Through it all, Peru remained the companys home base, as over 3,000 employees now enjoyed the rapidly expanding space of the factory and its attached campus, with gardens, tennis courts, a bowling alley, and other things worthy of a Matthiessen estate. Helen. Style 1 has three screws through the bezel visible from the front, style 1a doesnt (compare figures 3 and 7); Style 1 has two screws holding the bell back, style 1a has three. The radium isotope (226Ra) used has a half-life of about 1,600years,[6] so radium dials remain essentially just as radioactive as when originally painted 50 or 100 years ago, whether or not they remain luminous. Radiums luminosity was part of its allure, Moore writes. Ruth Spayer at the Westclox Museum tracked down a newspaper story from the Daily Post-Tribune on March 21, 1944, describing a scene in which 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.. [citation needed] After about 20minutes this delivers the equivalent of one whole day's worth of normal background radiation. [Left: The first national Big Ben advertisement appears in the. "[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. That summer at an antique store I came across one that wasnt even in the book, and I thought that was exciting. 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. Not everyone involved with the manufacturing of Westclox products was employed directly by Westclox, however. I recently wrote an article on Hong Kong Watch and Clockmakers for the Antiquarian Horology Society Journal. 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. Big Ben style 1a continued in production until its discontinuation in 1935. The new company tripled in size by the turn of the century, employing 232 people at its growing Peru plant (145 men, 73 women, 14 children) and producing 500,000 clocks annually. Good old fashioned branding played a major role, as well. In clocks, as in all other lines of goods, there are two classes of consumersthe millions and the millionaires. In its place, he ironically dubbed the little bedside clock Big Ben (apparently not copyrighted by the British Parliament), and introduced it to the public in early ads as a gendered he instead of an it., Big Ben is a handsome, well built, refined and bright looking fellow with a clean-cut open face and a deep cheerful voice, one ad read. [9] Prior to that date, "the federal government had a limited role, if any, in ensuring the safe use of radium," according to the NRC. That way I got myself another Baby Ben, bringing my collection to three by age 12. But this is not how the story of Westclox began. JavaScript is disabled. Westclox Scotland produced its first clock on 21 September 1948; a spring wound alarm with a 4-inch (10cm) dial. 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 . I worked here for 28 years. When did Bulova stop using radium? If you look at a Baby Ben in the 1959 Sears catalog, they sold for about nine dollars and if you go to a Wal Mart today you can still buy a Baby Ben for about nine dollars, but the quality isnt the same. Radium - The First Rolex Luminous Material. Dont know if someone ingraved date on when took down or if the original. 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. Big Ben style, and there are other styles with names instead of numbers. WECKER (CW arrow)/UHR (CCW arrow) knob with ring: CW winds alarm; CCW winds clock. Stoddard: Some of the old American pocket watches are just beautiful so I have several in my collection. In terms of my own collection, Im still trying to find some of the really early Big Bens. I would like to find the value of it. There are many Westclox alarm clock models named Big Ben. Going back further in time, here is a pretty hypnotizing silent film released by Westclox in the early 1920s to promote the Big Ben and other products. Westclox Big Bens and Baby Bens are full of the stuff. The massive success of the Big Ben design wasnt just about function and style. It was put away for years and last year it was given to me as I have small collection of United novelty clocks. Site of the Old Westclox factory 211-201 Hunter Street, Peterborough Ontario. In the 1970s, radium was phased out of wristwatches and clockdials. Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated. 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 thought, oh boy, I just need four more and Ill have them all! I cant find out anything about him or any other clocks by him. As my first name is Ben, I started to collect these alarmclocks since about 1970. I know that it is electric and it requires a dime deposit to set the alarm on it. So I brought it home and left it hanging and would wind it up every once in a while. Can you confirm? Westclox - An Identification and Price Guide, and I added even more in 2012. Stoddard: I was pretty much on my own until college. [Westclox advertisements from WWII period, ft. 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. Then my friend and I went around the neighborhood asking people if they had anything they wanted to give away, like old clocks and cameras and tape recorders. Here you can see production dates, original retail prices and other They had one in Brazil for a while and I think also in Hong Kong. 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. Charles Stahlberg had an idea for making a better, but less expensive alarm clock. Museum Artifacts: Luminous Big Ben & Baby Ben Clock Dials (1940s) and Style 1A Big Ben Alarm Clock (1920s), Made By: Western Clock MFG Company, aka Westclox, 350 5th St., Peru, Illinois [LaSalle]. She was 18. The thing I remember most is working with the people, Ristau said. 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. Purchased from a man who claimed to have salvaged them from the backroom of an unnamed Chicago watch repair shop, each round and weathered face represents the lasting work of an international manufacturing giant at the peak of its powers. [9] The element was phased out of use by industry acting under its own volition as superior and safer luminous materials entered the marketplace. Required fields are marked *. then 4 symbols a crown an 18 and to unkown symbols in a square patern but on its side square pattern. theres the problem, there were two gears that were in backwards. They are just gorgeous watches and very well made. I always wondered why the dial of my Baby Ben clock, which I have had from late 60s, was marked off in 48ths of an hour instead of minutes. Donohue, like many of her young peers in the radium industry, eventually realized that her amusing glow had been a warning of severe exposure to a radioactive substance. US radium dial painting factory. When I got out of college I started going to the watch and clock conventions and met a man who was giving a program about the history of Big Bens and Baby Bens. Richard Tjarks introduced You just cant imagine the size of this factory its just gigantic. I have a similar clock. and again 1243 is this an antique its gold but looks brand new but also an antique at the same time does anyone know what kind of pocket watch this is or if its gold or a replica of something or what it might be worth?? Did westclox stop using radioactive paint by the 1960s? Thanks. In the comprehensive Big Ben & Baby Ben Identification Guide, organized by researchers Richard Tjarks and Bill Stoddard, they credit the original brilliant marketing of these little wonders almost entirely to one mana 28 year-old French immigrant named Gaston Le Roy. The new features, according to a synopsis from the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, included: 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.. Thanks very mutch, I just acquired a sir w.h. He invited us in to look around, so we got to go up and down the big freight elevator and he found some old music boxes that were never used that he gave to us (Westclox made one or two little clocks with a music box in them). . They were officially Americas preferred wake-up call provider. First, if your clock is for display only, I think it is harmless if the paint on the hands is not disturbed. National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors Inc (A 501c3 non-profit corporation). The first Big Bens and Baby Bens in 1910 were wind ups.. 226RA has a half life of about 1600 years and the glow of the paint used on dials and hands decreases because of the damage the alpha particles emitted by the Radium do to the ZnS . I know the site informs readers the amount of Big Bens produced in any one year, but does NOT for the reproduction model produced in 1970. they played a deep rich tone. Stopping this practice drastically reduced the amount of radium ingested and therefore, the incidence of malignancy. It is battery operated and takes a D battery. Westclox began as the United Clock Company of Peru, Illinois in 1885. The precise, delicate skill of painting clock dials with radium powder promised a much higher salary than most factory jobs available to women at the time (upwards of $18 a week), and the company soon employed as many as 200 female workers in its Ottawa plant. While promoting Westclox products in Europe, the breakout of World War I and the laws of mandatory military service in his native France forced Le Roy to get his affairs in order and head for the front in 1914. when did westclox stop using radiumcapricorn and virgo flirting. Westclox Radium Dial Clock. So yes. It started early in the 20th century, around 1910, when some companies began to use radium on watch dials and hands to create a "glow in the dark" effect. This particular clock is made in China while other similar Westclox alarm clocks at the time were made in Taiwan. It is too large (wide). How did I get interested in clocks? Importantly, the health risks tied to these old clocks is generally believed to be quite minimal, so long as one avoids long-term exposure or directly ingesting the paint as the Ghost Girls had. The lume used on vintage Rolex watches was radium-based, and radium remained the standard for nearly all Rolex lume until 1963, when growing health concerns forced a shift away from it. 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. I spent many an evening here, watching him bowl.. But he only comes upon receipt of signed price agreement. My love is for the style 1 peg leg Big and Baby Bens; mostly Baby Bens. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Matthiessen [pictured below], who owns the powerful Illinois Zinc Company and most other things in Peru / LaSalle, decides to swoop in and save Stahlbergs little clock business, incorporating it as the Western Clock Mfg. The Westclox Big Ben Alarm Clock Vintage is an iconic timepiece that has been around since the early 1900s. Posted on 1 second ago; June 24, 2022 . Westclox Big Ben Alarm Clock Vintage. I have never seen this mentioned anywhere. Stoddard: Ive been there several times. On March 31, 1980, the Peru-LaSalle plant was officially closed, narrowly missing its 100-year anniversary. Because it was one degree removed from the radium business itself, Westclox seems to have largely dodged the controversy and lawsuits altogether. Here you can see production dates, original retail prices and other knowledge about vintage and antique Westclox clocks and watches. Never underestimate the value of an alarm clock when yours broke two years ago and nobody has manufactured a new one since. Recently Ive seen people taking an old Baby Ben thats worth a few bucks or so and gluing rhinestones around the bezel on the clock. Radium paint itself was eventually phased out and has not been used in watches since 1968. A well-dressed, steady and punctual chap, up to the minute and always on the job., Big Ben always comes to you straight from home, LaSalle, Illinois, read another. We have photos of all the employees between 1927-1945 at the Peterborough Ontario Location but not much else. In the United States there does not seem to have ever been prohibitory legislation passed banning the use of radium in clocks and watches. This will broaden my view in the clock. 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. The greater surprise, though, is that they didnt abandon the use of radium in the years that followed. The internet is fantastic, you can find out anything about just any kind of clock, exchange pictures easily, correspond with people and work together on research. But for years the majority were wind ups, they were so popular. I have a Seth Thomas Mantle clock that my older sisters husbands Aunt had on her mantle for years. I try to get all the pictures I can and keep them all chronologically and study the history. They made the most of the perk, wearing their good dresses to the plant so theyd shine in the dance halls at night, and even painting radium onto their teeth for a smile that would knock their suitors dead., When I went home and washed my hands in a dark bathroom, they would appear luminous and ghostly,, My clothes, hanging in a dark closet, gave off a phosphorescent glare. They worked for the United States Radium Corporation painting the numbers and hands on watch. I live in Scotland but my clock was made in USA. At this moment I study horology at West Dean College in the UK. Did Westclox use radium? In her 2017 book, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of Americas Shining Women, author Kate Moore notes that many of the new girls at the Radium Dial factory started out painting the famous Westclox Big Ben clocks before moving on to the smaller and more challenging Baby Ben, and finally the Pocket Ben and Scotty pocket watches, all produced at the Westclox Works. Before OSHA was set up, 14,000 people died on the job every year; today, it is just over 4,500. According to Chemistry Explained, radium is extracted today from uranium ores in much the same way that Marie and Pierre Curie did in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Over time, she contracted terrible cancerous tumors, lost most of her teeth, and suffered countless other health problems. In this interview Bill Stoddard talks about collecting antique Westclox Big Ben and Baby Ben alarm clocks, and discusses clock collecting in general. Many thanks. 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. Eventually, scientists and medical professionals realized that these workers' illnesses were being caused by internal contamination from the radium they ingested. Quite a few who try to get every basic model, but fewer who get into the rarer models and do research. They arent hurting it permanently, its just kind of weird. I am pleased that I came across your article. For at least four generations, the Western Clock Manufacturing Company, aka Westclox, was the lifeblood and largest employer in the small town of Peru, Illinois (with a mailing address in its twin city of LaSalle). I also need it repaired so that it will be functional and need to find someone that will do that for me. I believed it was manufacturing tag. My father (Richard Ristau Sr.) worked here for 48.. Contact the Webmaster for perceived copyright infringement (DMCA Registration Number 1010287). 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. Im always interested in the history and the variations of clocks and how they fit in the scheme of things, what came before and what came after. Before we get to that, though, we have to start with the issue of geography as it concerns the business in question. Has the mechanics of the clock been changed/upgraded or could there be another issue at play? lds missionary clothing stores; June 24, 2022 . I know it was purchased in 1937 because it belonged to my elderly friends who were married in 1938. Which is interesting because many of the electrics are scarcer but people just arent into collecting electric clocks. When many of these early Big Ben advertisements were still running, Gaston Le Roys life took a sudden and dramatic turn. hi, I have a cocacola square clock. Selling for $2.50 in the years before World War I (or about $60 in modern money), the 5-inch diameter Big Ben and its half-pint cousin the Baby Ben combined to move over 900,000 units in just 1913 alone, and the Western Clock MFG Companynot yet officially known as Westcloxwas producing more than twice that many clocks annually in total.
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