Join HSNY on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 for a lecture on Simon Willard Eight-Day Clocks: In Search of the Finely-Divided Trade, 1785-1825, by Robert C. Cheney, Executive Director of the Willard House and Clock Museum.
As the most complicated trade in 18th century America, clock making relied heavily on a finely divided shop structure to produce domestic timekeepers. Cabinetmakers, carvers, gilders, dial makers, painters and at least seventeen different metal-working trades all joined forces to capture the fervor of nouveau riche Americans to mimic fine English interiors with locally produced furniture, silver, portraiture and clocks to fill elegant new homes. At the September 10, 2019, meeting of the Horological Society of New York, Robert C. Cheney will discuss the fascinating history of Simon Willard eight-day clocks. Previous scholarship by Cheney has documented a little known, but extensive trade in Liverpool and Birmingham goods to supply Willard and others with most of the materials and components needed to fill the needs of an emerging American market. Cheney's HSNY lecture will widen the importance of Liverpool and Birmingham for American clock production and discuss how Willard began to recreate English methodology in Boston by 1800.
