This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our librarians. Today’s post was written by Miranda Marraccini.

Brrrring brrrrinnnggggg!!! Whether it’s the dulcet tones of your iPhone, a baby crying through a monitor’s screen, or the light rudely creeping around the edges of your blackout curtain, you were probably awakened this morning by something other than the sluggish impulses of your own limp body.

Recently, I was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article about alarm clocks that have unusual capabilities: they will shock you (literally) or charge you money to motivate you to climb out of your duvet cave. In the course of my research, however, I found that alarm clocks have a delightfully colorful history. A century or two ago, you could get an alarm clock that would light a real flame or, perhaps more usefully, make you a pot of tea. Some of the innovations of the 19th century evolved into useful modern functions like the snooze button. Others are now found only in the pages of books in places like our library at the Horological Society of New York.

Alarms on clocks are nearly as old as mechanical clocks themselves, dating to around the 1300s. However, before the late-19th century, most people couldn’t afford their own clocks and relied on candle clocks, roosters, and church bells to get them up and going. One solution to the problem of how to wake up was the “knocker-upper,” essentially a human alarm clock who walked around tapping on windows to wake up clients.

The history of commercially-produced alarm clocks began around 1800 when European military officers began to use carriage clocks with alarms to wake for roll call. These were expensive status symbols, not mass-produced. Between 1820 and 1870, there were over 150 alarm clock patents granted in France, including for devices like the “universal alarm clock,” which was a separate bell mechanism you could use in conjunction with any pocket watch (according to the inventor’s dubious claims). Image 1, from a German-language catalog of a 2017 Deutsches Uhrenmuseum exhibit about the history of the alarm clock, shows one such design from the 1820s.

The true mass-market breakthrough happened in America in the 1870s. Industrialization meant people were working in factories on a strict schedule, sometimes on varying shifts, and the growth of cities meant they lived farther from their workplaces and commuted more. All of these factors contributed to the alarm clock’s emerging status as a necessity.

The first modern clock production facilities emerged in the United States in the 1840s, where the factory-line mode of production made clocks much faster and cheaper to build. One of the earliest successful alarm clock models was the Ansonia Clock Company’s “Globe,” patented in 1877 and produced in Connecticut and New York in huge numbers in the 1880s. Image 2 shows the “Globe” proudly adorned with its patent date, March 27th, 1877, front and center on the dial.

Alarm clock supremacy happened swiftly, within a few years. American company Seth Thomas made about 100 per day of its “Nutmeg” model starting in 1876; by 1877, they were churning out a thousand a day. Other large-volume American manufacturers of the 1880s included the F. Kroeber Clock Company, Parker Clock Company, New Haven Clock Company, and Waterbury Clock Company. They all produced so-called “tin can alarms,” which were small cylindrical metal alarm clocks with a bell on the top (later concealed behind the clock).

The “tin cans,” with their efficient shape, minimal hand finishing, and stamped, identical parts, infiltrated American households with alarming speed. By 1902, the Western Clock Manufacturing Company (later Westclox) said it made over a million clocks per year; its “America Alarm” was its cheapest consumer model at 53 cents. Image 3 shows two “Americas” from around 1900; the photo is from the comprehensive survey “Westclox: An Identification and Price Guide.” The least expensive alarm clock I found during this period retailed for 39 cents. That means you could get two clocks for the cost of a first-class stamp in 2026!

The highly automated “American system” of clock production inspired European manufacturers. In the 1870s, Arthur Junghans, scion of a well-known watchmaking family from Germany, visited America to learn about clock factories. He and others imported American-style manufacturing to Germany, where facilities sprang up to mimic the cheap American models. Junghans introduced its smash hit “Baby” model in 1881. In image 4, you can see a slightly later “Baby” with additional features, including a seconds hand and legs! Note, however, there is still no shutoff switch for the alarm, and it would ring until the spring wound down. In 1899, Seikosha Factory (later Seiko) joined in, beginning to produce similar alarm clocks in Japan.

Skipping ahead, basic alarm clock technology stayed pretty consistent for around 100 years, until the advent of digital displays. There were popular flip-number clocks starting in the 1960s (memorialized in the repeated wake-up scene in the film “Groundhog Day”), which are digital in the sense that they show the time with numerals instead of hands. The first digital alarm clock with an LED or LCD screen that I found was from 1975, produced by Westclox and called the “Direct Reading” model. Another from 1979 was produced in Germany by Junghans.

What about the slow-wakers of the past? What if you needed repeated, annoying nudges to reach consciousness? I’m not able to definitively say who authored the first mechanical “snooze.” There were variations on “snooze” nearly from the beginning of industrialized clock production, such as the “Alternating Alarm” developed by Westclox in 1904. It rang for 20 seconds, then was silent for 20 minutes, then rang for 20 seconds, repeating continuously. From Junghans, the “crescendo” alarm (1913) would slowly get louder and the “bi-vox” and “tri-vox” alarms (1930s) started with a softer wake-up tone before switching to a louder one.

Of these earlier models, the technology that seems the most similar to the modern “snooze” is the “Siesta” clock introduced by Westclox in August 1933 (see Image 5). Sold for $2.95, according to the advertisement, the “Siesta was made for people who hate to get up in the morning. If you are inclined to ‘cat nap’ after being awakened by the alarm a second and more insistent alarm sounds ten minutes later.” Other than the fact that you don’t need to push a button to make the function happen, the “Siesta” seems to embody the snooze idea. Modern-style snooze buttons (sometimes called “drowse”) emerged in the 1950s and 60s.

Other than a snooze function, many alarm clocks included helpful features like glowing hands and numerals (powered, of course, by radium paint). More unusual functions I found were: clocks that could light a gas flame or lightbulb, clocks with built-in safe-deposit boxes, animated scenes on clock dials, and a clock that could help keep track of your menstrual cycle (the 1965 Sessions “Lady,” which came with a “monthly cycle chart” and is pictured in image 6).

I wrote about the device below, called a teasmade, in a previous article about food and horology. When the alarm goes off, it lights a match, which ignites a spirit flame, which boils the kettle, which then lifts and fills the teapot! Genius, if incendiary. Though image 7 here, from a book called “Eccentric Contraptions” in our library, shows an early tea-making clock, electric versions of the teasmade were popular into the 1960s, especially the “Goblin” (image 8).

It wasn’t all tea, though. The espresso-making clock in image 9 is of course Italian, made by Borletti & Pezzi, the ancestor of automotive precision instrument manufacturer Veglia Borletti and featured in a book about the brand. For film buffs (like my colleague St John, who pointed this out), these complicated devices call to mind the Rube Goldberg-esque inventions from films like “It’s a Gift” (1923); a hilarious scene shows the protagonist being awoken by a contraption that tickles his feet, boils an egg straight from the hen, makes coffee, and gets him dressed for the day.

As is often the case, when I finished this research, I came to the conclusion that the wakers of the 19th century were just like those of today: tired, cranky, and remarkably inventive in their attempts to overcome their natural impulse to stay in bed as long as possible.

The process of waking up, for humans, is a fragile transition between two states, as Richard Wilbur writes in his poem about morning. At the moment our eyes open, we’re stunned, not quite asleep, not quite awake. Then, with a groan, “The soul shrinks/ From all that it is about to remember.” We fully become ourselves, “as the sun acknowledges / With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors, / The soul descends once more in bitter love / To accept the waking body.” Wilbur’s poem is called “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World.” It’s about how the things and people we love are imperfect and dirty; yet every morning, they call to us to wake again, and come back to the world for a fresh chance to love them. After a cup of coffee, at least.

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