Don Spayer, volunteer and former Westclox employee, said the bulk of the museums collection was built through donations. its a Gold coloring and the bottom is well worn like it was slid into something regularily. i use a 1980s I believe westclox pocket ben sweep 2nd hand, I actually had a westclox bullseye from the early 1990s when I was in elementary school. From 1917 to 1926, the United States Radium Corporation used radium to produce wristwatches and clocks. Am I missing something here? WECKER (CW arrow)/UHR (CCW arrow) knob with ring: CW winds alarm; CCW winds clock. I have a Westclox Magnet Key Part number 031723 I think was used to open a door as it has an arrow on 1 end. The use of radium was discontinued since the 1960s. It is a Medbury-4W #4910. By 1930, all dial painters stopped pointing their brushes by mouth. Theyre making some really nice reproductions of it in China and if you dont know what youre looking for you could be fooled easily. Advertisement: Illustrates crackle green Tiny Tim, crackle blue Big Ben and crackle pink Baby Ben clocks. Could you suggest how I could go about finding out this information. It still works. It is made by The Sessions Clock movement, appears to be brass, a bucking horse with cowboy riderjudgeing from the clothes design of the cowboy it is quite old. But the chances that you have a radium clock are slim, unless it is very old. On March 31, 1980, the Peru-LaSalle plant was officially closed, narrowly missing its 100-year anniversary. 5 17 15 is May 17, 1915 . So I brought it home and left it hanging and would wind it up every once in a while. Any information would be very helpful. I have a similar clock. can anybody tell me about this piece? According to Periodic. The style 7 Big Ben and Baby Ben (1956 to 1964, the first Bens with concentric alarm hand) has minute markings. The other thing is reproductions. When I got out of college I started going to the watch and clock conventions and met a man who was giving a program about the history of Big Bens and Baby Bens. When he made his first clock and plugged it into the wall it worked fine except it wasnt accurate, it was off by plus or minus a half hour a day, because the 60 cycles were not regulated at that time, so it could vary quite a bit. The women also left a legacy to science that has been termed invaluable., shifting from serif to sans-serif typefaces and from slightly ornate to more streamlined minute and second hands, all of which eased legibility; setting the clock face closer to the glass, reducing shadows; and creating a slightly smaller form overall., three women fainted, several clerks were trampled, and four showcase windows were shattered before police untangled a jam of 2,500 women and a few stout-hearted men who converged on the store., For That Healthy Glow, Drink Radiation . In a few short years, thanks to Dr. Douglas's efforts, the amount of radium available in the US more than quintupled. . It would be greatly appreciated. hi, I have a cocacola square clock. When I walked along the street, Iwas aglow from the radium powder., The radium girls case was one of the first in which an employer was made responsible for the health of the companys employees. theres the problem, there were two gears that were in backwards. They were, incredibly enough, instructed to ingest a radioactive poison all day, every day, and never properly warned of any potential hazards. Question: Are both 1) and 2) marriages of Style 2 mechanisms put in a Style 1A Big Ben and Style 1 Baby Ben. The new features, according to a synopsis from the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, included: shifting from serif to sans-serif typefaces and from slightly ornate to more streamlined minute and second hands, all of which eased legibility; setting the clock face closer to the glass, reducing shadows; and creating a slightly smaller form overall.. The sound is very good when I compare it with the Howard Miller and the Jauke I just purchases, its loud and resonates very well. Their factory in LaSalle, Illinois closed down in about 1980 when they moved all their production down south, but the building is still there. In a way theyre preventing clocks from being thrown away so I cant totally condemn it, but it still seems like a funny thing to do. They asked me to give some programs myself at some of the chapter meetings so I became a little bit better at being a public speaker, and its been great meeting people. Stoddard: The prices for larger wall clocks, three feet tall and up, have increased dramatically, while prices on some of the more common clocks have remained the same for the past 20 years. 1970s Many of these workers developed bone cancer . Radium was also used until the early 1970s in "glow-in-the-dark" paints, e.g., for dials on clocks, and in other industrial applications such as instrument calibration. . Westclox also made about 5000 gold-plated reproductions. The policy of the company is one of highly specialized production. All Rights Reserved. Both the Big and Baby Bens were housed in a newly refined bell-back clock case. Thanks very mutch, I just acquired a sir w.h. . They can be identified by having the modern type of flat head screws with shoulders instead of round head screws, and by having a 1910 patent date on the back even though the case is style 1a. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that watches with radium dials should not be taken apart[5] without proper training, technique, and facilities. As Kate Moore explains it, The radium girls case was one of the first in which an employer was made responsible for the health of the companys employees. Westclox Big Ben Style 1a Alarm Clock Date Summary: 1918 - 1935 (and a reproduction was made in 1970) Characteristics: Ring on top, two legs in front, no screws through the front of the bezel. The precise, delicate skill of painting clock dials with radium powder promised a much higher salary than most factory jobs available to women at the time (upwards of $18 a week), and the company soon employed as many as 200 female workers in its Ottawa plant. [citation needed] The use of radium to provide luminescence for hands and indices on watches soon followed. Among the rarities on display is a Westclox-made National Emergency Alarm Repeater. How can people be exposed to Radium? Even today, with the considerable help of a thing called Interstate 80, its still about a two-hour journey from LaSalle Street to LaSalle County. The movement is a windup almost identical to the original. The first style 1a cases had double-hexagon legs, but after about a year they were changed to standard single hex form. When Did They Stop Using Radium On Clock Hands? The new company tripled in size by the turn of the century, employing 232 people at its growing Peru plant (145 men, 73 women, 14 children) and producing 500,000 clocks annually. Richard Ristau Jr., former plant manager, said hes happy to see the space being used for the museum. UHR (CW arrow) knob sets clock time. I am a retired mechanical engineer, the quality has floored me, hats off to this company. The Forgotten Story Of The Radium Girls, Whose Deaths Saved Thousands Of Workers Lives, by Kate Moore, A Rude Awakening: The History of Alarm Clocks , Western Clock MFG Co. (Westclox), est. Instrument dials painted with radium-based paint, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "WWII Military Watches 'Potentially Pose Serious Cancer Risk,', "Health Effects of Radium Radiation Exposure,", "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Radium Dials,", "Lume 101: Watch Luminescence Explained,", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radium_dial&oldid=1123475907, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Jane Brickman, "Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 19101935,", This page was last edited on 23 November 2022, at 23:30. Dont know if someone ingraved date on when took down or if the original. It would be very interesting if you could provide me with some pictures of the clock. The only problem is a standard size D battery does not fit. The only thing I found is the word Germny engraved on the back. While most of our Big Ben dials are black with luminous numbers, there were also white dials with black numerals in production at the same time. document.write(year) The next month, Roth got a cablegram from London; his friend and valued co-worker Le Roy had died for his country. Those simple words, Roth later wrote in the November 1914 issue of the company newsletter, Tick Talk, unconsciously characterized the manunaffected, direct, devoted to his cause., [Images from a 1922 issue of the Westclox company newsletter, the very cleverly titled Tick Talk]. Westclox - An Identification and Price Guide, and I added even more in 2012. In its place, he ironically dubbed the little bedside clock Big Ben (apparently not copyrighted by the British Parliament), and introduced it to the public in early ads as a gendered he instead of an it., Big Ben is a handsome, well built, refined and bright looking fellow with a clean-cut open face and a deep cheerful voice, one ad read. Radium dials were produced throughout most of the 20th century before being replaced by safer tritium-based luminous material in the 1970s and finally by non-toxic, non-radioactive strontium aluminatebased photoluminescent material from the middle 1990s. Within in another ten years, the workforce had tripled again, powered by employee George Kerns 1908 invention of the first Big Benthe sleek, iconic model that basically set the template for the 20th century wind-up alarm clock. Soon, he was running the Western Clock Co. advertising department, and proving his worth with some clever marketing strategies. I also need it repaired so that it will be functional and need to find someone that will do that for me. On April 20, 1902, Marie and Pierre Curie successfully isolate radioactive radium salts from the mineral pitchblende in their laboratory in Paris. He corresponded with Westclox General Manager Ernst Roth over the weeks that followed, but after a final letter that September, he went silent. I also like some of the older American weight-driven clocks. From that time on, Baby Bens first and then Big Bens were available with either the plain or luminous dial. It was passed on to my sister and for years it was on their mantle along time until it stopped. US radium dial painting factory. Most importantly, they were forbidden to point the tip with their lips, and they avoided to ingest or inhale the luminous paint. Baby Ben and other Westclox clocks and watches have been assigned styles. Annie Moussin designer intrieur. That batch was in production non-continuously from 1939 to 1946, housed in gunmetal cases with nickel trim. This 1964 Westclox Christmas ad describes their features. Based in Flora, Indiana, Bill can be reached via his website, clockhistory.com, which is a member of our Hall of Fame. A 'radium cow' or sample of radium would continually yield a supply of the nuclide. when did westclox stop using radium. The internet is fantastic, you can find out anything about just any kind of clock, exchange pictures easily, correspond with people and work together on research. Columbia, PA 17512 Their use in prostate brachytherapy dates from 1926. Westclox made an excellent, almost exact, reproduction of the style 1a Big Ben in 1970. When did Westclox stop using radium? 514 Poplar Street var today = new Date() The use of Radium changed over several years but it was not until late 1960ies when the last were made. Art and Mary Ann Windy [pictured] have been married for 49 years, met as Westclox employees and were present for the open house. The style 8 Big and Baby Bens were introduced in 1964. Thanks so much Stoddard: Its really hard to say. Some years ago I intended to do a write-up on my collection and started researching on the internet and found the Westclox history site with a wealth of info. When did they stop using radium for watches? Im trying to determine if it is a legit or reproduction that someone made. Westclox Wrought Iron Look Wall Clock 12" 32021A. The women also left a legacy to science that has been termed invaluable.. It had beneath that four long tubes and they were the chimes for the door bell. Luminous Processes employees interviewed by a journalist in 1978 stated they had been left ignorant of radium's dangers. Is this a product that the company would have made or something someone created? Back then, radium wasn't considered to be dangerous in small doses. The factory contained a bowling alley, and Ristau said his father was an excellent bowler. I have looked high and low in my attempts to find out how any of these resproduction style 1A were produced. then 4 symbols a crown an 18 and to unkown symbols in a square patern but on its side square pattern. Another thing people do is make fake advertising clocks. 7&a half X 6..desk clock. I think the clock was electric but could have been a wind up or maybe even a pendulum. $25.99. [9] The element was phased out of use by industry acting under its own volition as superior and safer luminous materials entered the marketplace. On 3rd January 2099, Terry Shields asked if anyone had information regarding his clock signed G .Falconer, Hong Kong. Site of the Old Westclox factory 211-201 Hunter Street, Peterborough Ontario. It is something that we should know before everyone starts throwing away every luminous dial clock they own. In fact, one of their designs for the military, the terrifying sounding WarAlarm, spurred a small shopping riot in Chicago in 1944 when a small batch of the clocks was made available for commercial purchase at a downtown store. Westclox closed its Peru factory 35 years ago. Can anyone tell me the meaning or significance of this eye? The company made luminescent paint. It was only with the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was given oversight of the use of radium. Westclox Big Ben Alarm Clock Vintage. They worked in unvented rooms, they wore smocks that they laundered at home. I recently added the Big Ben Style 1 and Baby Ben Style 1 Dial and Back types. [Left: The first national Big Ben advertisement appears in the. Radium dials usually lose their ability to glow in the dark in a period ranging anywhere from a few years to several decades, but all will cease to glow at some point. My father (Richard Ristau Sr.) worked here for 48.. Here you can see production dates, original retail prices and other knowledge about vintage and antique Westclox clocks and watches. The aim of the Western Clock MFG Co. in entering the manufacture of alarms was to apply to nickel clocks, features which were previously found only in high-priced timepieces, and prohibited in low-priced lever clocks by the high cost of production involved. The alarm mechanism was also improved as part of Kerns new patents, with an intermittent ringing that kind of acted as an archaic form of snooze alarm. The lume used on vintage Rolex watches was radium-based, and radium remained the standard for nearly all Rolex lume until 1963, when growing health concerns forced a shift away from it. Theyre just scattered in different places all over the country, little collections of hands, springs, screws, and things like that. Im always interested in the history and the variations of clocks and how they fit in the scheme of things, what came before and what came after. Purchased from a man who claimed to have salvaged them from the backroom of an unnamed Chicago watch repair shop, each round and weathered face represents the lasting work of an international manufacturing giant at the peak of its powers. The thing I remember most is working with the people, Ristau said. Style 1 has three screws through the bezel visible from the front, style 1a doesnt (compare figures 3 and 7); Style 1 has two screws holding the bell back, style 1a has three. when did westclox stop using radium; when did westclox stop using radium. I have an antique mantle clock given to my Aunt & Uncle for a wedding gift (approximately 1949) FROM my great grandparents. In the production of ordinary clocks adapted to the needs and means of the millions, America produces results of remarkable excellence.