As BEN FRANKLIN SAID,"Time is the stuff that life is made of." He was simply restating what man has known as far back as memory can reach. Time is life's most precious ingredient. It is, in fact, all things to all people. In the world of business, minutes mean money. In the world of science, time has delivered the answer to many difficult problems. What we are and how well we succeed depends on the use we make of time. But time also can be dangerous. Miscalculated, it can cause disaster and death.
In the year 1880 every town and hamlet in the U. S. had on a different time standard, determined by the "sun time" of its particular location. There were 50 different "times" in use by the various railroads. Amidst all this confusion, faulty timing caused a series of disasterous railroad accidents. The need for railroad men to have accurate timepieces was painfullyevident. Two remedies evolved. A standard time plan was adopted and the four time zones--Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific--were established.
Following this the Hamilton Watch Company was founded in 1892 and set out to serve the railroad market with accurate timepieces. The rugged, precision watch that Hamilton produced became a favorite among railroad watch inspectors and personnel. In fulfilling the railroads' requirements for accuracy, it also filled the needs of the general public for a timepiece of high quality. By the turn of the century it came to be known as "Hamilton--The Railroad Timekeeper of America."
In World War I American doughboys in Europe found the small wristwatch a much greater convenience than the pocket-size timepiece. While this trend caused a shift in American watch production. The wristwatch was not a new discovery. History records that in 1517 Queen Elizabeth I was presented with a "wristlet in which was a cloche." It was the invention of the mainspring, or coiled spring, as a source of energy that made the wristwatch possible. This invention by Peter Henlein of Nuremberg, about 1511, resulted in the manufacture of heavy, egg-shaped watches with only a single hand which indicated the hours. Aptly called Nuremberg eggs, they were used mostly by watchmen, from which the name "watch" is derived.
MODEL 924
SIZE 18
1899
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HAMILTON POCKET WATCHES
HAMILTON'S FIRST BOARD OF DIRECTORS
HAMILTON HISTORY (PAGE 1)
HAMILTON HISTORY (PAGE 3)
HAMILTON HISTORY (PAGE 4)
HAMILTON HISTORY (PAGE 5)
HAMILTON RAILROAD WATCHES
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