the nineteenth century and the introduction of the Bessemer process for mass-producing steel.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: Kenneth Roberts, <i>The Contributions of Joseph Ives to Connecticut Clock Technology 1810-1862</i> (Bristol, Conn.: American Clock and Watch Museum, 1970).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Timekeeping
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: James Arthur Collection, New York University
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1984.0416.032
label: catalog number
content: 1984.0416.032
label: accession number
content: 1984.0416
objectType: label: Object Name
content: wagon spring clock
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 28 3/4 in x 15 5/8 in x 5 in; 73.025 cm x 39.7002 cm x 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 29 in x 15 1/2 in x 5 in; 73.66 cm x 39.37 cm x 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: container: 4 3/4 in x 3 in x 3/8 in; 12.065 cm x 7.62 cm x .9525 cm