Howard Regulator

Description:

Most nineteenth century American clocks were cheaply made for the mass market and domestic use. But a few firms made finely finished precision clocks for applications where accuracy was vital: determining the time of scientific observations, for example, or regulating other clocks and watches. One such firm was E. Howard and Company of Boston, specialists in quality clocks, watches and scales since 1842.

This high-quality clock, made by the firm in 1874, distributed Philadelphia time for the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company in that city. Subscribers to the firm’s service of telegraphed gold prices and stock quotations could also receive a time service to set their clocks. Fitted to the mechanical movement of this Howard timepiece are assemblies that interrupt an electric telegraph circuit to indicate every half minute, full minute, five minutes and the hour.

Before 1883, towns across the nation set their own times by observing the position of the sun, so there were hundreds of local times. Instead of Eastern Standard Time, for example, there was Philadelphia Standard Time or Charleston Standard Time. Beginning in the 1850s, railroads operated on regional times, each set to an agreed-upon, arbitrary standard time. By the 1880s, there were about fifty such regional railroad times.

In November 1883, most North American railroads voluntarily agreed to adopt a standardized railway time based on zones, a system from which the time zones in use today originated.