CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"_The Watch That Made the Dollar Famous_"

The next development is so typically American that it is difficult to picture it as occurring in any other country.

Heretofore, the history of timepieces had been that of an easily traceable evolution, for each of its steps had grown naturally out of those before it, and the various improvements had been made by mechanics trained in the craft. Yet now, strange to relate, two young men from a Michigan farm, with no mechanical training, entered the field almost in a casual manner, and in less than a generation not only became the world's largest manufacturers of watches but effected the most radical development in the whole story of telling time—involving, as it did, the introduction of interchangeable parts, quantity-production, and a low price.

These results might seem at first, to be due to a matter of accidental good fortune. On the contrary, they were an example of evolution quite as logical as any that had preceded and were perhaps even more significant. The whole development came as the direct product of observation, analysis, initiative, perseverance, and hard work—the element of good luck being conspicuously absent.

All history gives evidence of the occasional need of a new impulse derived from outside, and bringing with it a fresh view-point. There seems to be a tendency in human enterprise for any development after a time to lose its original rate of speed and to spend itself in complexities. The people who have brought it about appear to lose their power to see things simply and in a big way; and, on the contrary, they grow technical and occupy themselves with minor details. Whereupon the progress of development becomes slower and slower, and threatens to stop entirely. Then over and over again, there is the record of the advent of some fresh new force from an unexpected direction which restores youth and vigor.

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, watch-making seemed ready for such an impulse. As we have already seen, it had long been developing from within along technical and professional lines. Excellent and costly timepieces that were marvels of accurate mechanism had been produced. That part of its work had been well done, but the industry was in danger of losing its human touch. Watches were being viewed more as articles of manufacture and merchandise than as of wide-spread human service in meeting a general public need.

In a sense, therefore, the industry was unconsciously waiting the coming of a non-technical man who knew the public at first hand and understood people's requirements, who was not fettered by tradition, who had a vision of universal marketing and distribution, and who was not held back by a fore-knowledge of difficulties. It was exactly this vision which Robert H. Ingersoll had of the industry and he developed it with the assistance first of his brother, Charles H. and later of his nephew, William H. He did not "discover" the dollar watch, as many think, but grew toward it during the course of a dozen years.

It came about, as already stated, in a manner that was typically American. Young Ingersoll left his father's farm near Lansing, Michigan, in 1879, at the age of nineteen, and went to New York to seek his fortune. He was entirely without technical training save in farming, but he had a considerable first-hand knowledge of the needs and desires of what Lincoln called the "common people." Finding employment for a time, he saved One Hundred and Sixty Dollars, and, with this large capital, started in business for himself in the manufacture and sale of rubber stamps. Before long he was able to send back to Michigan for his younger brother, Charles H. Being of an inventive turn of mind, he devised a toy typewriter which attained a considerable sale as a dollar article. This was followed by a patented pencil, a dollar sewing-machine, a patent key-ring and other novelties of his own creation.

In the course of time, the products of other manufacturers were added to the list. Thus the brothers soon found themselves with an embryo manufacturing and wholesale jobbing business. The business grew, and the next development was that of a mail-order department. In this branch they were pioneers and preceded by some years the famous mail-order houses of Chicago and elsewhere. Their catalog ran into editions of millions of copies. Next, the Ingersolls became pioneers in another sales-plan. They developed the chain-stores idea, starting with a retail specialty store in New York, and following it with six others. Incidentally, they found themselves among the largest wholesale and retail dealers in the country in bicycles and bicycle supplies.

All of this was a strange but none the less effective preparation for watch-making and the marketing of watches by millions. Robert Ingersoll, who had remained in the selling and promoting end of the business, knew little about watches, but since he was constantly engaged in traveling about the country and in talking with merchants and others, he was gaining a great fund of knowledge as to human needs and market possibilities.

Presently he became convinced that his business, in spite of its prosperity, lacked something vital. He grew dissatisfied with handling a succession of unimportant novelties. It began to dawn upon his mind that these things were hardly worth while as a subject for a business, since they satisfied only passing fancies on the part of the public. He must find something which was really worth while, something which filled a real human need on a large scale and yet in a new way. If this something could be found, and the incredibly large buying power of the great American public could be focused upon it, there was hardly any limit to the business which would result.

When this belief had crystallized in the form of a definite conclusion, he began at once to search for the "big idea." The "big idea" had long been waiting for him to reach this state of mind. It had been looking him in the face for many days had he but been ready to perceive it.

On the wall of his room in a Brooklyn boarding-house there hung a very small "Bee" clock. It was unobtrusive and apparently unimportant. He had glanced at it hundreds of times with no thought beyond that of learning the time. Suddenly, it ceased to be a clock and became an open door into the future. Its ticking became articulate with a new meaning.

"Everyone wishes to tell time," it said. "There is not one of the millions who crowd the cities, travel the highways, or spread over the country districts, who does not wish repeatedly during his waking-hours to know what time it is. Sometimes he is in sight of a clock, but more often he is not. Here and there is a man with a watch in his pocket. That man has a chance to be efficient; but good watches cost money, and most people cannot afford them. Here am I, a tiny little ticking clock; I am a good timekeeper and I am cheap. Make me a little smaller, sell me for a dollar, and you can put the time into everyone's pocket."

At this point, the non-technical man, who knew nothing about watches, but who understood human needs, realized that something had happened; he pondered deeply and began to investigate. He took the little clock to a machinist in Ann Street, New York, and together they studied the possibility of reducing it in thickness and diameter. Presently it was discovered that both the New Haven and the Waterbury Clock Companies had already produced articles that embodied these conditions. This somewhat checked enthusiasm until it was recalled that neither of these products was an especial factor in the time-telling field. The manufacturers had merely made mechanisms; they had not grasped the Big Idea of universal service.

The timepiece of the Waterbury Company was the smaller, and Robert Ingersoll decided to test his mail-order market, buying first, one thousand clock-watches at eighty-five cents each, and afterward contracting for ten thousand more. These articles were offered in the mail-order catalog for 1892 at a dollar each, for the sake of price-uniformity with the other dollar specialties upon which the firm was concentrating. This was done, however, in a small way. It was not desired to sell too many on such an unprofitable margin, but merely to test the dollar-watch idea, hoping that manufacturing charges might ultimately be brought down through quantity production.

These so-called "watches" must not be confused with the Waterbury watch; that, as already described, had been the output of another company. The "watches" marketed by the Ingersolls and bearing their name were in reality thick, noisy, sturdy little pocket-clocks, wound from the back. They were crude and clumsy affairs compared with present-day styles but were, nevertheless, reliable timekeepers.

The public responded to the idea of dollar watches, although these proved to sell faster in gilt cases than in nickel, and still faster when a five-cent gilt chain was added. The next year, came the World's Fair in Chicago and the odd little mechanism with an appropriate design stamped upon its cover attracted some attention from the visitors.

Thus was born the Ingersoll watch, although it bore slight resemblance to the watch of to-day. This is due to the fact that an immediate policy of experiment and improvement was inaugurated. During these changes, however, several points remained fixed. One of these was that the watch must be in no respect a plaything, but a practical accurate timekeeper, not liable easily to get out of order. The second was the definite association with the price of one dollar, so that it became possible to refer to it humorously as "the watch that made the dollar famous;" and the third was that it should have a sturdy ruggedness of construction that would defy ordinary hard usage.

Each of these points had its social value—that of the last-named being the fact that the dollar price put the possession of a real timepiece within the reach of multitudes who were engaged in forms of activity wherein a delicate timepiece would be apt to get out of order.

The Ingersolls soon became convinced that they had a worthy object for promotion, and they did not entertain the slightest doubt as to the existence of a waiting public. There passed before their minds a picture of the millions of farm-boys who did not know when it was time to come into dinner, of the millions of working-men who had nothing to guide them in reaching the factory on time, of millions of clerks and school-children and of still other millions comprising the bulk of American homes where more good timepieces were needed.

Their problem, therefore, resolved itself into two main divisions—those of manufacture and those of sale. The manufacturing end involved a contract with the great plant of the Waterbury Clock Company, by which this factory was to produce the goods according to the specifications and under the name, trade-mark, and patents of the Ingersolls. This arrangement continues to this day, but has been supplemented, as the line has become more extended, by the acquirement of two factories of their own, one in Waterbury, Connecticut, and one in Trenton, New Jersey. To-day the three plants produce an aggregate of about twenty thousand watches a day. Before such manufacturing results could be obtained, however, there were many structural problems to be solved. It was not so easy as it sounds to build a practical and accurate watch within the narrow limits of a dollar and still leave a profit for both the manufacturer and dealer.

The solution began with the adoption of the "lantern-pinion," but the principal difficulty was that which had baffled both Howard and Dennison—the problem of producing the extremely minute separate watch-parts in large quantities by machinery, and yet with such exquisite precision that all parts of one kind should be absolutely interchangeable. By dint of unwearied patience and much scientific research, this problem was finally solved, and it is said that Henry Ford got his idea of quantity-production from the manufacture of the Ingersoll watch. Incidentally, it was demonstrated that low production-costs carry with them high wages. In the field of watchmaking, no element was more necessary than the skill of well-paid workers.

In the meantime, the public was waiting, but it did not know that it was waiting. It was going about its business quite unaware that mechanical and manufacturing problems were being solved in its behalf. There were no eager millions standing about demanding watches in order that their lives might be run more closely upon an efficient schedule. Therefore, simultaneously with the consideration of mechanical and manufacturing problems came those of sale, which will be discussed in the next chapter.