Project Gutenberg's The Auburndale Watch Company, by Edwin A. Battison
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Title: The Auburndale Watch Company
First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch
Author: Edwin A. Battison
Release Date: September 8, 2009 [EBook #29934]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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CONTRIBUTIONS FROM
THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY:
PAPER 4
THE AUBURNDALE WATCH COMPANY
_Edwin A. Battison_
THE INVENTION 51
DEVELOPING THE INVENTION 53
THE NEW SPONSOR 57
SUCCESS AND FAILURE 64
THE LESSON 67
_By Edwin A. Battison_
THE AUBURNDALE WATCH COMPANY:
_First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch_
_The life of the pioneer has always been arduous. Not all succeed,
and many disappear leaving no trace on the pages of history. Here,
painstaking search has uncovered enough of the record to permit us
to review the errors of design and manufacture that brought failure
to the first attempt to produce a really cheap pocket watch._
_This paper is based on a study of the patent model of the
Auburndale rotary and other products of the company in the
collections of the National Museum, and of other collections,
including that of the author. The study comprises part of the
background research for the hall of timekeeping in the Museum of
History and Technology._
THE AUTHOR: _Edwin A. Battison is associate curator of mechanical
and civil engineering, Museum of History and Technology, in the
Smithsonian Institution's United States National Museum._
The idea of a machine-made watch with interchangeable parts had been in
the minds of many men for a long time. Several attempts had been made to
translate this conception into a reality. Success crowned the efforts of
those working near Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1850's. The work done
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