Aaron Lufkin Dennison

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Aaron Lufkin Dennison

Aaron Lufkin Dennison (born March 6, 1812 in Freeport , Maine , USA ; † January 9, 1895 in Birmingham , England ) was an American watchmaker and is considered the "father of American watchmaking".

Life

Aaron Dennison was the son of the shoemaker and music teacher Andrew Dennison.

After three years of training with James Cary , Dennison went to Boston as a watchmaker in 1833 . There he followed the advice of Tubal Hone , a companion in American watchmaking, and discovered inaccuracies in the manufacture and construction of even the best handmade watches. He made frequent visits to the Springfield Armory and predicted that the manufacture of watches would soon reach the same level of precision as the manufacture of weapons.

In 1839 Dennison moved to New York City and spent several months with Swiss watchmakers. Back to Boston he opened a watchmaking business. During this time, around 1840, he invented the Dennison Combined Gauge , an instrument for measuring watch springs.

Dennison's Combined Gauge

Around 1845 he was the first to introduce the "Interchangeable System" (exchangeable system or the American System of Watch Manufacturing ): Not every watch was manufactured individually, Dennison now assembled the watches from prefabricated standardized individual parts. Together with Edward Howard of Howard & Davis and financially supported by his father-in-law, the mirror manufacturer Samuel Curtis, Dennison began to manufacture affordable watches of high quality from 1850. In 1854 a new factory was built on the Charles River in Waltham , Massachusetts . The company became the well-known Waltham Watch Company .

In the last years of his life, Dennison moved to Europe, where he continued his career in Switzerland and England.

Aaron Lufkin Dennison was married to Charlotte Ware Foster (1811-1901) and had five children with her.

swell

  • Reprint of The American Jeweler, February 1888, by Greg R. Frauenhoff, January 2003
  • "Seventy-Five Years" Company edited booklet, Dennison Manufacturing Co, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Dennison, Aaron Lufkin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American watchmaker, "father of American watchmaking"
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1812
PLACE OF BIRTH Freeport , Maine , USA
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1895
Place of death Birmingham , England