Vigo County Historical Society

Interest in tracking of time led to the invention of clocks

The need to measure time precisely has not always been an integral part of society. In the early history of humankind, people lived off the land and followed nature’s clock. Work patterns reflected the passage of day into night and the changing seasons. An exact knowledge of the hour and minute was unnecessary for daily living.

Although industrialization and urban live have made us a time-conscious society, human interest in measuring time has a long and complex history. In "Revolution in Time," historian David S. Landes finds that "the clock did not create an interest in time measurement; the interest in time measurement led to the invention of the clock."

Why did societies want to keep track of time? The reasons have been various and have not always arisen from the mass population.

In 976-1126, the Chinese developed water wheel towers to track time, but they were primarily used to study and display the movements of heavenly bodies. It was not important for the ordinary individual to know time, but astronomers-astrologers of the imperial court did so out of necessity. Their job was to study the movement of the heavens to predict good and bad fortune and to guide imperial action.

In Western culture, one reason for tracking time came out of the early Christian church (particularly the Roman branch) and the setting of prayer times by the clock. Around 530, Benedictine orders required seven daytime services (lauds, prime, tierce, sext, none, vespers and compline) and one at night (vespers, later matins).

Early time devices were sundials, water clocks, fire clocks and sand clocks. However, with the invention of the mechanical clock in medieval Europe came revolutionary implications for changing cultural and political values and personality.

The mechanical clock was not dependent on nature’s changes. It worked day and night (unlike the sundial) and would not freeze in cold weather (like the water clock). Once clock makers learned to drive it by means of a coiled spring rather than a falling weight, it became miniaturized and portable.

Historian Landes concludes: "It was this possibility of widespread private use that laid the basis for time discipline . . . One can use public clocks to summon people for one purpose or another; but that is not punctuality. Punctuality comes from within, not from without. It is the mechanical clock that made possible, for better or worse, a civilization attentive to the passage of time, hence to productivity and performance."

The mantel clock on display in the Vigo Room of the museum was manufactured in June 1906 by the Seth Thomas Clock Company of Connecticut. It is spring-driven, strikes the time on the hour and has a wooden body painted to look like expensive marble. It is a good example of mass production which allowed clocks to be affordable to the working class.