Chauncey Jerome and The Industrialization of Time

Prior to the industrial boom of the 1800s, time (for the average man) was measured by daylight, punctuated by sunrise and sunset, regardless of the time of year; meals were eaten when hungry and bedtime taken when tired. For many years of his life, Chauncey Jerome operated in this manner, rising with the sun, working on his family farm, until eventually apprenticing with local clockmaker, Eli Terry.  

Terry revolutionized clockmaking by streamlining the assembly of clocks. Using water-powered machinery to cut wooden (instead of brass) parts, Terry's shop of twelve unskilled laborers was able to "mass produce" clocks at a rate of about one thousand per year. Clocks were now financially feasible for and accessible to much more of the population. Unfortunately, as wood is prone to warping, the new Terry clocks weren't able to withstand lengthy trips.

By the mid 1800s, Bristol, CT was an important center of clockmaking, with the majority of the city's inhabitants employed by the industry. At the end of his apprenticeship, Chauncey Jerome set out with the know-how to start his own shop and employed the same methods his mentor used. Unfortunately, in part due to the rapid economic expansion of the United States at this time, the Panic of 1837 ensued, threatening Jerome's livelihood. In order to survive, he devised a way to mass produce clocks that could be exported and still work reliably, stamping uniform parts out of sheet brass for easy assembly. Clocks became even less expensive and were able to be shipped to the farthest reaches of the United States and overseas. Jerome's shop was able to make over 200,000 clocks a year and sell the clocks for around $1.

Not only were they less expensive, but Jerome's clocks were also more accurate. They became a staple in nearly every U.S. household and, with exquisite timing, they coincided with the larger industrial revolution taking place. Americans were becoming less agrarian, moving to cities, and working in factories. Workers had shifts they had to be on time for - often working 10-14 hours per day, lunchtime was at noon, and the pressure to beat the clock, working faster and faster, was ever present.  

In 1856, Chauncey Jerome declared bankruptcy. While an innovator and savant, Jerome was not a savvy businessman and spent the rest of his life trying to restore his reputation, frequently being taken advantage of along the way. Traveling wherever work would take him, Jerome wound up in Chicago, dying penniless in 1868.  

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