According to estimates from the 1840s, about 600,000 clocks a year were produced in the Black Forest of Germany, and about 60,000 Comtoise clocks in the Morez region of France. Therefore, it is easy to understand why inexpensive, solid, weight-driven wall clocks from the Black Forest, with strip pallet escapements, long pendulums, and lacquered wooden dials, or “shields,” were common in European homes. Independent craftsmen produced them in small workshops, usually in the living rooms of their houses. Two districts in the Badenian part of the Black Forest predominated: Triberg and Neustadt.

Between 1740 and 1760, small “colonies” of Black Forest clock peddlers began operating in many areas of Europe. By 1841-1843 an official report showed that the clock trade had spread to four continents and included 23 European countries.

The transition from independent, handmade clock production to factory production took several decades, but by the 1890s, the German clock industry had been established. Clockmakers, among them many women, had to choose whether to work in the factory, or continue producing at home, but with dependence on factory owners.

The center of clock production shifted from Badenia to Württemberg. Two locations, Schramberg, with the Junghans and Hamburg-American factories, and Schwenningen, with Kienzle, Mauthe, and Haller, soon established worldwide reputations. Metal-cased alarm clocks of all types were the primary product, followed by spring-driven regulators of a modified Viennese type. Junghans was the first company in Europe to adopt, on a large scale, the “American system” of clockmaking.

The following figures show the steady upward trend of Junghans’ annual production.

It took some time before corporate clockmakers and the European public got used to clocks with “American movements,” that is, clocks with pierced brass plates, punched-out wheels, and exposed springs. However, when Junghans demonstrated his company’s progress in producing interchangeable parts at the 1881 Stuttgart exhibition, visitors were impressed. A young woman assembled 200 movements in 11 hours, except for the escapement, which had to be added by a more experienced clockmaker.

It is difficult to determine the proportion of females to males working in the cottage clock industry before 1870. Tax lists and trade registers show few names of women. Berthold Schaaf has published a list of over 3,000 Black Forest clockmakers and clock traders’ names. Only 27 female names were found in this list; less than one percent of the total amount. Seven persons were mentioned as female clockmakers (uhrmacherin), and seven as female dial painters (schildmalerin). Thirteen women had taken over businesses from their late husbands: eight in clockmaking, two in dial painting, and three in related areas.

Did these widows liquidate their husbands’ firms? Did they marry a clockmaker again? This pattern of behavior was common in German guilds—or, did they continue clockmaking themselves?

In an 1860 directory that is not yet fully evaluated, we find 18 widows in clock production; 14 of them had married clockmakers, four had married dial painters. Remarkably, six widows had positions in the clock trade. Their firms spread all over the Black Forest: Bubenbach, Falkau, Furtwangen, Neüstadt, Urach, and Vöhrenbach. These firms, known as “packers,” packed clocks in large crates for transport. They were essential to the Black Forest clock trade, as they coordinated local production with foreign customers’ demands.

In the 1860 directory we also find two female clockmakers, Crescentia Matt from Vierthäler, and Juliane Willmann from Bubenbach. The Furtwangen Museum displays an 8-day clock, signed Nothburga Eschle from Furtwangen (see Figures 9 and 10), and at the Furtwangen exhibition of 1862, Balbina Eschle from Gütenbach was honored for her “very good” medium-sized clocks (schottenuhren). Anna Barbara Steidinger from St. Georgen was said to have trained Lorenz Bob in clockmaking. By 1850 Lorenz Bob* had an outstanding reputation in the Black Forest region.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, men were fully aware that women could produce clocks without help, but they did not encourage the practice. Public opinion disapproved of independent women. A Badenian official went as far as to say, “It is deplorable if girls open a workshop.” Dial painting by women was a little more accepted. Most people agreed that girls could be skilled in this line of business.

The Furtwangen clockmaker’s school trained four girls in clockmaking during 1851-1852, and in 1855-1856, five were trained in watchmaking. Clock training was limited to making clock parts. On the other hand, instruction in freehand drawing and rendering was offered on a large scale to both boys and girls. In the records of the “packer firms,” we often find names of women who produced lacquered shields. Forty-five male and ten female dial painters were mentioned in an 1865 Furtwangen record. Apart from a few exceptions, men were “masters” in the workshop. Therefore, official documents and semi-official lists may omit female names.

In Black Forest clockmakers’ homes, we find the usual role structure. The man was responsible for the workshop and product, the wife (or sister) for the household, including part-time farming. Clockmaking families usually kept a few livestock (kuhteil), usually on leased land, and cultivated potatoes to provide themselves with some basic foodstuffs.

Visitors to the Black Forest noticed “healthy” looking women, while the clockmakers, who left their workshops just once a week, when going to church, had a pale, and sometimes even frail, demeanor. It is difficult to place a value on the benefits of farming to the family budget, but these additional resources were often essential in the difference between a poor and a modest living.

A Badenian questionnaire in 1841 tried to find out how many family members worked full-time in clock production. Of 137 Furtwangen masters, clockmakers, and dial painters, only 13 females were named, and if we eliminate those shops that were headed by widows, only seven remain. The percentage of undetected female workers must be considerable. All persons of a certain age in a clockmaking family were in one way or another attached to clock production. This work was higher priced than straw plaiting, another job for women during these times. If a young man was working in another household, he was expected to be a clockmaker, but a girl was expected to be a housemaid. However, when the factory system was established, female jobs suddenly became evident. Tribute was paid to the manual skills of working women, and to their discipline and reliability as well.

In Badenian clock factories in 1903, 21 percent of the personnel were female. In 1897, 31 percent of Junghans employees were women. Junghans’ competitor Landenberg, of the Hamburg-American Clock Company, employed a workforce that was 15 percent women. Both were located at Schramberg in Württemberg. Some German firms, like Haas (St. Georgen) or Mauthe (Schwenningen) had many males and especially females employed “outside” the factory, while others, for instance, Junghans, preferred centralization. In Schwenningen in 1904, about 50 men, 500 women, and 700 children worked in their homes for local factories (heimarbeit).

In the decades between 1910 and 1930, three structural changes can be observed. Heimarbeit was gradually losing its importance. The number of male and female employees was growing fast, while the percentage of women in the clockmaking industry was slowly increasing from 30 percent in 1913 to 32 percent in 1930. A new stage of heightened development was evident after World War II. In 1950, 39 percent of personnel in Baden-Württemberg clock and watch factories were female, 48 percent were women in 1961, and in 1970, a few years before the quartz revolution severely struck this industry, women had surpassed men: 15,170, or 50.5 percent, to 14,880, or 49.5 percent.

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