Ansonia

From Connecticut Beginnings to Brooklyn’s Clock Empire

The Ansonia Clock Company was one of the most prolific and creatively ambitious clockmakers in 19th-century America. Named for Ansonia, Connecticut, the firm was founded in 1851 as a subsidiary of the Ansonia Brass Company, itself an enterprise created by metal merchant Anson Greene Phelps and his partners to expand both brass production and horological manufacturing.

Originally operating in Ansonia—a city founded in part by Phelps to serve brass and other manufacturing industries—the clock company shared in the Naugatuck Valley’s reputation as a hub of precision metalworking and innovation.

Soon after its formal establishment, the company’s founders convinced experienced clockmakers Theodore Terry and Franklin C. Andrews—already producing clocks in nearby Bristol—to relocate and join the venture. This partnership brought technical skill together with Phelps’s industrial resources, setting the stage for what would become one of the largest clock producers in the nation.

Rapid Growth and Victorian Creativity

By the 1870s, Ansonia had expanded far beyond its modest origins. The company manufactured a vast range of clocks, from regulators to swing clocks and ornamental “figural” designs. These whimsical models—shaped like animals, mythological figures, and elaborate decorative themes—reflected the Victorian era’s appetite for ornamental domestic objects and helped make Ansonia clocks among the most immediately recognizable of their day.

In 1877–1878, seeking greater access to capital, labor, and distribution networks, the company purchased a factory in Brooklyn, New York and shifted most of its operations there, even as its Connecticut plant continued producing clocks for several more years.

In Brooklyn, the company’s factory complex drew both local attention and national interest. At the time, it was described as the “largest clock factory in the world,” with operations visible to entire city blocks and a workforce producing goods for domestic and international markets alike. At the peak of its industrial output, Ansonia’s Brooklyn factory was so large that it could produce over 10,000 clocks per day, cranking out mantel clocks with porcelain cases, swinging pendulum clocks, and a dizzying variety of mechanical designs.

Fires, Rebuilding, and Continued Expansion

The company’s success was not without setbacks. In October 1880, a major fire ripped through the Brooklyn factory, destroying buildings, machinery, and inventory. Contemporary reports estimated the loss at roughly $750,000, an immense sum at the time, with only a fraction insured. The blaze left more than 1,200 workers temporarily unemployed and posed a significant test for the firm.

True to the industrial spirit of the era, Ansonia rebuilt quickly. Within a year the site was reconstructed and operations resumed, and by the mid-1880s the company reportedly maintained sales offices not only in New York but also Chicago and London, illustrating a truly transatlantic reach.

By 1886, Ansonia was manufacturing more than 225 different models of clocks, ranging from highly decorative mantels to practical regulators for homes and offices.

The Peak Years — Innovation Meets Mass Production

Ansonia’s clocks were distinctive not just for their volume, but for their stylistic diversity. The firm’s catalog included:

• Porcelain-cased mantel clocks, with intricate painted designs

• Crystal regulator clocks, prized for their glass panels and polished brass movements

• Figural novelty clocks, often sculpted in whimsical shapes

• Regulator wall clocks and other precision timepieces

These models appealed to an expanding middle class during America’s Gilded Age, when even modest households sought decorative and functional objects that reflected both taste and industrial progress.

In 1904, the company expanded into wristwatch production, reportedly producing millions of inexpensive non-jeweled watches through the 1920s.

Decline in the 20th Century and the Soviet Sale

Despite its 19th-century success, Ansonia’s fortunes waned in the early 20th century. Competition from cheaper imports and shifting consumer preferences eroded sales, particularly for ornate and novelty clocks that had once defined the company’s identity.

By 1927, Ansonia was offering only a fraction of the models it once made—dropping from hundreds to just a few dozen. In 1926, the company even sold its Brooklyn warehouse in a bid to stay afloat. In 1929, with the U.S. economy teetering and demand falling, Ansonia sold much of its remaining timekeeping machinery, tooling, and assets to Amtorg Trading Corporation, the Soviet Union’s U.S. trading entity. These components, along with skilled workers, were transported to Moscow and helped form the foundation of early Soviet clock and watch manufacturing.

This marked the end of the original Ansonia Clock Company’s U.S. operations. Although the rights to the name and trademarks later passed through other firms, the historic company that once dominated American clockmaking had effectively ceased to exist.

Legacy: Ornate Design and Horological Collectibility

Today, Ansonia clocks are highly prized by collectors and historians alike for their artistry, mechanical ingenuity, and reflection of late 19th-century taste. Porcelain mantel clocks, swinging novelty clocks, and crystal regulators remain among the most valued pieces in American horological auctions and private collections.

Ansonia’s story is not merely one of industrial volume but of innovation and spectacle—an embodiment of an era when clocks were more than instruments of timekeeping, and instead were decorative expressions of America’s technological and cultural ambitions.

Further Reading & Sources

1. Ansonia Clock Company (Wikipedia)
   Broad overview of the company’s founding, expansion, Brooklyn period, and late-1920s decline.

2. Tick-Tock Through Time: The Clockmaking Heritage of Derby and Ansonia
   Regional industrial context, peak production scale, and Victorian-era product diversity.

3. Park Slope’s Hidden History: The Ansonia Clock Factory
   Detailed narrative of the Brooklyn factory, including expansion, workforce size, and the 1880 fire.

4. New York Times TimesMachine — Ansonia Factory Fire (October 28, 1880)
   Contemporary newspaper coverage documenting the Ansonia factory fire as a nationally reported industrial event.

5. Keeping Time With History: The Ansonia Clock Company
   Horological and restoration-focused narrative discussing Ansonia’s earlier years and production methods