Watchmaking: A Case Study in Enterprise and Change*

David S. Landes

Business History Review, 1979, vol. 53, issue 1, 1-39

Abstract: From its beginnings in sixteenth century southern Germany, Professor Landes traces the development of the personal timepiece industry to France, where the design of watches as items of personal adornment reached its peak; to England, where precision in timekeeping and rationalization of manufacture were developed to new heights; to Switzerland, where manufacture on a mass scale for a highly diverse market was attained; and, finally, to America, where the technique of assembling mechanical devices from precision-machined interchangeable parts was applied to watchmaking with the same success it had achieved in less demanding applications. He discusses the sociological factors that produced the Swiss industry in a region of seemingly little promise, and demonstrates how these factors made the Swiss more successful than the Germans, French, or English.

Date: 1979
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