Origin of the eye, forklore or legends surrounding????? [citation needed] The use of radium to provide luminescence for hands and indices on watches soon followed. You do not want to open them up, lest you breath radioactive dust from old paint or spread it around. I Have a small brass alarm clock,which is 1-3/4 Hieght Length & Width. It led to life-saving regulations and, ultimately, to the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which now operates nationally in the United States to protect workers. Read more about "Radium Girls" here. By 1930, all dial painters stopped pointing their brushes by mouth. A 2015 article by Ben Hohenstatt in the Illinois Valleys News Tribune included interviews with a few former Westclox workers who returned to see the museum and remember old times. Their Scottish factory was a full manufacturing plant, at which all their clocks were assembled from start to finish with only the basic raw materials being brought in by outside suppliers. I am looking to get an approxmiate value of this clock. According to Chemistry Explained, radium is extracted today from uranium ores in much the same way that Marie and Pierre Curie did in the late 1890s and early 1900s. This eye is horizontally elliptical in general shape, about 4 3/4 long and 1 3/4 tall with a circle in the middle making it look like a single eye. the knobs have foreign words ie wecker & UHR.would like to know about his clock they played a deep rich tone. Radium paint itself was eventually phased out and has not been used in watches since 1968. Sometimes getting parts is tough, too, although it turns out Westclox made lots and lots of spare parts. var today = new Date() Question: Are both 1) and 2) marriages of Style 2 mechanisms put in a Style 1A Big Ben and Style 1 Baby Ben. [citation needed] After about 20minutes this delivers the equivalent of one whole day's worth of normal background radiation. Westclox Big Ben and Baby Ben Identification Guide , Remembering the Great War and The Clock That Caused a Near Riot . Instrument dials painted with radium-based paint, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "WWII Military Watches 'Potentially Pose Serious Cancer Risk,', "Health Effects of Radium Radiation Exposure,", "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Radium Dials,", "Lume 101: Watch Luminescence Explained,", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radium_dial&oldid=1123475907, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Jane Brickman, "Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 19101935,", This page was last edited on 23 November 2022, at 23:30. Gordon Goodrum Can someone get back to me as to what it is and possibe age of it. Lynda Hinshaw, At this moment I am research a clock by Falconer& co HongKong. Can you confirm? Radium dials usually lose their ability to glow in the dark in a period ranging anywhere from a few years to several decades, but all will cease to glow at some point. It started early in the 20th century, around 1910, when some companies began to use radium on watch dials and hands to create a "glow in the dark" effect. Westclox Big Ben Style 1a Alarm Clock Date Summary: 1918 - 1935 (and a reproduction was made in 1970) Characteristics: Ring on top, two legs in front, no screws through the front of the bezel. Something about them has always been ingrained in me. I worked here for 28 years. You just cant imagine the size of this factory its just gigantic. Matthiessen [pictured below], who owns the powerful Illinois Zinc Company and most other things in Peru / LaSalle, decides to swoop in and save Stahlbergs little clock business, incorporating it as the Western Clock Mfg. I am reading, studying, and learning more about the Westclox. In fact, one of their designs for the military, the terrifying sounding WarAlarm, spurred a small shopping riot in Chicago in 1944 when a small batch of the clocks was made available for commercial purchase at a downtown store. It is in the manufacture of alarm and one-day clocks that these results are the most noticeable, because in this field the quality of the product had always been subordinated to the market value, and the general feeling was one of let good enough alone., In this particular branch of the clock industry the Western Clock Manufacturing Company has achieved great results in the last twenty years. Without a crystal poses a serious Health risk because the Radium paint flakes off and can become airborne. Were finally at a point, where were ready to do more than just sit here, said Ruth Spayer, curator for the museum. Westclox Model 66 Movement Series Welcome to the Westclox Clock and Watch History Database. After several changes of ownership, it became . But this is not how the story of Westclox began. Columbia, PA 17512 (All images in this article courtesy Bill Stoddard, www.clockhistory.com), I found this article very complimentary to the Westclox company and an intriguing piece to read. I have an Pine State Ice Cream Milk clock that I would like to find out how much it may be worth. The standard operating procedure of their daily work involved literally placing radium flecked paint brushes between their lips to create a finer point before application. I hope to document Style 5 Baby Bens this winter. At the top was a clock covered with a glass door. Its hard to fathom in retrospect, but in the early 20th century, it was generally believed that small amounts of radium were perfectly harmless to humans, and thus, the substances natural, long-lasting glow actually made it something of an attractive novelty of the time periodnot just on clock dials, but in the worlds of quack medicine, fashion, cosmetics, and even a proto version of energy water, called Radithor.. I recently wrote an article on Hong Kong Watch and Clockmakers for the Antiquarian Horology Society Journal. Sometimes extensive casework can be more time consuming than getting the movement running. It has a removable bottom decorative piece as well as a top rounded top flat piece of wood with a verticle wooden slat on the back extending to become a peg-like extension to fit and secure the decorative piece into the top of the clock. The Forgotten Story Of The Radium Girls, Whose Deaths Saved Thousands Of Workers Lives, by Kate Moore, A Rude Awakening: The History of Alarm Clocks , Western Clock MFG Co. (Westclox), est. Fortunately, in the years since, theres been a noble effort to retain surviving parts of the building and some of the important local history that the empty factory once represented. Westclox also made about 5000 gold-plated reproductions. Even today, with the considerable help of a thing called Interstate 80, its still about a two-hour journey from LaSalle Street to LaSalle County. The women also left a legacy to science that has been termed invaluable.. Thanks for any info you may be able to supply The front is in Roman Numerals with a dome shaped raised glass. "[4], According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, "radioactive antiques [including watches] are usually not a health risk as long as they are intact and in good condition. Helen. I have an antique mantle clock given to my Aunt & Uncle for a wedding gift (approximately 1949) FROM my great grandparents. This 1964 Westclox Christmas ad describes their features. The radium isotope (226Ra) used has a half-life of about 1,600years,[6] so radium dials remain essentially just as radioactive as when originally painted 50 or 100 years ago, whether or not they remain luminous. Dave, Your question about a Big Ben containing radium, and in fact about which clocks actually do contain radium, is a good one. Thank you. We are looking for any Westclox photographs, memorabilia etc between 1927- 1980s of the factory. German: WECKER (alarm); UHR (clock). A Big Ben typical of those made from late 1910 to mid-1915. Westclox Big Bens and Baby Bens are full of the stuff. Gary Biolchini added more style series in his book Buy Now. They did some limited production (less than 200) in 1908, when they were still perfecting the design, then quite a few in 1909, but it really wasnt nationally advertised until September of 1910. Dates Stamped on Big Ben and Baby Ben Clock Movements Dates were stamped on a movement plate of most Big Ben and Baby Ben alarm clocks made up until mid-1970's. Numbers are used for the month, day and year; or just the month and year (e.g. I met somebody then who told me about the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors and then I joined that and in their bi-monthly magazine I found a man looking for early Westclox information, he is now one of the foremost Westclox researchers. Art and Mary Ann Windy [pictured] have been married for 49 years, met as Westclox employees and were present for the open house. This past weekend, thanks to the Westclox Museum, its doors were opened and former workers were welcomed back for Homecoming Day. That batch was in production non-continuously from 1939 to 1946, housed in gunmetal cases with nickel trim. I think we threw it away. Thanks, Paula. When I was 11 or 12, I started mowing lawns for money and paid another man to repair it for me, but when it came back it would run for a while and then stop, pretty erratic. Your email address will not be published. . I recently added the Big Ben Style 1 and Baby Ben Style 1 Dial and Back types. The clock is several houndred pounds, and keeps great time. People will still look for a good wind up but the quality declined in the later years just because the companies tried so hard to keep the prices low. Sometimes Ive seen them for 300 to 600 dollars. When radium was discovered in the early 1900s, people were fascinated by its mysterious glow and it was added to many everyday products, including paints. . Thank to several professionals who Ive met on Ebay, I have become quite skilled with my restorations plus making dials and alarm function indicators. Which is interesting because many of the electrics are scarcer but people just arent into collecting electric clocks. Can anyone tell me the meaning or significance of this eye? I think it is a clock made by Sessions. Westclox set up a factory in England in the 1940s and also in Scotland. Debbie Blake, I have a small Westclox wind up clock dating around 1937. So I swapped them, and its worked perfectly ever since. When did Westclox stop using radium? About 1931 they made the first electric Big Ben, and they were plug ins. National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors Inc (A 501c3 non-profit corporation). Am I missing something here? During World War II they had some fantastic ads that you can see on my website like, Victory Wont Wait for the Nation Thats Late, and Guard Your Big Ben where they show a bulldog and a soldier with a gun guarding a Big Ben because during the war they stopped making clocks for the consumer market and totally switched over to military work. [Former Westclox workers Art and Mary Ann Windy (standing), 2015], This is amazing, Art said. When did clocks stop using radium? I was pained to learn how the girls had suffered while working here and sacrificed their lives to give the name of the company which it has today. hi, I have a cocacola square clock. I try to get all the pictures I can and keep them all chronologically and study the history. About the only. Production was back in full force and at an all-time high by 1956, with 3,000 employees on staff. Next to the original Westcloxes I have an interesting collection of European copies by a.o. Radium was discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie. Luckily for Charles, however, he is living in the same small town as Frederick William Matthiessena fellow German, but one with a hell of a lot more money and business experience. [Workers assembling Big Ben alarm clocks at the Westclox plant, 1910s. As various larger corporate interests got involved in the years ahead, however, and as increasing competition from electronic clockmakers slowed the Big Bens dominance, the inevitable slow down began. There is a small dial inside of the clock face that has roman numerals like another clock face. Westclox 0.9" LED Plasma Screen Alarm Clock with USB Charging Port 71014X. Westclox Wrought Iron Look Wall Clock 12" 32021A. Thank you. It also says that the patent was re-issued March 31, 1868. In 1919 the company was incorporated as Western Clock Company, Ltd. Style 1 has three screws through the bezel visible from the front, style 1a doesnt (compare figures 3 and 7); Style 1 has two screws holding the bell back, style 1a has three. I read (but cant remember where) that about 40,000 were made. Would you please direct me to someone that can do this for me? Big Ben style 1a continued in production until its discontinuation in 1935. Is this a product that the company would have made or something someone created? Westclox Clock Construction and Quality. The style 8 Big and Baby Bens were introduced in 1964. Accueil; Services; Ralisations; Annie Moussin; Mdias; 514-569-8476 Clock Repair and Hermle Chime, Mantel and Wall Clocks for Sale at Bill's Clockworks. Thanks. For the town of Peruwhich had tied much of its identity to Westclox for the better part of a centurythe damage went beyond financial. One time a friend and I were down there behind the factory and we got talking to a man who was leasing the back half of the factory to make machinery for bakeries. In a way theyre preventing clocks from being thrown away so I cant totally condemn it, but it still seems like a funny thing to do. I was about 3ft high and recessed into the wall. We thought it was 1890 or older. [7], Ingestion of radium has been linked to anemia, cataracts, broken teeth, and reduced bone growth.[8]. A 'radium cow' or sample of radium would continually yield a supply of the nuclide. 400-day clocks are also known as anniversary clocks, they would run 400 days on one winding. I have a Seth Thomas Mantle clock that my older sisters husbands Aunt had on her mantle for years. Well, the company certainly maintained some major salesrooms here, and many of their employees came from the city and its suburbs. Thank you My father (Richard Ristau Sr.) worked here for 48.. Westclox Classic Alarm Clock Full Size 47602. Eventually, scientists and medical professionals realized that these workers' illnesses were being caused by internal contamination from the radium they ingested. Only reason I can think of and it looks pretty odd not to have minutes on a clock face. Credit: pinimg. During the early 1900's, the effects of radiation exposure were not well understood, and radium was frequently . Geiger counters could pick up readings from pants returned from a dry cleaner and from clothes stored away in a cedar chest. Theyre just scattered in different places all over the country, little collections of hands, springs, screws, and things like that. Created with WordPress. It was passed on to my sister and for years it was on their mantle along time until it stopped. Stoddard: I was pretty much on my own until college. I never realized, even working here, they made so many different models.. The clock can still give considerable amounts of radiation about 2-3 inches from the Crystal measured with a Geiger counter. Then my friend and I went around the neighborhood asking people if they had anything they wanted to give away, like old clocks and cameras and tape recorders. How do you date a Westclox Baby Ben? Im always interested in the history and the variations of clocks and how they fit in the scheme of things, what came before and what came after. Omega stopped using radium around 1963. These efforts, combined with an ahead-of-its-time factory welfare department and employee benefits packages, led to a lot of workers spending their whole lives with Westclox. Charles Stahlberg had an idea for making a better, but less expensive alarm clock. The next month, Roth got a cablegram from London; his friend and valued co-worker Le Roy had died for his country. Those simple words, Roth later wrote in the November 1914 issue of the company newsletter, Tick Talk, unconsciously characterized the manunaffected, direct, devoted to his cause., [Images from a 1922 issue of the Westclox company newsletter, the very cleverly titled Tick Talk]. It might be the only one in the country, Spayer said. So, rather than having the classic oversized bell or double-bell on top of the unit (to smash with your palm at 6am), the ringing mechanism was housed inside the back of the case, and a big winding key occupied the summit. A clock without hands might seem indifferent to the passage of time, but these old Big Ben and Baby Ben dials have some serious stories to tell. That way I got myself another Baby Ben, bringing my collection to three by age 12. Unfortunately, they also hint at a tragic chapter in American industrial history, when the appeal of a luminous new kind of paint wound up putting hundreds of workersmostly young womenat great personal risk. . Thank you. var year = today.getFullYear() While the painting technique of the Ghost Girls was replaced with supposedly safer methods like silk screening, traces of radium were still used by many companies to get that desired glow effect throughout the 1940s and even as late as the 60s. Their use in prostate brachytherapy dates from 1926. For my 14th birthday I got a book called The Treasury of American Clocks and there was a picture showing the seven types of Baby Bens. Dont know if someone ingraved date on when took down or if the original. dated:1990 ,decorated :hong cong.made in japan.cocacola tradmark. [Left: The first national Big Ben advertisement appears in the Saturday Evening Post in 1910: Big Ben is a thin, beautiful and punctual sleepmeter with a silent motor that will not annoy you on your lie-awake nights and a deep musical voice that will call you on your sleepiest mornings. Right and Below: A style 1A Big Ben from our museum collection, circa 1920s.]. AD x Stoddard: I was pretty much on my own until college. Westclox did make a couple of documented advertising clocks, but very few. I am sure I can give Mr. Shields further information about his clock. Could you suggest how I could go about finding out this information. Any information would be very helpful. The center is in the shape of the world map. The disease, radium-induced osteonecrosis, was recognized as an occupational disease in 1925 after a group of radium painters, known as the Radium Girls, from the United States Radium Corporation sued. By Dave Margulius . I would like to find out about this clock. The Ingersoll Watch division of the Waterbury Clock Company, a nationally-known maker of low-cost pocket and wristwatches, was a leading popularizer of the use of radium for watch hands and indices through the introduction of their "Radiolite" watches in 1916. Thank you for your input. When I walked along the street, Iwas aglow from the radium powder., [Mrs. Charlotte Purcell, like Catherine Donohue, was one of 15 former workers at the Radium Dial Company who contracted cancer and sought justice in the late 1930s]. They were told that eliminating lip-pointing had ended earlier problems. It is stamped on the back of the casing DRP&GM. My husband has a Big Ben clock that he inherited, it was took down from a mill and given to his grandma. She was 18. Big Ben: butler nickel case, gold leaf numeral dial 1930 1932. I am a retired mechanical engineer, the quality has floored me, hats off to this company. Technically speaking, though, Westclox did still produce clocks during the gap years that followed. Thanks so much So I brought it home and left it hanging and would wind it up every once in a while. The pioneering spirit is there, but the business skills soon appear lacking. The Canadian Clock Museum (http://www.canclockmuseum.ca/) may have some information. Welcome to the Westclox Clock and Watch History Database. theres the problem, there were two gears that were in backwards. Hi I need the face plate for a black face big ben with the alarm dial on its face do you have any you could sell me alonf with the radio dials, it was probably outsourced meaning westclox sold some watches to hot wheels, I had a westclox electric dialite like that. I have a sessions mantle clock duet#1. My clothes, hanging in a dark closet, gave off a phosphorescent glare. As Kate Moore explains it, The radium girls case was one of the first in which an employer was made responsible for the health of the companys employees. Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated. This was a wonderful article to read. In terms of my own collection, Im still trying to find some of the really early Big Bens. In the comprehensive Big Ben & Baby Ben Identification Guide, organized by researchers Richard Tjarks and Bill Stoddard, they credit the original brilliant marketing of these little wonders almost entirely to one mana 28 year-old French immigrant named Gaston Le Roy. It is made by The Sessions Clock movement, appears to be brass, a bucking horse with cowboy riderjudgeing from the clothes design of the cowboy it is quite old. We are very proud to be living in this building and would love to know more about this specific site. Within two decades she had lost all her teeth. Thanks very mutch, I just acquired a sir w.h. Theyll take an old Big Ben from 1930 and make a new dial that says Indian Motorcycle or Victola, and put it on eBay. When he made his first clock and plugged it into the wall it worked fine except it wasnt accurate, it was off by plus or minus a half hour a day, because the 60 cycles were not regulated at that time, so it could vary quite a bit. It is battery operated and takes a D battery. Above all else, though, the rise and fall of Westcloxand the deeper history of these Big Ben clocks, in particularis simply far too intriguing to dismiss just because of a long-distance commute. 1919 -1922, Luminous, Westclox in Roman text: 1923 - 1927, Luminous, projection on the "x": 1928 - 1935. I first saw the clock in 1957. Radium dials held near the face have been shown to produce radiation doses in excess of 10Sv / hour. I have been collecting, repairing, and restoring mostly Westclox Big Bens for several years. Back then, radium wasn't considered to be dangerous in small doses. Site of the Old Westclox factory 211-201 Hunter Street, Peterborough Ontario. The movement was then used with minor changes in Loud Alarm models until 1956. While promoting Westclox products in Europe, the breakout of World War I and the laws of mandatory military service in his native France forced Le Roy to get his affairs in order and head for the front in 1914. They can be identified by having the modern type of flat head screws with shoulders instead of round head screws, and by having a 1910 patent date on the back even though the case is style 1a. For example, Big Ben Style 1 and Style 1a are the leg model, and Style 2 is the first base model. The internet is fantastic, you can find out anything about just any kind of clock, exchange pictures easily, correspond with people and work together on research. Was this done so the alarm could be more easily set on the quarter or half hour? Apr 14, 2011 501 1 18. While studying the types of Big Ben style 1 and 1A in WestcloxHistory.com, I noticed the reproduction style 1A, and have acquired about 5 of them. Did westclox stop using radioactive paint by the 1960s? At this moment I study horology at West Dean College in the UK. The lume used on vintage Rolex watches was radium-based, and radium remained the standard for nearly all Rolex lume until 1963, when growing health concerns forced a shift away from it. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. So yes. Underneath the #12 on the face it says: G. Falconer & Co. LTD. Hong Kong. Any suggestions of where to get a replacement preferably in Canada? It would be very interesting if you could provide me with some pictures of the clock. credit: Northern Illinois University], According to a 1909 article in Commercial America, In clocks, as in all other lines of goods, there are two classes of consumersthe millions and the millionaires. It is in the manufacture of alarm and one-day clocks that these results are the most noticeable, because in this field the quality of the product had always been subordinated to the market value, and the general feeling was one of let good enough alone., [Automatic machinery certainly sped up the manufacturing process, by plenty of human skill and attention was still required to make the Big Ben. In the 1970s, radium was phased out of wristwatches and clockdials. I thought, oh boy, I just need four more and Ill have them all! Some years ago I intended to do a write-up on my collection and started researching on the internet and found the Westclox history site with a wealth of info.
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