KEN KIRSCHENBAUM, ESQ
ALARM - SECURITY INDUSTRY LEGAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER / THE ALARM EXCHANGE
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History of the burglar and fire alarm industry: Part 1. Before there was an industry
November 9, 2020
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The alarm clock, animals and other warning and protective measures
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The history of the burglar and fire alarm industry should be of some interest to those who spend their days, some lifetime, earning their living in this industry. I accumulated information from various websites and will appropriately credit those sources. Send me any local tidbits from your area.
Before the advent of mechanical or electronic devices people relied on wild or domestic animals to sound a warning, such as dogs and other noisy animals. Posting guards was also employed. These alerts were closely aligned with a warning to wake up, and that brings us to today’s article on the alarm clock.
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A 2,000-Year History of Alarm Clocks BY NAOMI RUSSO
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-2000year-history-of-alarm-clocks
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YI XING WAS A BIT of an overachiever. A mathematician, engineer, Buddhist monk and astronomer, Xing was asked to improve calendars in China. He took it one step further, building upon centuries of Chinese innovation to create an astronomical clock to which he gave the catchy name “Water-Driven Spherical Bird’s-Eye-View Map of the Heaven.”
The clock was slightly more complicated than the average timepiece today, measuring not only time but the distance of planets and stars. A water wheel turned gears in the clock, with puppet shows and gongs set to emerge at various times.
Dating to the year 725, Yi Xing’s ingenious version of an alarm clock is one of the world’s earliest recorded devices of that nature. Along with the water clock Plato used to wake himself up for his legendary dawn lectures in the 4th century BCE, it is evidence that humans have been looking for ways to rise on time for thousands of years.
The idea was repeated by Europeans who created complex displays within chiming clocks in town squares. The next step was to make such clocks smaller, so they could be used individually. Historians believe personal mechanical alarm clocks originated in Germany in the 15th century, but their inventors are unknown. Most people didn’t own such clocks, though, and had to rely upon the sun, servants, or prayer-chiming bells. As work hours became more rigid, factory whistles were blown to encourage people living near their places of employ to get up.
The first known mechanical alarm clock inventor is Levi Hutchins, an American who in 1787 invented a personal alarm device to wake him at 4 a.m. He didn’t even have to be at work early, it was simply his “firm rule” to wake before sunrise. Though other alarm clocks existed previously, it seems Hutchins had not heard of them.
He wrote of his invention, “It was the idea of a clock that could sound an alarm that was difficult, not the execution of the idea. It was simplicity itself to arrange for the bell to sound at the predetermined hour.”
The first known mechanical alarm clock inventor is Levi Hutchins, an American who in 1787 invented a personal alarm device to wake him at 4 a.m. He didn’t even have to be at work early, it was simply his “firm rule” to wake before sunrise. Though other alarm clocks existed previously, it seems Hutchins had not heard of them.
He wrote of his invention, “It was the idea of a clock that could sound an alarm that was difficult, not the execution of the idea. It was simplicity itself to arrange for the bell to sound at the predetermined hour.”
However Hutchins, more interested in morning rising than mercantile benefits, never patented his invention. Half a century later, Frenchman Antoine Redier became the first to patent an adjustable alarm clock, in 1847. The adjustable alarm clock allowed the user to set a time to awake, rather than being ruled by the dictates of others.
Each adjustable alarm clock had a hole in each number on the clock dial. A pin was placed in the hole responding to the time you needed to be up. Very simple, unless you wanted to be more specific than the closest hour.
Redier’s patent didn’t cross the oceans though, so American Seth E. Thomas got in on the action in 1876, patenting his own version. His eponymous company became a mass-producer of the alarm clock, bringing the invention to the masses.
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Ken Kirschenbaum,Esq
Kirschenbaum & Kirschenbaum PC
Attorneys at Law
200 Garden City Plaza
Garden City, NY 11530
516 747 6700 x 301
ken@kirschenbaumesq.com
www.KirschenbaumEsq.com
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