Aaron Lufkin Dennison

Aaron Lufkin Dennison (Freeport, State of the Maine, March 6th 1812 - Birmingham, January 9th 1895) was an American clock and watch maker .

Training of the trade

It had a practical spirit of mechanics and was interested quickly in the Horlogerie. After 3 years of training near James Cary, it went in 1833 to Boston to improve in the trade of clock and watch maker during several successive employment. It profited in particular from the lesson of Tubal Hone - which was in this time considered to be among the best clock and watch makers of the country - and discovered the inaccuracies existing in the basic concept of the constrution of the movement, in the completion of the constituent parts like in the assembly of the most perfect watches manufactured at the time. It often went to the factory of weapons of Springfield, Massachusetts, predicting that soon clock making manufacture would be forced to apply the same intangible principles of systematic, of perfection and productivity already applied in the production of the armament. Towards 1840 it invented the standard Jauge Dennison and off devoted all its spare times to its dream of industrialization of clock making manufacture, known under the name of American System Watch Manufacturing , that is to say the “Interchangeable System”.

The small company which goes up

Meanwhile, in 1844, Aaron L. Dennison, which was also engaged in the trade of jewelleries in Boston, realized that it could manufacture jewel cases out of paperboard better than those which were hitherto imported old world. It bought paperboard and paper of cover necessary and turned over near its family to Brunswick, Maine. There, his/her father, the colonel Andrew Dennison, cut the first jewel cases to him, which were covered and assembled by the skilful hands of his/her sisters. Its new trade developed successfully. In order to be able to continue its dream of clock making improvement, he entrusted it 5 years later to his younger brother, Eliphalet Whorf Dennison, which continued of it the development with such a success that The Dennison Manufacturing Company could amalgamate with its larger competitor in 1990, to form the Avery Dennison Corporation , with Pasadena in California, and to dominate the market.

Dream American and peaceful retirement

In 1849, Aaron L. Dennison joined Edward Howard (manufacturer of pendulums and clock) in order to try to carry out its dream to manufacture parts of movements perfectly interchangeable, in order to drastiquement increase quality by lowering the costs. Thanks to the capital of third associated, Samuel Curtis (manufacturer of mirrors), they created in 1850 the company which became finally famous the Waltham Watch Company , the first clock making manufacture which developed the machine tools, the systems of production and of control necessary in order to produce parts of movements perfectly intercheangable, to successfully assemble and sell watches of utmost precision at competitive prices, established since 1854 with Waltham, Massachusetts.

At the end of its life, Aaron L. Dennison is established in Europe and continued its career between the Suisse and the England, where he died in Birmingham the January 9th 1895.

external bonds

“Waltham Serial Numbers”

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