when did westclox stop using radium; when did westclox stop using radium. The women also left a legacy to science that has been termed invaluable., shifting from serif to sans-serif typefaces and from slightly ornate to more streamlined minute and second hands, all of which eased legibility; setting the clock face closer to the glass, reducing shadows; and creating a slightly smaller form overall., three women fainted, several clerks were trampled, and four showcase windows were shattered before police untangled a jam of 2,500 women and a few stout-hearted men who converged on the store., For That Healthy Glow, Drink Radiation . [9] The element was phased out of use by industry acting under its own volition as superior and safer luminous materials entered the marketplace. 7&a half X 6..desk clock. The use of Radium changed over several years but it was not until late 1960ies when the last were made. That was the first antique clock I owned myself. Many folks might not realize that early vintage clock dials were painted with radioluminescent paint, which is a mixture of fluorescent salts (these produce the glow) and radium-226, which is a dangerous and highly radioactive element. Westcloxs Manual for Employees read, We expect you to work hard, and the pay is accordingly large . Charles Crow Penn Valley, Ca, I have run across and old clock that I would like to know something about. Westclox Big Bens and Baby Bens are full of the stuff. I cannot date it. I read (but cant remember where) that about 40,000 were made. I also need it repaired so that it will be functional and need to find someone that will do that for me. When did Bulova stop using radium? I have never seen this mentioned anywhere. Credit: pinimg. England. [Workers assembling Big Ben alarm clocks at the Westclox plant, 1910s. It had beneath that four long tubes and they were the chimes for the door bell. My dad was one of the top bowlers here, Ristau said. JavaScript is disabled. AD x Stoddard: I was pretty much on my own until college. Big Ben Style Series. Stoddard: Its really hard to say. Even if the Western Clock Co. wasnt born in Chicago or headquartered here, the immediate aftershocks of the companys cultural and industrial impact certainly reached our shores in a hurry, no interstate required. Stoddard: Pay attention to quality. When did clocks stop using radium? Thanks, Teri. The story begins with a Connecticut clockmaker named Charles Stahlberg getting a patent for a new alarm clock design in 1885. German: WECKER (alarm); UHR (clock). The phosphor deterioration means you can't see a glow anymore, but . A few years later my grandma gave me one that worked, and my aunt gave me another one. This particular clock is made in China while other similar Westclox alarm clocks at the time were made in Taiwan. Posted on 1 second ago; June 24, 2022 . In terms of my own collection, Im still trying to find some of the really early Big Bens. I have a Westclox Magnet Key Part number 031723 I think was used to open a door as it has an arrow on 1 end. 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. Westclox Wrought Iron Look Wall Clock 12" 32021A. This Christmas (1930) ad illustrates 61-F Dura Case, style 2 crackle finish Big Ben and Baby Ben, Auto Clock, Pocket Ben and Country Club pocket watches. 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. As radium luminosity came under attack in the 1930s, Westcloxs other updates to the Big Ben design were far more practical and uncontroversial. Your email address will not be published. The whole clock seems to be origional and was maintained by my grandfather who was a watch/clock repairman. Art and Mary Ann Windy [pictured] have been married for 49 years, met as Westclox employees and were present for the open house. I recently added the Big Ben Style 1 and Baby Ben Style 1 Dial and Back types. Ref comment #10 from Frank Baker. 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. 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. Lynda Hinshaw, At this moment I am research a clock by Falconer& co HongKong. Thank you. Did westclox stop using radioactive paint by the 1960s? We would like to redo the entrances and lobby areas and show the history of the building right on site but have not found much anywhere. My love is for the style 1 peg leg Big and Baby Bens; mostly Baby Bens. About 1920 the luminous dial using radium paint was introduced. So yes. During the early 1900's, the effects of radiation exposure were not well understood, and radium was frequently . 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. It is something that we should know before everyone starts throwing away every luminous dial clock they own. Good old fashioned branding played a major role, as well. It is in good condition and has the original pendulum and key. His ideas were patented on as US patent #326,602. Westclox Model 66 Movement Series Welcome to the Westclox Clock and Watch History Database. Buy Now. 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. Accueil; Services; Ralisations; Annie Moussin; Mdias; 514-569-8476 Stoddard: The first Big Bens and Baby Bens went on the market in 1910 and they were wind ups. Underneath the #12 on the face it says: G. Falconer & Co. LTD. Hong Kong. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Here you can see production dates, original retail prices and other knowledge about vintage and antique Westclox clocks and watches. Eventually, scientists and medical professionals realized that these workers' illnesses . Both the Big and Baby Bens were housed in a newly refined bell-back clock case. It is 3 diameter with Westclox on the back and PAT.APLOFOR. Radium - The First Rolex Luminous Material. Patton, had joined Charles Stahlbergs original start-up back in 1886 at the age of just 13, and he was still on board in 1936, 50 years later. Kind regards, Ben van Vliet. The massive success of the Big Ben design wasnt just about function and style. Eventually we became best friends and started researching together. 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. the knobs have foreign words ie wecker & UHR.would like to know about his clock When I went home and washed my hands in a dark bathroom, they would appear luminous and ghostly, an original Ghost Girl named Catherine Donohue (nee Wolfe) later testified. There is a small dial inside of the clock face that has roman numerals like another clock face. 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. It is stamped on the back of the casing DRP&GM. Like many East Coasters, he decides to pursue his fortune out West, but unlike many of his peers, he skips the bustling Second City in favor of a promising river & railroad region downstate; where the towns of Peru, LaSalle and Ottawa intersect. the clock face is 16, ca 1900. the clock belonged to pheobe appersons family at their ranch in sunol california. 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. In some respects, the early rise of the Western Clock MFG Co. is even more impressive considering the company didnt have all the resources of an established, major metropolis to draw from. The use of radium was discontinued since the 1960s. It would be very interesting if you could provide me with some pictures of the clock. Through a friend I purchased an apparently antique key wind up long wooden and glass cased clock. Before we get to that, though, we have to start with the issue of geography as it concerns the business in question. document.write(year) There are many Westclox alarm clock models named Big Ben. Stahlbergs company goes bankrupt not once, but twice, within its first several years. Radium dials were produced throughout most of the 20th century before being replaced by safer tritium-based luminous material in the 1970s and finally by non-toxic, non-radioactive strontium aluminatebased photoluminescent material from the middle 1990s. Within in another ten years, the workforce had tripled again, powered by employee George Kerns 1908 invention of the first Big Benthe sleek, iconic model that basically set the template for the 20th century wind-up alarm clock. Theres a clock that came down the family, my great great granddad bought it used in about 1885, it was actually sold new in about 1839, one of the first of the weight-driven brass clocks. Despite Westcloxs deep German roots, the Illinois factory was a huge contributor to the U.S. military again during World War II, supplying upwards of a billion small parts for use in various defense products. 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. In 2006 I started collecting vintage advertisements. 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. I first saw the clock in 1957. I took it back and the repairman told me it was like a large Timex watch and just not worth being fixed. Henry Warren invented a little synchronous motor that could go inside a clock. "[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. 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. At the end of one hand is a star and the other hand is the moon. Chronic exposure to high levels of radium can result in an increased incidence of bone, liver, or breast cancer. 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. Westclox set up a factory in England in the 1940s and also in Scotland. One of the objects on display in the Benton County Historical Society's Corvallis Museum is this Westclox Radium Dial Clock. All the aforementioned to ask you if you know how many of the 1970 style 1As were made. The other thing is reproductions. Has the mechanics of the clock been changed/upgraded or could there be another issue at play? Don Spayer, volunteer and former Westclox employee, said the bulk of the museums collection was built through donations. Theres a seller on eBay now whos doing some really outstanding restorations of Big Bens. 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. Annie Moussin designer intrieur. [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.]. Was just trying to find out any information on this clock or if you may have ever come across one like it Some people just want one or two that they remember from childhood in good condition, so thats just the thing for them. Stoddard: My grandma gave me an old Baby Ben alarm clock that didnt work when I was seven. I wonder if the younger generations are as interested in the older things as we are, although there are some younger collectors out there learning how to do clock repair. Thanks so much Their factory in LaSalle, Illinois closed down in about 1980 when they moved all their production down south, but the building is still there. In 1898, the Curies discovered the existence of. I worked here for 28 years. The Westclox Big Ben Alarm Clock Vintage is an iconic timepiece that has been around since the early 1900s. They typically have a round brass base with a glass dome over them; they were made in Germany from the 1890s up through the 1970s, and a lot of people collect them. 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 a wind up. Your email (will not be published) (required), The Timeless Appeal of the Westclock Big and BabyBens, The National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Not Your Grandmas Cuckoo: Decapitating, Rat-Eating Clocks of the Black Forest, The Care and Repair of 19th-Century American Clocks. Its basically all forward momentum from here. when did westclox stop using radium. Stoddard: I was pretty much on my own until college. Westclox Big Ben and Baby Ben Identification Guide ClockHistory.com, Keeping Time in Peru Chicago Tribune, October 18, 1998, Remembering the Great War and The Clock That Caused a Near Riot WestcloxMuseum.com, For That Healthy Glow, Drink Radiation Popular Science, August 17, 2004, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of Americas Shining Women, by Kate Moore, 2o17, The Forgotten Story Of The Radium Girls, Whose Deaths Saved Thousands Of Workers Lives, by Kate Moore, Buzzfeed.com, One-Day and Alarm Clocks Commercial America, Vol VI, 1909, A Rude Awakening: The History of Alarm Clocks ThroughoutHistory.com. The pioneering spirit is there, but the business skills soon appear lacking. 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. When did Westclox stop using radium? I had developed some sort of fascination for Big Ben and Baby Ben clocks. Created with WordPress. Westclox Scotland produced its first clock on 21 September 1948; a spring wound alarm with a 4-inch (10cm) dial. Jessie, good observation. In clocks, as in all other lines of goods, there are two classes of consumersthe millions and the millionaires. I have a sessions mantle clock duet#1. Omega stopped using radium around 1963. Westclox began as the United Clock Company in Peru, Illinois in 1885. The work involved using luminous radium paint to make the numbers on clocks, watches and aeronautic dials glow in the dark. Were finally at a point, where were ready to do more than just sit here, said Ruth Spayer, curator for the museum. I recently wrote an article on Hong Kong Watch and Clockmakers for the Antiquarian Horology Society Journal. As my first name is Ben, I started to collect these alarmclocks since about 1970. I have been collecting, repairing, and restoring mostly Westclox Big Bens for several years. The dial painters soon became known as the ghost girls because by the time they finished their shifts, they themselves would glow in the dark. My clothes, hanging in a dark closet, gave off a phosphorescent glare. Technically speaking, though, Westclox did still produce clocks during the gap years that followed. They call it Shabby Chic and sell it on eBay for 60 to 80 dollars. I have a collection of alarm clocks, but slowly selling many. 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. Leg model with ring on top, dustproof case. Thats another story. As seen below, the company made something of a symbolic gesture out of honoring the last Big Ben to roll off the assembly line on July 31, 1942, the day when all production shifted to government contracts for the duration of the war. I have a Westclox Bachelor alarm clock from probably the 50s as it was always there when I was growing up. Westclox - An Identification and Price Guide, and I added even more in 2012. Was this done so the alarm could be more easily set on the quarter or half hour? The incidents occurred at three different factories in United States: one in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; one in Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s; and a third facility in Waterbury, Connecticut, also in the 1920s. Radium was discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie. I live in Scotland but my clock was made in USA. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that watches with radium dials should not be taken apart[5] without proper training, technique, and facilities. I think we threw it away. How did I get interested in clocks? With alarm clocks, they were so common that when people repaired them they did whatever they could to get them going. After the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by French physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Antoine Henri Becquerel, many other scientists began to search for uses of radioactivity. I will be watching for more articles from Bill Stoddard Collectors Weekly: When did you discover that there were other clock collectors? then 4 symbols a crown an 18 and to unkown symbols in a square patern but on its side square pattern. When Westclox changed over to the style 8 Big Ben and Baby Ben in 1964, they used 4 divisions per 5 minutes, I believe to make the alarm easier to set. Westclox 0.9" LED Plasma Screen Alarm Clock with USB Charging Port 71014X. Production was back in full force and at an all-time high by 1956, with 3,000 employees on staff. 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. They are just gorgeous watches and very well made. The clock can still give considerable amounts of radiation about 2-3 inches from the Crystal measured with a Geiger counter. Not to mention theres the Big Bens so that doubles it right there. 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. I spent many an evening here, watching him bowl.. All the rods in my clocks are verticle that is from top to bottom of the case, four on each side at the back of the movement. First, if your clock is for display only, I think it is harmless if the paint on the hands is not disturbed. We have photos of all the employees between 1927-1945 at the Peterborough Ontario Location but not much else. 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. Welcome to the Westclox Clock and Watch History Database. There are some blemishes on the wood on the right side. . Dreyfuss revised his changes at the end of the decade, designing the Style 5 and 5a Big Bens in 1938including the featured Loud Alarm dials from our museum collection. This dustproofing is accomplished by fittings around the set knobs and winding keys and on the regulator. Which is interesting because many of the electrics are scarcer but people just arent into collecting electric clocks. 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. The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. [Left: The first national Big Ben advertisement appears in the. 5 17 15 is May 17, 1915 . In the United States there does not seem to have ever been prohibitory legislation passed banning the use of radium in clocks and watches. Style 10 is the last numbered any info would be appreciated. Question: Are both 1) and 2) marriages of Style 2 mechanisms put in a Style 1A Big Ben and Style 1 Baby Ben. I have a Seth Thomas Mantle clock that my older sisters husbands Aunt had on her mantle for years. The Windys said their union confirms an old Westclox employee rumor about the long-lasting nature of a relationship struck up near a certain fountain. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. theres the problem, there were two gears that were in backwards. Sometimes Ive seen them for 300 to 600 dollars. National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors Inc (A 501c3 non-profit corporation). Seeking the Big 3 goals of convenience, cleanliness, and cheap production, Dreyfuss rolled out his new-look Big Ben in 1931. July 17th, 2008. There are also some specialty chapters, like an alarm clock chapter and a 400-day clock chapter, one that specializes in wristwatches and one on early American pocket watches. . These styles constitute the Read more about "Radium Girls" here. Westclox began as the United Clock Company of Peru, Illinois in 1885. But it had always just been a matter of time (pun less intended) before industrial mass production made a wide-scale phenomenon like the Big Ben possible. who can refurbush big ben still runs good perfect time purchased in 1950 cataloge #885(885). We thought it was 1890 or older. When I walked along the street, Iwas aglow from the radium powder., The radium girls case was one of the first in which an employer was made responsible for the health of the companys employees. The NAWCC is dedicated to providing association services, promoting interest in and encouraging the collecting of clocks and watches including disseminating knowledge of the same. For me its kind of an inexpensive hobby because as a boy I could find them for about a dollar a piece, sometimes in good condition. All I really want to know is about the raised horizontal single eye type decoration on this top removable piece. Stopping this practice drastically reduced the amount of radium ingested and therefore, the incidence of malignancy. Before OSHA was set up, 14,000 people died on the job every year; today, it is just over 4,500.