Clock logic - timepieces come to be museum pieces
Quoting from the in-gallery Scavenger Hunt for the permanent exhibit's "collecting A~Z,"
'W' is for Watches & Clocks.Oh hickory, dickory, dock! Probably the biggest clock you’ve ever seen isn’t even in the display case. It’s right behind you! What building did it first live in?
❍ the old police station
❍ the telephone company
❍ Park Congregational Church
❍ old City Hall
www.grpm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Collecting_A-Z_Di...
Cultural Studies experts have written books about the significance of mechanical devices to measure the passage of time, first installed for public view (clock towers) and later portable and miniaturized. For many generations this type of jewelry or accessory for grown-ups signaled one's status: designers, makers, sellers, repair services all supported the world of pocket- and later wrist- watches. Toward the end of watch culture, cheap and stylish watches were priced for children and multiple copies to be owned by one person; rather than to repair one, some people simply would buy another. Plastic, colorful watches emerged to be antithesis of exclusive and pricey ones. Not long after this pop-cuture wave of watches the first personal cellphones began to emerge and as ever more people carried these, the need for wristwatches faded. In 2020 a minority of grown-ups and even fewer children seem to wear a timepiece. And many people born after 1980 are dependent on reading digital time displays, since the analogy expression of hours (the short hand) and minutes (the long hand) on a clock dial baffles many people from these generations.
For a person born in the 20th and maybe much of the 19th centuries where clocks and watches filled people's awareness, telling time and respecting deadlines and punching a time clock for hourly pay and "not being late" seem as natural as walking or talking. But for the generations before that, and for societies less dependent on synchronizing its members, the seeming obsession with numbering the hours and minutes and seconds probably is confusing and ludicrous.
Press L for lightbox (large) view; click the image or press Z for full image display.
Clock logic - timepieces come to be museum pieces
Quoting from the in-gallery Scavenger Hunt for the permanent exhibit's "collecting A~Z,"
'W' is for Watches & Clocks.Oh hickory, dickory, dock! Probably the biggest clock you’ve ever seen isn’t even in the display case. It’s right behind you! What building did it first live in?
❍ the old police station
❍ the telephone company
❍ Park Congregational Church
❍ old City Hall
www.grpm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Collecting_A-Z_Di...
Cultural Studies experts have written books about the significance of mechanical devices to measure the passage of time, first installed for public view (clock towers) and later portable and miniaturized. For many generations this type of jewelry or accessory for grown-ups signaled one's status: designers, makers, sellers, repair services all supported the world of pocket- and later wrist- watches. Toward the end of watch culture, cheap and stylish watches were priced for children and multiple copies to be owned by one person; rather than to repair one, some people simply would buy another. Plastic, colorful watches emerged to be antithesis of exclusive and pricey ones. Not long after this pop-cuture wave of watches the first personal cellphones began to emerge and as ever more people carried these, the need for wristwatches faded. In 2020 a minority of grown-ups and even fewer children seem to wear a timepiece. And many people born after 1980 are dependent on reading digital time displays, since the analogy expression of hours (the short hand) and minutes (the long hand) on a clock dial baffles many people from these generations.
For a person born in the 20th and maybe much of the 19th centuries where clocks and watches filled people's awareness, telling time and respecting deadlines and punching a time clock for hourly pay and "not being late" seem as natural as walking or talking. But for the generations before that, and for societies less dependent on synchronizing its members, the seeming obsession with numbering the hours and minutes and seconds probably is confusing and ludicrous.
Press L for lightbox (large) view; click the image or press Z for full image display.