One of the most significant American clock makers in the 19th century was The Ansonia Clock Company. Between 1850, the year of establishment, and 1929, the year the business entered receivership and ceded its remaining assets to Soviet Russia, it manufactured millions of clocks
The Ansonia Clock Company was founded, and the circumstances that led to its eventual death are summarized in the following chronology.
1844 – Anson Green Phelps founds the Ansonia Brass Company.
Anson G. Phelps had very modest origins while rising to become one of the greatest commercial businessmen of his day. At the age of 31, he relocated to New York and teamed up with Elisha Peck, another dealer from Connecticut. As the company Phelps & Peck, they shipped Southern cotton to England and, in exchange, brought metals into New York, where they became to become the city’s top metal importer at the time.
1850 – Phelps, two clockmakers from Bristol, Connecticut, Theodore Terry and Franklin C. Andrews, establish the Ansonia Clock Company as a division of the Ansonia Brass Company.
In America, cast brass and wooden clock mechanisms had mostly been replaced with less expensive rolled brass clock movements by the year 1838. The major clock makers in Bristol at the time were Terry & Andrews. In the previous year, they produced over 25,000 clocks with the help of almost 50 people and 58 tons of brass. Phelps made the decision to enter the clock manufacturing industry in order to increase the market for his brass goods. Phelps’ decision to work with Terry and Andrews was a clever business decision that allowed him to make money both from the production of a clock’s basic materials and its completed product.
Terry and Andrews consented to give Phelps a 50% stake in their clock manufacturing company in exchange for moving everything to Ansonia, Connecticut, the location of Phelps’ brass plant.
1851–1852 Andrews vacates the company. Andrews sells all except one of his stocks in 1851. In 1852, he sells Terry his remaining stake.
1853 At the New York World’s Fair, Ansonia displays clocks with cast iron cases. The exposition, which began on July 4, 1853, included just two further American clock firms. They were the Litchfield Manufacturing Company and the Jerome Manufacturing Company, both from Litchfield, Connecticut.
Anson Phelps, at 73 years old, transfers his ownership of the Ansonia Clock Company to his son-in-law James B. Stokes in 1853. Anson G. Phelps and two of his sons-in-law created the metal importing business Phelps, Dodge & Co., and Stokes was one of the company’s directors. On November 30, 1853, Phelps passes away at his New York City home as a wealthy man.
An enormous fire obliterates the Ansonia Clock Company factory in 1854. The massive stone factory of the Ansonia Clock Company was completely destroyed.
1854 – The directors of Phelps, Dodge & Co. purchase the property and the abandoned structures. Terry later joined together with legendary promoter P. T. Barnum on a clock project. Up to its bankruptcy in March 1856, it operated as the Terry & Barnum Manufacturing Company and made clocks.
From 1854 through 1869, the Ansonia Brass & Battery Mill, a division of Phelps, Dodge & Co., continued to produce brass movements for the broader clock-making industry. Additionally, they produced several finished clocks that were occasionally sold under the names “Ansonia Brass & Battery Company” and “Ansonia Brass Company,” respectively. They claim to have produced 22,000 clock movements and 2,000 completed clocks the year before in 1860.
1869 – The Ansonia Brass & Battery Company is reorganized as the Ansonia Brass & Copper Co., and full-scale clock manufacture is resumed under this name. The business claims to have produced 83,503 clocks by June 1870. At this point, the factory employed 150 people and produced clocks out of 90,000 pounds of brass. Ansonia Brass & Copper Company’s first pricing list, dated January 1, 1873, included 45 clock and watch types and fourteen distinct movements.
When the clock manufacturing business is separated from the brass milling business in 1877, The Ansonia Clock Company is reborn. The corporation is incorporated in New York City, and the officials of Phelps, Dodge & Company hold the majority of its shares. As one of the company’s founders, Brooklyn-based Henry J. Davies, a clockmaker, inventor, and case designer, joins the newly reorganized business. He significantly contributes to the company’s success in his capacity as president. He is primarily credited with creating the figure clocks, swing clocks, and other curiosities that made the Ansonia company famous and are now among the most sought-after Ansonia clocks.
Thomas Edison visits the Ansonia Clock Company plant in 1878 to conduct experiments with the fusion of clocks and his newly created phonograph. Some of the earliest trials were carried out by Edison and Charles Batchelor, his chief lab assistant, while the Ansonia Clock Company handled the most of the research and development. The development of a “phonograph clock” that would be profitable finally failed.
In Brooklyn, New York, a second Ansonia Clock factory is established in 1879. 360 people are employed there as of June 1880. With a workforce of 100 men and 25 women, the Ansonia, Connecticut plant is still making clocks.
1880 – The New York factory burns down, bringing further bad luck. According to reports, a gas leak sparked an explosion that started the fire. The burned-out and charred walls of the plant were all that were left, according to a New York Times story. A new factory is constructed on the same location in 1881.
The factory in Ansonia, Connecticut, shuts down in 1883. All administrative and production activities have been relocated to New York. Ansonia had sales offices in New York, Chicago, and London by this time.
1886 – More than 225 distinct clock types were produced creating a successful and debt-free Ansonia Clock Company.
1904 – Ansonia expands their range of affordable, unadorned watches. By 1929, Ansonia was thought to have produced 10 million of them.
The firm reaches its pinnacle in 1914 with more than 440 distinct clock models. Clocks were also shipped in great numbers to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, India, and eighteen other nations in addition to having a significant local sales volume.
The novelty clocks produced by Ansonia were the company’s top sellers in the early 1900s. As a result of World War I, and fierce competition from other clock manufacturers, sales volume declines. But when competition for the novelty clock industry intensified, the business tried to hold onto market share by lowering prices for its rivals. The financial results of this plan were terrible. They stopped all of their once well-liked black iron mantel clocks, china cased clocks, and statue clocks leaving only 47 distinct Ansonia clock types available by 1927.
1929 – A few months before to the stock market crash, the firm enters receivership. The equipment and dies were sold to Amtorg, an American trade company that served as Soviet Russia’s primary importing and exporting agent.
As part of the agreement, former Ansonia staff were dispatched to Moscow for up to 18 months to install the machinery and train Russian laborers, launching Russia’s industrialized mass manufacturing of mechanical watches.
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