The Synchronisation and Standardisation of Time (1830-1970): Technological Innovation and Public Policy

Journal title HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY
Author/s Stefano Solari
Publishing Year 2024 Issue 2024/1
Language English Pages 24 P. 5-28 File size 157 KB
DOI 10.3280/SPE2024-001001
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Clock-making has represented a fundamental sector for industrialisation, al-lowing a more precise division of labour and developing the competences for au-tomation, which was well understood by Charles Babbage. Besides precision, the problems of synchronisation and standardisation have characterised the creation of the uniform time dimension. This paper proposes the history of these processes with a glance at their protagonists. Scientific progress, technological innovation, institutions and cultural frames co-evolved assuring a favourable frame to indus-trialisation. That was possible thanks to a synergy between astronomers and clock-makers as well as between inventors and railways. Even when exact time was made a public good, access to it was quite demanding in technological terms. The history of railways let us understand how reliability and trust have been the crucial variables in the making of the industrialised society. Conventions and the passion of technicians with a faith in progress have been more relevant than the often disorienting action of governments or the uncertainty of market competition.

Keywords: synchronisation, time standardisation, technological change, clocks, standards, economic development, conventions

Jel codes: B19, D02, D80, N63, N64, N70, N83, N84, O14, O31

  1. Babbage C. (1832). On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, 2nd ed., London, Charles Knight.
  2. Babbage C. (1851). Exposition of 1851, or Views of the Industry, the Science and the Government of England, London, John Murray.
  3. Bartky I. R. (1989). The adoption of standard time, Technology and Culture, 30(1): 25-56.
  4. Bromley A.G. (1982). Charles Babbage and the invention of workmen’s time recorders. Antiquarian Horologery, 13(5): 442-449.
  5. Cevasco F. (2013) Il falegname e la longitudine, Mondo Nuovo, 1(2): 20-31.
  6. Chapman A. (1985). Sir George Airy (1801-1892) and the concept of international standards in science, timekeeping and navigation. Vistas in Astronomy, 28(1): 321-328.
  7. Church R.A. (1975). Nineteenth-Century clock technology in Britain, the United States, and Switzerland, The Economic History Review, 28(4): 616-630.
  8. Cipolla C. M. (1967). Clocks and Culture, 1300-1700, London, Collins.
  9. Clark G. (1994). Factory discipline, The Journal of Economic History, 54(1): 128-163.
  10. Conrad S. (2018). ‘Nothing is the way it should be’: Global transformations of the time regime in the Nineteenth century, Modern Intellectual History, 15(3): 821-848.
  11. Coulson T. (1944). The origin of interchangeable parts, Journal of the Franklin Institute, 238(5): 335-44.
  12. Dohrn-van Rossum G. (1996). History of the Hour. Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders, Chicago & London, University of Chicago Press.
  13. Engler E. (1883). Time-keeping in London, Popular Science Monthly, XXII: 328-341.
  14. Ermet J. (2013-2019). Präzisionpendeluhren, 6 vol., JE Verlag, Overath.
  15. Galison P. (2000). Einstein’s clocks: The place of time, Critical Inquiry, 26(2): 355-389.
  16. Gay H. (2003). Clock synchrony, time distribution and electrical timekeeping in Britain 1880-1925, Past & Present, 181: 107-140.
  17. Gelhen A. (1957). Die Seele im technischen Zeitalter, Hamburg, Rowohlt.
  18. Gibbon A.O. (1928). An international time signal, The Post Office Electirical Engineers Journal, 21(1): 9-16.
  19. Goudsblom J. (2023). The worm and the clock: On the genesis of a global time regime, Historical Social Research, 48(1): 240-258.
  20. Graf J. (2009). Wilhelm Foerster, Vater der Zeitverteilung im Deutschen Kaiserreich, Amts- und Mitteilungsblatt der Physikalisch-Technischen Bundesanstalt Braunschweig und Berlin, 119(3): 209-216.
  21. Gressot J. e Romain J. (2022). Determining the right time, or the establishment of a culture of astronomical precision at Neuchâtel Observatory in the mid-19th century, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 53(1): 27-48.
  22. Guinot B. (2000). History of the Bureau International de l’Heure. In S. Dick, D. McCarthy, and B. Luzum, eds. Polar Motion: Historical and Scientific Problems ASP Conference Series, 208: 175-184.
  23. Gurvitch G. (1964). The Spectrum of Social Time, Dordrecht, Reidel.
  24. Heidegger M. (1954). The Question Concerning Technology, ed. 1993, New York, Harper Collins.
  25. Hipp M. (1876). Les Horloges Électriques, Attinger, Neuchâtel.
  26. Homes C. (2009). The Astronomer Royal, the Hydrographer and the time ball: collaborations in time signalling 1850-1910, British Journal for the History of Science, 42(3): 381-406.
  27. Howse D. (1980). Greenwich Time and the Discovery of the Longitude, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  28. Huber B. (2019). Ingenieur der Präzision. Pendeluhren von Sigmund Riefler, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chronometrie: 260-283.
  29. Ishibashi Y. (2020). Constructing the ‘automatic’ Greenwich time system: George Biddell Airy and the telegraphic distribution of time, c.1852-1880, British Journal for the History of Science, 53(81): 25-46.
  30. Johnston S. A. (2021). Managing the observatory: discipline, order and disorder at Greenwich, 1835-1933. The British Journal for the History of Science, 54(2):155-175.
  31. Koyré A. (1961 [2000]). Dal Mondo del Pressapoco all’Universo della Precisione, Torino, Einaudi.
  32. Landes D. (1983). Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World, Cambridge MA., Harvard University Press.
  33. List F. (1841[1916]). The National System of Political Economy, London, Longmans, Green, and Co.
  34. McCrossen A. (2013). Making Modern Times: A History of Clocks, Watches, and Other Timekeepers in American Life, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
  35. McKendrick N. (1970). Josiah Wedgwood and Cost Accounting in the Industrial Revolution, The Economic History Review, 23(1): 45-67.
  36. Milham W. I. (1947). Time and Timekeepers. Including the History, Construction, Care, and Accuracy of Clocks and Watches, New York, Macmillan.
  37. Mumford L. (1934). Technics and Civilization, ed. 1963, New York and Burligame, Harbinger.
  38. Murphy J. J. (1966). Entrepreneurship in the establishment of the American clock industry, Journal of Economic History, 26(2): 169-186.
  39. Ogle V. (2015). The Global Transformation of Time 1870-1950, Cambridge MA., Harvard University Press.
  40. Payer P. (2015). Die Synchronisierte Stadt, Öffentliche Uhren und Zeitwahrnehmung, Wien 1850 bis heute, Holzhausen, Wien.
  41. Perroux F. (1970). Aliénation et Société Industrielle, Paris, Gallimard.
  42. Piccini P. (1938-39). L’impianto degli orologi elettrici nella nuova stazione di Firenze S.M.N., Tecnica Professionale, 6(10-11): 225-229, 252-254, 7 (2-5-6-7): 35-37, 107-110, 129-132, 148-150.
  43. Puschiasis A. (2024). Note sui Fratelli Solari di Pesariis (1867-1907). -- www.alt eraltogorto.org.
  44. Riefler D.r (1981). Riefler-Präzisionspendeluhren: 1890-1965, Callwey Verlag, Monaco.
  45. Riefler S. (1902). Das Nickelstahl-Compensationspendel, D.R.P. No. 100870, Wolf, München.
  46. Roberts D. (2004). Precision Pendulum Clocks: France, Germany, America, and Recent Advancements, Schiffer Book for Collectors, Vol. 2, Schiffer.
  47. Rooney D. (2021). I 12 Orologi che Raccontano il Mondo, Milano, Garzanti.
  48. Rooney D. and Nye J. (2009). Greenwich Observatory Time for the public benefit’: standard time and Victorian networks of regulation, British Journal for the History of Science, 42(1): 5-30.
  49. Rosenberg N. (1982). Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics, New York, Cambridge University Press.
  50. Rosenberg N. (1994). Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History, New York, Cambridge University Press.
  51. Rosenberg N. (2000). Charles Babbage in a complex world. In D. Colander (ed.), Complexity and the History of Economic Thought, London, Routledge, pp. 47-57.
  52. Saluz E. (2012). Der Ingenieur als Uhrmacher – Sigmund Riefler und seine freie Federkrafthemmung, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chronometrie, 51: 89-100.
  53. Robinoy M. and F. Bof (2014). Il Tempo di Solari, Udine, Forum.
  54. Solari G. B. (1867). Rapporto della Esposizione Universale di Parigi del 1867 di me Giovanni Solari di Pesariis fabbricatore di orologi, Archivio di Stato di Udine, Provincia di Udine, Archivio della Deputazione, B. 915, f. 6 (1867-1879) 12.10.2022 – a cura di Adelchi Puschiasis -- www.alteraltogorto.org.
  55. Solari A. (2024). Pesariis – Europa, dal tempo locale al tempo nazionale: il contributo della F.lli Solari alla modernizzazione tecnologica italiana. In S. Solari (ed.), Sincronizzazione del Tempo ed Ingegneria di Precisione. L’Orologeria Pesarina negli Anni Trenta, Tolmezzo, AOP, pp. 33-47.
  56. Sombart W. (1913). Der Moderne Kapitalismus, Munchen and Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot.
  57. Thompson E. P. (1967). Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism. Past & Present, 38: 56-97.
  58. Thrift N. (1990). The making of a capitalist time consciousness. In Hassard J. (eds), The Sociology of Time, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 105-129.
  59. Timmermans S. and S. Epstein (2010). A world of standards but not a standard world: Toward a sociology of standards and standardization, Annual Review of Sociology, 36: 69-89.
  60. Tucci U. (1958). Sur la pratique venitienne de la navigation au xvie siecle, Annales (economies, societs, civilisations), XIII: 72-86.
  61. Ure A. (1835). Philosophy of Manufactures, or, an Exposition of the Scientific, Moral, and Commercial Economy of the Factory System of Great Britain, ed. 1867, New York, Kelley.
  62. Vasart H. (1879). Unification de l’Heure des Horloges Publiques, ou Remise à l’Heure électrique, Roubaix, Duthoit-Paquot.
  63. Ward F.A.B. (1947). Handbook of the Collections Illustrating Time Measure, London, H. M. Stationery Office.
  64. Wolf C. (1902). Histoire de l'Observatoire de Paris, de sa fondation à 1793, Paris, Gauthier-Villars.
  65. Zerubavel E. (1982). The standardization of time: A sociohistorical perspective, American Journal of Sociology, 88(1): 1-23.
  66. Zimmer O. (2020). One clock fits all? Time and imagined communities in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Central European History, 53: 48-70.
  67. Zimmerman A. (1997). The Ideology of the machine and the spirit of the factory: Remarks on Babbage and Ure, Cultural Critique, 37(autumn): 5-29.

Stefano Solari, The Synchronisation and Standardisation of Time (1830-1970): Technological Innovation and Public Policy in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 1/2024, pp 5-28, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2024-001001