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The History of Wall Clocks
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 Today
most people take wall clocks for granted. Practically every household
has at least one wall clock of one type or another - this
is particularly interesting since with the advent of new technology,
wall clocks do not serve the same important function as they used
to. Wall clocks can be replaced with microwave clocks and alarm
clocks and weather clocks and all other sorts of clocks.
The history of wall clocks, though, is interesting. Wall clocks
did not suddenly just appear on people’s walls one day. Wall
clocks only came around after there had been many years of trial
and error with other mechanical wall clocks. Before there could
be the wall clock, there had to be the long case clock and other
clocks.
Many people think that the first wall clocks came from the design
of the sundial. Yes, both wall clocks and sundials are generally
round, but this is not where the history of wall clocks starts.
It is much more likely that the history of wall clocks began with
the pocket watch. The pocket watch is much more similar in design
to today’s pocket watches than other timepieces. Both pocket
watches and most wall clocks have all of their internal workings
hidden in the timepiece themselves - there are no pendulums
to be seen, etc. Most clocks today pretty much look just like pocket
watches, minus the cover and enlarged 5 fold.
In truth, the history of the wall clock starts with the long case
clock. Isaac Blaisdell decided to come up with a design for people
who believed that long case clocks are simply too big. So, Blaisdell
came up with a wall clock. Of course, his first wall clock still
had a pendulum - it just did not have the huge case enclosing
it that long case clocks have. The pendulum of this sort of clock
is allowed to move freely outside of the case.
The history of the wall clock continues on to cuckoo clocks which
use chains and weights to run the clock movements. Cuckoo clocks
are still very popular and classic clocks today. In the early to
mid 1900s, there were electric wall clocks. Electric wall clocks
could simply be plugged into a wall outlet. Electric wall clocks
never had to be wound up like wall clocks and other clocks in the
past had. More recently, there have been battery-powered wall clocks.
This has only been an introduction to the history of wall clocks.
There is certainly much more interesting information out there on
the history of wall clocks.
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