Uncovering the Long History of Timex

Founder and Origins of TIMEX

• Founder: Waterbury Clock Company
• Year Established: 1854
• Initial Location: Connecticut, USA
• First Watch: Yankee
• Official Website: www.timex.com

Introduction: More Than Just a Timekeeper

For many people, the name Timex may evoke memories of a first watch, a graduation gift, or a cherished family heirloom. The brand is deeply familiar, wrapped around the wrists of generations, often associated with its legendary slogan, “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” and its unmatched reputation for durability. Yet behind this familiar image lies a story spanning over 170 years.

This article will guide you through the evolution of Timex—from its roots in the heart of America’s brass industry to its transformation into a global icon that continues to innovate and stay relevant. We’ll explore the Waterbury Clock Company era, the pivotal partnership with Ingersoll, the company’s revival with help from a beloved cartoon character, the birth of the revolutionary Timex brand, groundbreaking marketing campaigns, key innovations, and how its legacy continues to thrive.

Historical Roots: The Beating Heart of the Brass Industry in Waterbury (1854–1857)

The Timex story begins long before the name itself existed, in the Naugatuck Valley of Connecticut. By the mid-19th century, the region was known as the “Switzerland of America,” a bustling center of watch manufacturing and brass processing. It was here, in the town of Waterbury, that the seeds of Timex were planted.

Though officially established as a joint-stock company on March 5, 1857, its origins trace back to 1854 as a division of the Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing Company, a leading brass producer of the time. The factory’s initial location in Waterbury took advantage of the already thriving industrial ecosystem.

The founding of the Waterbury Clock Company (WCC) wasn’t purely driven by horological passion. It was a strategic move rooted in industrial necessity. As a major brass producer, Benedict & Burnham saw an opportunity to create a captive market for their primary product.

WCC was specifically designed to be the main consumer of the brass produced by its parent company. This symbiotic relationship illustrates how early American industrial growth often relied on interlinked businesses and efficient resource utilization. The need for brass consumers—not merely the chance to sell clocks—was the primary motivator.

Despite being driven by industrial needs, Benedict & Burnham understood the importance of expertise. They hired seasoned talent to run this new operation. Chauncey Jerome, a veteran clockmaker, was tasked with establishing the case workshop, while his brother, Noble Jerome, a renowned clock mechanic, was in charge of the movement manufacturing.

From the outset, WCC’s mission was clear: mass-produce clocks using brass gears and wheels, offering a more affordable alternative to expensive European timepieces. This goal planted the seeds of a philosophy that would later define Timex—democratizing time, making it accessible to everyone.

A Revolution in the Pocket: The One-Dollar Watch Era (Late 1800s – Early 1900s)

Waterbury Clock Company’s significant leap into true mass production came through a strategic partnership with Robert H. Ingersoll & Brother, an innovative mail-order firm. WCC became the primary supplier of movements for Ingersoll, combining their manufacturing prowess with Ingersoll’s marketing genius.

This collaboration gave birth to a phenomenon: the Ingersoll “Yankee,” launched in 1896. This pocket watch, sold for just one dollar—a revolutionary price at the time—was manufactured by WCC. Its success was extraordinary. The “Yankee” became so popular it earned the nickname “the watch that made the dollar famous.” It was WCC’s first tangible achievement in making timekeeping affordable, turning watches from luxury goods into everyday items for the general public. The Dollar Watch became a landmark in the democratization of time, putting personal timekeeping into the hands of millions of Americans.

As time went on, market demands evolved. World War I (1914–1918) created a new need for practical timepieces. Soldiers, particularly artillerymen, needed a way to read time without reaching into their pockets. WCC, still producing for Ingersoll, quickly responded. They modified the popular ladies’ pocket watch, the Ingersoll “Midget,” by adding lugs for canvas straps, relocating the crown to the 3 o’clock position, and using luminous hands and numbers for nighttime readability. The result was one of the earliest mass-produced wristwatches, demonstrating the company’s adaptability and its role in shaping modern watchmaking.

Weathering the Storm: Ingersoll Acquisition and the Smile of Mickey Mouse (1920s – 1930s)

After World War I, the business landscape shifted. Despite marketing success, Robert H. Ingersoll & Bro. faced financial troubles due to a post-war recession and filed for bankruptcy in 1921. Seizing a strategic opportunity, the Waterbury Clock Company acquired Ingersoll’s assets in 1922 for $1.5 million.

The merged company became known as the Ingersoll-Waterbury Company. While this acquisition consolidated their position in the affordable watch market, it also brought new challenges—especially managing the Ingersoll brand internationally.

The biggest challenge came with the onset of the Great Depression in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Ingersoll-Waterbury was hit hard. Sales plummeted, and by 1932, the company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Their large factory lay mostly idle, and the future looked bleak.

It was in this period of despair that an unexpected partnership provided salvation. Walt Disney Studios, also struggling financially during the Depression, sought new ways to license their wildly popular character Mickey Mouse. In 1930, Ingersoll-Waterbury signed a licensing agreement with Disney to produce Mickey Mouse-branded wristwatches and clocks under the Ingersoll name. The first Mickey Mouse watch was introduced with great fanfare at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.

The market response was phenomenal. The Mickey Mouse watch, featuring Mickey’s arms as time-indicating hands (a design patented by Waterbury in 1933/1935), became an instant sensation. On its first day at Macy’s, 11,000 units were sold. Within a year and a half, over two million Mickey Mouse watches had been sold.

This product line became the company’s first multi-million-dollar success and literally saved it from financial collapse. The watch’s popularity even allowed the company to add 3,000 employees. This success demonstrated how smart partnerships, culturally resonant products, and a bit of luck can turn things around even during the darkest times.

Turning Point Toward Modernity: World War II and the U.S. Time Corporation (1940s)

Though the company had survived the Depression thanks to Mickey Mouse, it again faced uncertainty in the lead-up to World War II. However, the war would become a catalyst for profound transformation. In 1941, the struggling Ingersoll-Waterbury Company was acquired by two Norwegian businessmen fleeing the Nazi invasion: wealthy shipowner Thomas Olsen and engineer-politician Joakim Lehmkuhl. They viewed the company as a means to contribute to the Allied war effort.

Under their leadership, the company underwent a dramatic shift in focus. Nearly all production capacity was redirected to support the war. Ingersoll-Waterbury became the largest U.S. manufacturer of precision time fuses used in bombs and artillery shells. This wartime production not only proved vital to the Allies but also gave the company new expertise in high-volume precision manufacturing and advanced materials—skills that would later be critical. To support this, a new modern factory was built in Middlebury, Connecticut in 1942, a site that remains the headquarters of the Timex Group today.

The success of wartime production and the company’s expanded scale led to a new identity. In 1944, after a shareholder vote, the company officially changed its name to The United States Time Corporation. The new name marked the end of the Waterbury Clock/Ingersoll-Waterbury era and the beginning of a corporate entity that would soon give birth to the Timex brand.

After the war, Thomas Olsen returned to Norway, while Joakim Lehmkuhl stayed in the U.S. to lead the company into a new era. The war and its new leadership effectively reset the company, laying the technical and managerial groundwork for its next great wave of innovation.

The Birth of a Legendary Name: Timex (1950)

With the end of World War II, Joakim Lehmkuhl saw a huge opportunity. Armed with precision manufacturing experience from wartime and a vision to democratize time, he decided to reconvert the U.S. Time Corporation factory to mass-produce wristwatches. His goal was ambitious: to create watches that were not only affordable but also reliable and durable—something that had never truly been achieved on a large scale.

Lehmkuhl applied the simplest, most standardized production methods, leveraging the high level of mechanization developed during the war. His focus on efficiency and volume earned him the nickname “the Henry Ford of the watch industry.”

In 1949 or 1950 (sources vary), the first watch bearing the new brand name “Timex” was launched in the American market. The name “Timex” wasn’t a random choice. It was a clever combination of two widely recognized and trusted brands at the time: Time magazine and Kleenex tissues. This branding strategy was a deliberate move to position the new watch as a familiar, trustworthy product that belonged in everyday life—not as an exclusive luxury item.

The key technical innovation behind Timex’s value proposition was its clever use of materials. Instead of using jewels (small synthetic rubies) as bearings for moving parts—a standard and costly practice in high-quality watches—Timex utilized a super-hardened metal alloy developed during the war, known as “Armalloy.” This material drastically reduced production costs while making the watch movement more rugged and shock-resistant. This was the foundation for Timex’s legendary durability claims.

But product innovation alone wasn’t enough. Lehmkuhl realized that the traditional distribution model through jewelry stores wouldn’t work for Timex. Jewelers were used to high profit margins (around 50% or more), whereas Timex, in order to keep prices low, offered only around a 30% margin. As a result, many jewelry stores refused to carry Timex. Facing this rejection, Lehmkuhl and his head of marketing, Robert Mohr, took a revolutionary step.

They bypassed traditional channels and distributed Timex watches through a wide network of mass-market retailers, including drugstores, hardware stores, supermarkets, and even tobacco kiosks. This bold distribution strategy proved highly effective, building a network of up to 250,000 retail points and allowing Timex to reach consumers directly at an affordable price. Lehmkuhl’s vision went beyond the factory floor—he built an entire ecosystem, from efficient production and material innovation to smart branding and mass distribution, that laid the groundwork for Timex’s phenomenal success.

---

“Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking”: A Marketing Revolution (1950s–1960s)

The launch of the affordable and rugged Timex watch was backed by one of the most iconic and effective advertising campaigns in history. Starting around 1952 in print media and exploding onto television by 1956, the “Torture Tests” campaign dramatically demonstrated the exceptional toughness of Timex products.

Instead of just talking about quality, Timex showed it in action. These ads featured Timex watches undergoing extreme abuse: strapped to a baseball bat swung by Yankees legend Mickey Mantle; tied to a racing horse’s hoof mid-gallop; dropped from an 87-foot cliff in Acapulco, Mexico; tossed into a washing machine, a paint mixer, or even struck with a jackhammer. There were also more unusual tests, such as being clamped by a giant underwater lobster or mounted on a boat propeller.

The face of this TV campaign was John Cameron Swayze, a respected former NBC news anchor trusted by the American public. His presence lent credibility to the almost unbelievable demonstrations. After each brutal test, Swayze would show the Timex watch still ticking perfectly, delivering the now-legendary slogan: “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” This phrase perfectly captured Timex’s core value proposition: exceptional durability at an affordable price.

The impact of this campaign was profound. The “Torture Tests” didn’t just sell watches—they shaped Timex’s brand identity in the minds of consumers as a symbol of toughness, reliability, and unbeatable value. The campaign overcame initial retailer resistance and drove massive consumer demand.

By the early 1960s, Timex’s success was so phenomenal that it was estimated one in every three watches sold in the United States was a Timex. Sales soared, reaching $71 million in 1961. The brand’s extraordinary success led to the company being renamed Timex Corporation in 1969, cementing the Timex name’s dominance in the market. The “Torture Tests” remain a testament to the power of bold, innovative marketing in building and dominating a brand.

Ongoing Innovation and Iconic Models Through the Ages

Timex’s success wasn’t built on a single product or campaign. Throughout its history, the company continued to innovate and introduce iconic timepieces, responding to evolving technology and consumer tastes.

One of its earliest and most enduring models was the Timex Marlin. Initially introduced in the 1950s as a field watch, the Marlin evolved in the 1960s into a sleek, elegant dress watch, frequently featured in the “Torture Tests” ads with John Cameron Swayze. Known for its durability and mid-century aesthetics, the Marlin remains popular and was recently reissued by Timex, showing the timeless appeal of its design.

The next big challenge came in the 1970s with the rise of quartz technology from Asia, triggering the “Quartz Crisis” that threatened the traditional mechanical watch industry. Timex, whose reputation was built on affordable mechanical watches, had to adapt. It introduced its first line of quartz watches in the early 1970s, later known as the Q Timex series.

These models, with their distinct 70s design, became popular and showed the company’s ability to embrace new technology—although it initially struggled to keep pace with fierce competition. This adaptability, even if slower than some rivals, was vital to Timex’s survival in the new horological era.

In the 1980s, Timex made another big move by redefining the sports watch category. Through close collaboration with professional triathletes, Timex developed a digital watch specifically designed for endurance sports. First launched as the Timex Triathlon in 1984 and later expanded as the Timex Ironman in 1986, the watch was a major hit.

Featuring 100-meter water resistance, lap memory, stopwatch functionality, and a now-iconic five-button design, the Ironman quickly became a favorite among athletes and fitness enthusiasts. For over a decade, the Timex Ironman was the best-selling watch in the world, revitalizing the Timex brand and cementing its position in the sports watch market.

Another practical innovation that became a Timex hallmark was the Indiglo backlight technology, introduced in 1992. This electroluminescent feature illuminated the entire watch dial with the press of a button, making it extremely easy to read in the dark. Indiglo not only offered a clear functional advantage but also reinforced Timex’s image as a dependable and innovative brand. The feature even proved useful in real-life emergencies, such as during the World Trade Center evacuation in 1993.

In addition to these key models, Timex also launched several other iconic product lines, such as the Easy Reader, known for its ultra-simple, legible design, making it one of the best-selling watch styles in the world. There’s also the Expedition line, offering rugged outdoor watches often focused on sustainability features, as well as the Waterbury Collection, which honors the company’s historical roots in Connecticut.

Key Timeline in Timex History

To give a brief overview of Timex’s long journey, here’s a timeline of key events and models:

Year	Major Event / Notable Model
1854	Waterbury Clock Company founded under Benedict & Burnham.
1857	Officially established as an independent company.
1896	Launch of the Ingersoll “Yankee Dollar Watch” (made by Waterbury).
1914–1918	Early wristwatch production for WWI.
1922	Acquired Robert H. Ingersoll & Bro., becoming Ingersoll-Waterbury Co.
1933	Launch of the iconic Mickey Mouse watch that saved the company.
1941	Acquired by Thomas Olsen & Joakim Lehmkuhl.
1942	New factory built in Middlebury, CT; focus on war production.
1944	Renamed as U.S. Time Corporation.
1950	Launch of the TIMEX watch brand with revolutionary Armalloy bearings.
1956	“Torture Tests” TV campaign launched with John Cameron Swayze.
1960s	Popularity of the Timex Marlin; 1 in 3 watches sold in the U.S. was a Timex.
1969	Company renamed to Timex Corporation.
1970s	Introduction of Quartz watches; birth of the Q Timex series.
1984	Launch of Timex Triathlon.
1986	Launch of Timex Ironman, becoming the best-selling watch globally.
1992	Introduction of Indiglo backlight technology.
2000s–Today	Focus on reissues, collaborations, and sustainability.

Timex Today: Celebrating Heritage, Embracing the Future

As it entered the 21st century, Timex continued to evolve. Corporately, Timex Corporation is now part of Timex Group B.V. (based in the Netherlands) and Timex Group USA, Inc., a privately held global holding company. Although its operations are worldwide with manufacturing facilities in various countries, its headquarters has remained rooted in Middlebury, Connecticut—where the first modern factory was established in 1942.

Timex’s current strategy places strong emphasis on its rich heritage. The company actively reissues iconic models from its archives, such as the Q Timex and the Marlin, which have been warmly received by both vintage watch enthusiasts and modern consumers.

Collaborations with fashion brands, designers, and even pop culture characters have also become a significant part of its strategy to stay relevant and appealing. This dedication to heritage is also reflected in initiatives such as the Heritage 1854 website, which serves as a valuable resource for the Timex history-loving community.

In addition to honoring its past, Timex is also embracing contemporary issues. The company has demonstrated a commitment to sustainability through initiatives like Timex ReWound, described as the world’s first circular watch program, which allows customers to trade in their old watches. A focus on socially and environmentally responsible manufacturing has become a core part of the brand’s narrative today.

Even as the watch industry landscape continues to shift, Timex maintains its status as an American icon. With over one billion watches sold throughout its history, the brand continues to uphold the core values that have brought it this far: solid craftsmanship, legendary durability, democratic affordability, and thoughtful design. As they often say, “This isn’t just a watch; it’s an American icon.”

A Pulse That Keeps on Ticking

Timex’s journey spanning over 170 years is an extraordinary story of adaptation, innovation, and resilience—qualities that are also reflected in its products. From a clock factory built to serve the brass industry in 19th-century Connecticut, Timex evolved through strategic partnerships, near-catastrophic turning points, visionary leadership, technological breakthroughs, and unforgettable marketing campaigns.

The key to Timex’s enduring success lies in its ability to consistently deliver on its core promise: to offer reliable, durable, and affordable watches to the masses. From the Ingersoll “Dollar Watch” to the first Timex with Armalloy, from the iconic “Torture Tests” to the market-dominating Ironman, and now through reissues of its heritage models, Timex has always found a way to connect the past, the present, and the future.

By continuing to celebrate its rich legacy while embracing innovation and new values such as sustainability, Timex proves that its pulse still beats strong. The brand continues to remind us that time belongs to everyone—and a watch can be more than just a timekeeper. It can be a loyal companion that tells our story, reminding us to “make time yours.”