Reading Time At HSNY: Women In Horology

This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by HSNY’s librarian, Miranda Marraccini.

If you’ve been paying attention to my articles, you’ll know they often note the ways that women show up peripherally in our library collection at HSNY: as loving inscribers and anonymous students; underage or endangered workers in watch factories; and horological tourists marveling at public clocks.

The women I’m writing about today, however, are not on the margins. They’re main characters of horology, people with enduring influence as authors, collectors, and makers. Many had an impact beyond their lifetimes, and all overcame gendered barriers to their participation in horology.

The Early Writers: Mary Booth, Mary Howitt

From the 19th century comes the tale of two Marys, both female pioneers in horological writing. Mary Booth, a polymathic American author, was the first editor-in-chief of “Harper’s Bazaar,”one of the first fashion magazines in the country. She wrote or translated at least 47 books in seven languages, including several that were influential in gathering support for anti-slavery causes during the Civil War.

She published “The Clock and Watchmakers’ Manual” in 1860, a selection of technical and historical writings by different authors originally written in French. We have a copy in our library at HSNY. She’s listed as the author, but the use of the initials “M. L. Booth” on the title page suggests the publisher was aware that a woman’s name on a horological textbook might not be a selling point. (The publisher, John Wiley, still exists, and focuses on technical and scientific publications.)

Though she calls herself a “compiler” in the preface, Booth has done much more. Her preface relates a succinct history of timekeeping from the first water clocks to the most precise marine chronometers, demonstrating her own knowledge of the topic.

Six detailed fold-out plates show how to assemble watches. Multiple plates picture the inside of an 18th-century watch from different viewpoints (see image 1). The work is deeply historical, and highlights technical features of different watches from well-known watchmakers of previous centuries.

On the other side of the Atlantic, prolific Victorian author Mary Howitt published “My Uncle the Clockmaker” in 1845. Our copy is signed in pencil, in a delicate hand, “Miss Elizabeth Nichols from her sister Eunice,” showing that women actually read this book, and found it interesting enough to give as a gift. It’s part of a series called “Tales for the People and their Children.”

Howitt’s “tales” are a loosely connected set of stories about British country life. In the story, Nicholas, the young son of a gentleman, apprentices himself to a clockmaker, much to the chagrin of his father who sees it as a “degradation.” His mother, however, recognizes the worth of his new profession: “The first gold watch which he could put together to his own satisfaction, was presented by him to her on her birth-day [sic], and was worn by her with delight.” A shrewd customer, she appreciates the value of independent watchmaking. Nicholas soon sets up a successful trade, amazing “the country people, who were willing to carry watches as large as turnips” with his “lovely little gold and silver watches.”

Nicholas singlehandedly starts a rage for watches in his small community: “…what wonders had Nicholas to exhibit and explain to the customers. The consequence was, that scarcely a person within twenty miles round was now satisfied with his watch. He or she must have one of the new construction…There was no talk but about levers, escape movements, chronometers and engine-turning, and ornamental engraving of cases.” Most of the rest of the book takes place without Nicholas: at the height of his trade, he mysteriously disappears, only to reappear in disguise decades later to rescue his family estate with his entrepreneurial fortune. It’s a Victorian tale of triumph for anyone who has felt undervalued as a watchmaker, or indeed anyone whose parents disapprove of their chosen career!

The Correspondent: Emily Faithfull

Unlike the authors above, the 19th-century writer and activist Emily Faithfull addresses the topic of female watchmakers–in her case, women and girls working at the Elgin factory in Illinois. Faithfull, who was British, visited America for the first time in 1872 and included an account of the Elgin factory in her book, “Three Visits to America” (1884).

Faithfull was a women’s rights pioneer who advocated for the employment of women in many different trades including printing and watchmaking. On her first visit to America, she recounts receiving an engraved watch with a letter that reads: “The hands of the many working-women who have been busy in its fashioning are thus extended to you in sincerest appreciation of the work you are doing ‘in helping others to help themselves.'”

Intrigued, she visits the factory years later, where she sees women working with lathes, making hairsprings, and cutting jewels. She writes approvingly: “In London it takes an apprentice seven years to learn what a girl machinist becomes a proficient in after the first twelve months’ work.” Women are “earning good wages” at Elgin, but they still are paid less than men. The combination of the factory system and female workers means that “while it takes about seventy hours of skilled hand labor to manufacture a watch [in England], it can be produced [in America] in thirty hours by girl operatives.”

An unsigned 1869 article from “Harper’s New Monthly Magazine” contains a similar account of women and young girls working in the Elgin factory (then known as the National Watch Company), work which could sometimes be dangerous (I covered this in my article about children’s books at HSNY).* According to the article, employees “are equally divided between the sexes” and women are earning six to twelve dollars a week, while men are earning three dollars a day. The Harper’s article, unlike Faithfull’s book, is illustrated. Image 2 shows rows of women at work in the “train room,” some operating lathes in front of tall windows at the right.

As I have discussed in some of my other articles, women were a ubiquitous presence in watch manufacturing from the 18th century onward. In 20th-century America, women suffered ghastly illnesses as a result of radium exposure while painting luminescent dials. Female students studied alongside men at watchmaking schools, as evidenced by the signed notebooks we have at our library.

Although women signed their names on dials as early as the 18th century, few women have achieved recognition as individual watchmakers; Rebecca Struthers, discussed below, is one modern example, as is Danièla Dufour, though they are by no means the only ones.

The Collector: Laura Hearn

Among the many catalogs of watch collections we hold in our library, one stood out to me because of the name on the spine: “Mrs. George A. Hearn’s Collection of Watches.” Although today there is a thriving community of female watch collectors, this is the only catalog I’ve found in our collection with a woman’s name on it (well, nearly, because it’s still under her husband’s name).

Like many female collectors, Laura Frances Hoppock Hearn collected alongside her husband, George A. Hearn. An article about her probate in the New York Times in May 1917 mentioned her bequest of a collection of laces to the Metropolitan Museum, as well as the collection of “many ancient and quaintly-wrought timepieces.”

According to an obituary from the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle,” Hearn, who was “characteristically a New Yorker,” was “deeply interested in the city and its progressive life and development.”

Hearn loaned her watches to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1907, and had a catalog of the watches privately printed in the same year. A look at the frontispiece of the book (image 3) shows that Hearn collected big names in horology like Berthoud, but also stunningly decorative enameled watches in different shapes, like the butterfly in the center of the image. Our copy of the catalog contains the Hearns’ joint calling card (image 5), including their address on East 69th Street, then, as now, an expensive old-money address in New York City (something you’ll recognize if you watch “The Gilded Age”!).

Another female collector of the same era, Jeannette Atwater Dwight Bliss, lived a block away from Hearn on East 68th Street. Alongside her banker husband, George T. Bliss, she bought thousands of fine art objects, including clocks, and examples of European architecture, which were later donated to the Newark Museum. Other famous female collectors include royals like Queen Elizabeth I and Marie Antoinette, Austrian writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Fabergé collector Marjorie Merriweather Post, and French decorative arts collector Jayne Wrightsman.**

Modern Authors

In the 21st century, more women have entered into the world of published horological scholarship. One book that I often recommend to researchers in our library is Genevieve Cummins’ “How the Watch was Worn: A Fashion for 500 Years.” According to a review by our library’s patron, Fortunat Mueller-Maerki: “It has been about 500 years since people started carrying timekeeping devices around with them on their bodies, so it is a bit surprising that until now there has never been a publication dedicated to the question of ‘How to wear a watch?'”

Cummins’ real achievement in this book is sourcing more than a thousand historical images of people of all genders wearing watches in all manner of surprising styles: on the wrist or on a chain, yes, but also on a chatelaine, as a ring, embedded in a handbag or lighter or snuffbox, as a pin, or as a hair accessory.

Image 6 shows a spread from the book focused on nurses, all wearing watches that helped them care for their patients. Image 7 features ring watches, buttonhole and cufflink watches from the late 19th century to the late 20th century, as well as advertising materials.

A recent internet analogue to this book would be Malaika Crawford‘s “How To Wear It” articles for Hodinkee, in which she pairs a particular watch (say, the Tudor Black Bay Fifty-Eight) with couture, vintage, and sometimes avant-garde clothes and accessories.

For other horological books by women with a broad historical sweep, I recommend Francesca Cartier Brickell‘s “The Cartiers”(image 8) or the 1990s bestseller “Longitude”, by Dava Sobel. Both, of course, are available for perusal at the HSNY library. Rebecca Struthers is the rare female author in our collection who is also a recognized watchmaker, having founded a workshop near Birmingham in 2012. According to her official biography, Struthers is the first watchmaker in Britain to earn a Ph.D. in horology. She lectured at HSNY in 2017.

Struthers’ “Hands of Time: a Watchmaker’s History of Time” goes big: it attempts to tell the complete story of horology from antiquity onwards. According to a review, Struthers’ academic background makes it possible for her to contextualize recent developments and make us see that they’re nothing new, really–watchmakers have been inventing, scheming, and sometimes cheating, all along. Image 9 shows the British and American editions of the book from our library, which are gorgeously illustrated by the author’s husband Craig, who is also a watchmaker.

Struthers also addresses how the gender gap between so-called “men’s” and “women’s” watches originated in the 19th century and widened from there. Currently, the whole idea of gendered watches is the subject of thriving discussion, with different brands taking distinct approaches to the question of whether and how to market watches based on gender. Although it has not historically been a common topic of scholarship, several recent books focus on women’s watches, including “Jewels of Time: the World of Women’s Watches,” by Roberta Naas.

Struthers says in this New York Times interview: “The industry is still incredibly male, white and middle to upper class, and with that we’re losing so much potential talent.” HSNY addresses this imbalance today by offering scholarships to underrepresented groups including female, Jewish and Black watchmaking students. Although women have always been a presence in horology, I hope this article helps shine a light on women’s continued persistence, and how they have their hands in every part of the industry, from the metal to the marketing.

*The Harper’s article has been credited to Faithfull in other sources, but this seems impossible since it was published in 1869 and Faithfull writes that she first visited America in 1872.

**Thanks to Bob Frishman for compiling some of this information in “Horology’s Great Collectors,” a publication associated with the 2022 NAWCC Annual Time Symposium.

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