The Watch Factories of America - Past and Present #269542

HE term watchmaker, in America, does not necessarily imply one who manufactures watches, but is more generally applied to those who make a business of repair ing and cleaning time pieces. In days gone by, a watch maker was a mechanic of no mean order, capable of making and fitting any part of a watch, no matter what make the watch might have been or how complicated its construction, which through negligence on the part of the owner became deranged or broken. To-day, a watchmaker need be possessed of only ordinary mechanical skill and intelligence in order to repair any watch of American manufacture, and all this change has come about by the manufacturers of the various movements working on the interchangeable system, first applied to watchmaking in America by Mr. Aaron L. Dennison in 1850.