U.S. #3757
10¢ American Clock
American Design
Issue Date: January 24, 2003
City: Tucson, Arizona
Quantity: 150,000,000
Printed By: Ashton-Potter
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: Serpentine Die Cut 11 ¼ x 11
Color: Black, green, yellow
The self-adhesive American Clock stamp is the second issue of the American Design Series that began with the 2002 American Toleware coil stamp. It replaced the 10¢ Red Cloud stamps of 1987-94. The design is from a clock made about 1805 by Simon Willard of Massachusetts.
Using simple hand tools, the early American clockmakers created masterpieces that kept time with precision. After crafting the mechanism, clockmakers frequently commissioned cabinetmakers to make cases to conceal the pendulum and weights. The result was a functional yet beautiful piece of furniture.
Simon Willard (1753-1848) was a noteworthy American clockmaker. He established a workshop in 1780, was given complete responsibility for the clocks at Harvard University, and contributed elegant timepieces for the U.S. Senate and Supreme Court.
Willard developed a compact wall timepiece known as the “banjo clock.” Unlike other clocks, the design omits the striking mechanism and indicates time only by its hands and dial. Although Willard was granted a patent for his invention in 1802, many others imitated his design.
Banjo clocks feature a round opening with a painted dial. A long-waisted wooden case and a rectangular box with a hinged door, each with decorative glass panels, surround the pendulum. A cast iron eagle (finial) tops most banjo clocks. Only 4,000 authentic Willard banjo clocks are known.
America Institutes First National Time Zones
On November 18, 1883, U.S. and Canadian railroad companies jointly adopted five standard continental time zones.
Before the invention of clock, communities marked the time of day with apparent solar time, usually with a sundial. This meant the time could be slightly different in each settlement. With the advent of mechanical clocks, people still used the sun, but times could still differ by around 15 minutes.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was established when the Royal Observatory was built in 1675, giving the people of England a standard reference time. Great Britain railway companies using GMT on portable chronometers adopted the first standard time on December 1, 1847. Even still, it was a difficult transition for people used to using solar time. But it became a necessity for countries to establish time zones domestically as well as for dealings with other countries.
In America, timekeeping was confusing. Railroads had made it possible to journey long distances in short amount of times. But each railroad used its own standard time, often based on the local time of their headquarters or largest station. Cities that had several railroads passing through would have clocks for each railroad, each with a different time.
Charles F. Dowd was one of the first Americans to propose a system of one-hour standard time zones for use by American railroads as early as 1863. He’d shared the idea with a class he was teaching at the time, but didn’t address railroad officials until 1869. Dowd’s suggested time zones weren’t adopted.
Instead, American and Canadian railroad officials chose time zones suggested by William F. Allen, editor of the Traveler’s Official Railway Guide. Allen presented his idea at the General Time Convention of 1883. On October 11 of that year, they officially adopted the current Standard Time System. The new proposed time zones had borders running through railroad stations in major cities such as Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Charleston.
Once the railroad companies agreed on the new time zones, they selected a date to institute them and informed the public. Louisville, Kentucky’s The Courier-Journal ran a lengthy article concerning the time zones a few days beforehand.
According to that article, “the new system of uniform time will be put into effect by the leading railroad companies; and, instead of fifty different standards, there will be four corresponding to the four meridians adopted by the Chicago convention of railroad men. There is, indeed, a fifth standard meridian adopted, but, as it passes near St. Johns, New Brunswick, we are not concerned with it in the United States.” You can read the full article here.
The designated day was November 18, 1883, also known as The Day of Two Noons. On that day, the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh sent out a telegraph signal at exactly 12:00 noon on the 90th meridian. Then all the railroad clocks around the country reset their clocks to standard-time noon within their designated time zones. The time zones were named Intercolonial, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.
Though it was a big change for many Americans, within a year, about 85% of all U.S. cities with a population of over 10,000 (about 200 cities) had adopted the standard times. One city in particular had issues. Detroit (about halfway between the eastern and central time meridians) first decided to stick with local time. Then in 1900 they adopted Central Standard Time before trying local mean time and finally Eastern Standard Time in 1916.
Detroit wasn’t the only city in America to struggle with the new time zones. So to put an end to the confusion, Congress and President Woodrow Wilson passed the Standard Time Act in March 1918. This law authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to establish America’s time zones and instituted Daylight Saving Time. (Daylight Saving Time was later repealed and then re-instituted during World War II).
Click here to see a 1913 time zone map and here to compare it to a modern map.