вЂњThey were supplying all of America and many other countries with watches. really lies with companies like Waltham, Elgin and Illinois,вЂќ Weiss said. ItвЂ™s an inspiring era for modern American watchmakers including Cameron Weiss, who founded his eponymous Torrance-based watch brand in 2013. According to Cote, during the 1920s, Illinois was the third-biggest American watch company by production volume, trailing only Elgin and Waltham. Following the war, wristwatches became popular among men, in part because soldiers had grown accustomed to strapping pocket watches to their arms to more easily tell the time on the battlefield. Illinois hit its stride during the boom years after World War I. вЂњThe American system of manufacturing things, it prevailed over the British and the Swiss, who were the watchmakers of the 1700s, 1800s and up to about the 1850s, when America started taking it over,вЂќ said Cote, an Illinois expert. of Watch & Clock CollectorsвЂ™ board of directors, said the companyвЂ™s standardized approach, especially when compared to the largely hand-made pieces coming out of Switzerland at the time, is an important example of American ingenuity. John Cote, a member of the National Assn. In a stroke of industrial innovation often overlooked amid praise for Henry FordвЂ™s later accomplishments, the companyвЂ™s timepieces were made on assembly lines. The factory that turned out IllinoisвЂ™ precision instruments was a Gilded Age marvel. вЂњIвЂ™d come home and IвЂ™d have a pile of crap, and they werenвЂ™t working and.

вЂњI was afraid IвЂ™d put my family in the poorhouse because every time I went by an antique store IвЂ™d go in and buy watches,вЂќ he said. But Friedberg also had a young family and a big mortgage. But itвЂ™s also romantic to some.ДЇor Friedberg, though, it was more about the hunt, especially in the beginning. It can seem almost like alchemy - that simply winding a watch can bring to life its innards, allowing for something as ephemeral as the passage of time to be memorialized.ДЄnachronistic? Perhaps. Unlike a mobile phone, or a battery-powered quartz watch, mechanical timepieces are powered by a movement composed of gears, wheels, levers and springs. You feel a little bit special that you know something about them.вЂќ And Illinois watches really are as good as anything made in Europe.

A watch tells the rest of the world who you are.

вЂњLook, none of us need watches, we have the iPhone,вЂќ said McDowell, who befriended Friedberg around 2012. вЂњI mean, I just had an affinity for it,вЂќ he said.Д«ut McDowell has some ideas about the enduring allure of wristwatches. But he dismisses high-minded explanations for his interest in horology, the study of the measurement of time. Perhaps, he said, memories of his fatherвЂ™s watch - a Hamilton with diamonds on the dial - spurred him along.

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