Ingraham Clock Co., Bristol, Conn. 117.

Ingraham Clock Co., Bristol, Conn. 117.

View of an industrial building complex comprised of late 19th and early 20th century brick structures on a stretch of wet street coursed by trolley lines. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were promptly sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. The image depicts the significant core industry and basis for Bristol's development as a city (clock making). The website theclockguy.com provides background on the Ingraham business and the buildings pictured: "E. Ingraham & Company was formed in 1860, succeeding several earlier clock-manufacturing firms in which casemaker Elias Ingraham had been involved, notably Brewster & Ingrahams (1843-1852), E. & A. Ingrahams (1852-1856) and Elias Ingraham & Company (1857-1860). The firm originally rented, and later purchased, a shop on Birge's Pond in Bristol, which had been used by a number of clockmaking firms since 1820. Having originally purchased their movements from various sources, in 1865 the firm decided to establish their own movement making facility. A hardware shop was moved onto a piece of land owned by the firm and veteran clockmaker Anson L. Atwood set up and managed the movement department for Ingraham for some years. Elias Ingraham (1805-1885) designed a variety of popular cases and case features for the firm, receiving 17 patents between 1857 and 1873. Many of his cases utilized an unusual figure "8" door design for which he had received a patent in 1857. Rosewood veneered case models with names such as "Doric", "Venetian", and "Ionic" were often made in several sizes and held their popularity with the public for many years. Elias Ingraham's son Edward Ingraham (1830-1892) succeeded his father as head of the business in 1885. Edward had also received an important patent in 1884 for a method of applying black enamel paint (Japan) to wooden clock cases. Using this method to produce cheaper imitations of French marble mantel clocks was a great success. Though the process was soon imitated by most other clock manufacturers, the Ingraham firm became a leading maker of "black mantel" clocks, introducing 221 models plus special order styles in the following three decades. In 1887, the firm had its first great expansion with the erection of a 300-foot long, 4 story case shop. A new office building and movement shop was built between 1902 and 1904." (These are the massive multi-story block and the 5-bay block at the right.) "...In 1913, they began to manufacture a non-jeweled pocket watch and added wrist watch models to the line in 1932, producing more than 65 million pockets watches and 15 million wrist watches by the time this production ceased in the midx 1960's. Ingraham's clock and watchmaking ceased totally during World War II and pendulum clock production did not resume after the war..."