Marking Modern Times: A History of Clocks, Watches, and Other Timekeepers in American Life
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.45 (854 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 022637968X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 271 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-05-31 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Americans have decorated their homes with clocks and included them in their poetry, sermons, stories, and songs. In Marking Modern Times, Alexis McCrossen relates how the American preoccupation with time led people from across social classes to acquire watches and clocks. The public spaces and buildings of the United States are home to many thousands of timepieces—bells, time balls, and clock faces—that tower over urban streets, peek out from lobbies, and gleam in store windows. While noting the difficulties in regulating and synchronizing so many timepieces, McCrossen expands our understanding of the development of modern time discipline, delving into the ways we have standardized time and describing how timekeepers have served as political, social, and cultural tools in a society that doesn’t merely value time but regards access to time as a natural-born right, a privilege of being an American.. And in the streets and squares beneath them, men, women, and children wear wristwatches of all kinds. And as political instruments, social tools, and cultural symbols, these personal and public timekeepers have enjoyed a broad currency in art, lif
History and Horology Well Done. Robert J. Frishman Luckily for folks like me whose full-time profession is antique clock restoration, sales and study, timekeeping occasionally captures the attention of academics, curators, and journalists who otherwise do not share my' lifelong passion for clocks and watches. In recent years, I have been happy to read informative and well-written volumes such as A Republic in Time by Thomas Allen, Selling the True Time by Ian Bartky, On Time by Carlene Stephens, and Revolution in Time by David Landes.Alexis McCrossen, an associate professor of hist
By tracing the different types of public clocks--from tower clocks to time balls--as well as the emergence of inexpensive pocket watches, McCrossen tells a story of a period when the quest for accurate timekeeping became an obsession in the US.". "How were timepieces in public places employed as symbols of authority by both public and private entities in nineteenth-century America? How did pocket watches and other private timekeeping devices move from a symbol of prestige for the wealthy to a ubiquitous personal possession? How did the inter