The Ansonia Clock Company was a clock manufacturing business founded in
Ansonia, Connecticut
Ansonia is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. Located on the Naugatuck River, it is immediately north of Derby, and about northwest of New Haven. The city is part of the Naugatuck Valley Planning Region. The population was ...
, in 1851 and which moved to
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
, in 1878. The company has produced hundreds of different clock models, including Gingerbread, Porcelain, and Crystal Regulator styles. The business shut down in 2006.
History
Very early clocks were made of iron and wood. However, by the sixteenth century brass was being specified for the mechanism. By the mid nineteenth century cheap clocks were being mass-produced using stamped brass. In 1844, metal dealer
Anson Greene Phelps
Anson Green Phelps (March 24, 1781 – May 18, 1858) was an American entrepreneur and business man from Connecticut. Beginning with a saddlery business, he founded Phelps, Dodge & Co. in 1833 as an export-import business with his sons-in-law as ...
formed the
Ansonia Brass company in Connecticut, to supply the expanding clock business - nine companies were producing clocks in Connecticut.
In 1851 the Ansonia Clock Company was formed as a subsidiary of the Ansonia Brass Company by Phelps and two
Bristol, Connecticut
Bristol is a suburban city located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, southwest-west of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. The city is also 120 miles southwest from Boston, and approximately 100 miles northeast of New York City. The ...
, clockmakers, Theodore Terry and Franklin C. Andrews. Terry & Andrews were the largest clock manufacturers in Bristol, with more than 50 employees using 58 tons of brass in the production of about 25,000 clocks in 1849. Phelps decided to get into the clockmaking business to expand the market for his brass, while Terry and Andrews got access to better quality brass at better prices. They had resultantly sold 50% of their business to Phelps, and moved the business to Ansonia after their
Derby, Connecticut
Derby is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, approximately west-northwest of New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven. It is located in southwest Connecticut at the confluence of the Housatonic River, Housatonic and Naugatuck River ...
factory burned in 1854.
Expansion

In 1877 the clock company purchased a factory in New York, and moved most of its production there after being spun off from the brass company. Henry J. Davies of Brooklyn, himself a clockmaker, inventor and case designer, joined the newly reconstituted company as one of its founders. As President, he is thought to have been largely responsible for the figurine clocks, swing clocks and other unusual and desirable novelties for which the Ansonia firm became known.
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
visited the factory in 1878 to experiment combining clocks with his newly developed phonograph, but the experiments proved unviable.
By 1879, a second factory was opened in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
and by June 1880 employed 360 workers, while the Connecticut factory continued producing clocks as well with a workforce of 100 men and 25 women. Hence, clocks marked "Connecticut" were generally produced before 1879, while those marked "New York" were all produced after 1880.
The peak years

The New York factory burnt down in 1880 - the loss was reported to be $750,000 with only $395,000 insured.
The company rebuilt the factory on the same site, and reopened the expanded factory in 1881, with capacity to exceed that of the Connecticut factory - which closed completely in 1883. By 1886, the company had sales offices in New York, Chicago and London, and more than 225 different clock models were being manufactured. The prosperous and debt-free Ansonia Clock Company reported having an inventory worth $600,000 and receivables valued at $250,000. In 1904, Ansonia added non-jeweled watches to their line, and produced an estimated ten million of these by 1929.
In 1899, Phelps's grandson
William Earle Dodge Stokes commissioned architect Paul E. Duboy to build the "greatest and grandest hotel in
Manhattan, New York
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
." New York's first
air conditioned
Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...
building, the
Ansonia Hotel
The Ansonia (formerly the Ansonia Hotel) is a condominium building at 2109 Broadway, between 73rd and 74th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The 17-story structure was designed by French architect Paul Emile Duboy ...
still stands at
2107 Broadway, albeit as a
condominium
A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...
apartment block.
Ansonia
thecityreview.com. Accessed December 23, 2022.
Decline
In early 1914, just before World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, Ansonia was producing 440 different models. However, the novelty clock became subject to fierce competition. As Ansonia's strongest selling line, rather than maintain profit, Ansonia attempted to gain volume by offering clocks at "old pricing".
This tactic racked up huge debts, and by 1920 the number of models was down to 136 models, and 47 by 1927. In 1926, the company sold its Brooklyn warehouse, but this could not stem the inevitable. In 1929, the majority of the timekeeping machinery and tooling was sold to the Soviet government's US trading company Amtorg
Amtorg Trading Corporation, also known as Amtorg (short for ''Amerikanskaya Torgovlya'', ), was the first trade office, trade representation of the Soviet Union in the United States, established in New York City, New York in 1924 by merging Armand ...
, just before the stock market crash. The parts, machinery and key skilled workers were shipped out of the USA to form the basis, along with the remains of a watch company purchased a year later, of the clock and watch industry in Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
such as Poljot Poljot (, literally meaning "flight"), is a brand of Soviet/Russian wristwatches, produced since 1964 by the First Moscow Watch Factory (, ''Perviy Moskovskiy Chasovoy Zavod''). The flagship brand of the USSR's watch industry, Poljot produced numero ...
and Sekonda
Sekonda is a British wristwatch manufacturer. Established in 1966, Sekonda watches were originally produced in the Soviet Union, at the First Moscow Watch Factory in Moscow and the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in Saint Petersburg, Leningrad. Many ...
.
In 1969, the rights to the name, trademarks, and goodwill were transferred to Ansonia Clock Co., Inc., Lynnwood, Washington
Lynnwood is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The city is part of the Seattle metropolitan area and is located north of Seattle and south of Everett, Washington, Everett, near the junction of Interstate 5 in Washington, ...
.
Ansonia closed in 2006, after 155 years of operation.
References
External links
Ansonia Clock Company history
— ''link to archived page''
Ansonia Distributor in Germany
(in German)
{{Authority control
Clock manufacturing companies of the United States
Manufacturing companies established in 1851
1851 establishments in Connecticut
Companies based in New Haven County, Connecticut
Clock Company
Soviet Union–United States relations
Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York City
Defunct manufacturing companies based in Connecticut