This submit is a part of a sequence, Studying Time at HSNY, written by HSNY’s librarian, Miranda Marraccini.
For a lot of the previous few centuries, watchmaking comfortably occupied a place as a part of the jewellery commerce. It is one motive why journals in our library on the Horological Society of New York (HSNY) usually include references to each, as is the case with the German title “Schmuck und Uhren.” Uhren means watches, and for those who’re conversant in Yiddish, don’t fret, it is okay to say schmuck in German–it simply means jewellery.
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A problem from the primary yr of publication of “Jeweler’s Weekly,” dated March 3, 1886, demonstrates the connections between the trades. In New York, jewelers had already established a thriving enterprise district on Maiden Lane. This space close to the southern tip of Manhattan was the middle of the jewellery commerce, together with watchmaking, from round 1800 via the start of the twentieth century. In actual fact, one among HSNY’s founders, George Schmid, had a watch restore store simply off Maiden Lane within the Eighties.
The “Jeweler’s Weekly” workplace handle is printed on the entrance cowl of the journal: 41-43 Maiden Lane, a couple of doorways down from what could be the Diamond Change, an early skyscraper strengthened to assist the burden of jewelers’ heavy safes. The duvet (picture 1) reveals a clock within the decrease left nook, and is subtitled “A journal for the jewellery diamond watch silver ware & kindred trades.” (Unrelated, a few cupids within the sky above ship a message of affection by telegraph.)
A two-page unfold contained in the journal (picture 2) reveals a list of a few of the most well-known watch producers on the time. On the American facet: Waltham, Elgin, and Illinois. On the Swiss: James Nardin (cousin of Ulysse), and Vacheron & Constantin. There are additionally some much less acquainted names together with the “Woman Racine” watch pictured, in addition to Bryant & Bentley, vendor of “fancy stone rings.” Very like right now, there is a wholesome marketplace for imitation gems, together with one model of imitation diamonds known as “photo voltaic brilliants.”
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On one other web page, the Illinois watch firm advertises “the smallest American watch made” with an engraving displaying the motion, presumably at precise measurement, about 33 mm (picture 3). An commercial I notably take pleasure in, for Abbott’s patent stem-winding attachment, reveals a caricature earlier than and after: a grumpy-looking man with mutton chops is upset as a result of “his watch has run down and his secret is within the pocket of his different pantaloons” (picture 4). On the appropriate, his face is alight–Abbott’s stem-winding attachment has ensured that he’s by no means once more on this unhappy place!
Abbott’s invention primarily transforms a key-wound watch right into a stem-wound watch, that you can wind with simply your fingers. This commercial got here out across the time when watches transitioned from key-winding to crown winding (therefore the “nice discount” within the worth of key-winding actions above). So the issue Abbott’s attachment solves wouldn’t be a typical one for for much longer.
I embody this curiosity to not mock our glum, keyless pal, however quite to undercut the impression many people have of individuals from this era, primarily from posed pictures, as severe, somber, and humorless. They knew easy methods to have enjoyable in 1886, as anybody who’s watched The Gilded Age this season will know! The watch and jewellery commerce was no exception.
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Advertisements additionally present how peripheral trades served the identical clientele and marketed themselves towards jewelers: makers of “superb lower glass,” china, silverware, spectacles, thimbles, buttons, pens, show circumstances, music bins, and one thing known as an “computerized eye-glass holder.” Folks working in these trades usually made use of the identical supplies and methods as watchmakers, and typically occupied the identical workshops. For those who might engrave a spoon deal with, you can in all probability engrave a watch case, and other people in New York within the late nineteenth century have been doing each.
So far as non-advertising content material, there is not a lot within the journal, however there are updates on new expertise, job postings, and trade surveys in numerous international locations. Columns inform jewelers the trade information of the week, together with details about robberies (“A paper of diamonds was seized…below peculiar circumstances”) and about folks within the occupation (“John [Redacted], an outdated Cleveland, Ohio, jeweler, is insane.”)
For New York jewelers, there are extra detailed updates about members of the group, even protecting trivialities like one Mr. Bliss’s troublesome knee irritation! Once more, far be it from me to mock Mr. Bliss, who was simply on the brink of exit West on a promoting journey earlier than his knee acted up. Fairly, the extent of concern and care among the many group is touching. It jogs my memory of the early members of HSNY, who based the group to assist one another and their family members, offering a stipend when members have been unable to work. In 2020, HSNY revived this spirit to assist working watchmakers via the pandemic.
Along with the “Jewelers Weekly,” our library options numerous volumes of the “Jewelers’ Round-Keystone,” a merger of a number of associated magazines which remains to be printed right now as JCK. I do know that this publication was an early a part of our assortment as a result of one of many volumes is stamped in gold “property of the Horological Society of New York.”
I am unable to seize every thing that goes on within the many pages of this journal, however its earlier points are filled with gorgeous Artwork Nouveau-style illustrations, as proven in photos 5 and 6—covers from 1903 and 1911, respectively. Commercials of the early twentieth century characteristic fashionable gadgets of the time reminiscent of railroad watches, auto clocks, leak-proof fountain pens, and electrical lighted indicators for companies. Though a few of the content material focuses on the enterprise a part of the jewellery commerce, a “Technical Division” characteristic within the journal contains “classes” by famous horologists on matters like “The Affect of the Escapement on the Isochronal Vibrations of the Steadiness.”
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Later points begin to use eye-catching images and shade on the duvet to lure readers (see picture 7). A read-through of the 1950 quantity of “Jewelers’ Round-Keystone” reveals how jewellery offered ladies an entry level into the horological commerce, and never simply as fashions or muses. Within the January problem, a narrative with pictures options Edwina Duvall, a highschool senior in Pasadena who decides to enter the occupation (picture 8). She will get a job with a jewellery store proprietor who’s at first skeptical that it is likely to be a younger lady’s “romantic” concept to work there, only a “passing whim.” After solely per week, nonetheless, the store proprietor is satisfied of her aptitude, and upon her commencement, he affords her a full-time job, saying she is aware of as a lot concerning the enterprise as those that’ve been in it for years. For her half, Edwina is thrilled that she’s already made a number of gross sales over $300, together with watches promoting for round $150 (about $1,900 right now.)
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JCK had a nationwide viewers, however for these fascinated about New York historical past, the adverts on this 1950 version of the journal, which listing the addresses of companies, clearly present that the middle of gravity for the commerce had shifted. Jewelers now not name Maiden Lane dwelling and have moved to the Diamond District on West forty seventh Road between fifth and sixth Avenues–the place the jewellery trade nonetheless thrives right now, simply three brief blocks from HSNY headquarters. A current ABC Information piece filmed in our library and classroom, beneath, options interviews with feminine entrepreneurs of the Diamond District, who would have made Edwina in Pasadena proud.
In a “Excessive Snobiety” article that quotes HSNY Deputy Director Carolina Navarro, Scarlett Baker writes that watches have extra just lately turn out to be dominant in retailer home windows within the district attributable to demand: “forty seventh Road has etched itself on the horological map because the place to go within the US for uncommon Rolexes, area of interest Patek Philippes, and Audemars Piguets. And the road’s promise of hard-to-come-by haute horology is second solely to the educated retailers that occupy it.” Picture 9 reveals a tableau of the Diamond District in the course of the night rush hour, with its iconic diamond-shaped avenue lights seen above the swirl of pedestrians and flashing neon.
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Though we nonetheless subscribe to jewelry-related journals at HSNY they usually’re at all times obtainable for perusal at our library, I needed to incorporate a point out of some non-periodical books. One is the current Bulgari: Past Time, a really stunning and hefty espresso desk quantity that you just may have the ability to spot in one of many footage in my article about large and small books. Different gadgets in our assortment concentrate on watchmakers who’re additionally recognized for his or her jewellery, like Cartier, or on methods that apply to jewellery, like engraving on treasured steel. We even have two new books concerning the Diamond District written by authors with private connections to forty seventh Road, “Diamond Tales” by Renée Rose Defend and “Treasured Objects” by Alicia Oltuski.
these books and magazines reminds us that watches are and have at all times been jewellery. They are not solely jewellery–additionally they occupy a place of some practicality that different items of knickknack won’t–however they proudly belong to the commerce. For those who stroll down forty seventh Road right now, you will see that the heritage of horological jewellery is alive and ticking, glittering at you from behind thick glass, shining out into the loud, shiny metropolis night time.
