You Should Certainly Know, A History Of The United States Is A History Of Bulova Mens Watches

In 1985, a young immigrant from Bohemia, Joseph Bulova, opened a small jewelry store on Maiden Lane in New York City. In this simple store he made timepieces: clocks, pocket watches, pins. With his old world craftsmanship and some ingenuity, he created watches that soon became the rage of the city. Known not only for their beautiful workmanship, but also their style, Bulova watches were excellent examples of European time keeping mechanisms.

First created in 1875 by a young immigrant from Bohemia in a small New York City jewelry store, the Bulova brand has developed into a broad range of styles and prices. In those days, men carried pocket watches and women wore watches as pins. Wristwatches were for the rich and considered luxury items. Until 1911 Joseph Bulova designed and sold fine pocket watches and fancy clocks. It was not until World War I that wristwatches were seen as practical timekeeping instruments.

Between the years of 1875 and 1920, Joseph Bulova devoted himself to designing new styles of clocks and watches. He developed new mechanisms that would provide more accurate timekeeping, down to one-thousandth of a second. He was not satisfied with the beauty of the watch exteriors, but worked to create the most accurate timekeeping mechanisms known to man.

By the end of the First World War, Joseph Bulova and his Bulova Watch Company have produced thousands of watches worn by our soldiers on the battlefields of Europe. He presented a special commemorative watch to Charles Lindbergh when he completed his solo transatlantic flight in 1926. And as the twenties roared, the company presented the first National Radio Advertisement in 1926 at a Dodgers vs. Phillies baseball game.

In 1928 Bulova introduced the first clock radio. In 1929, it re-engineered and patented a new method of building clocks for automobiles. And the first electric clocks were manufactured in 1931. These included small clocks for homes, as well as large clocks for train stations, office buildings, airports and public buildings. During the depression, the company spent over $1 million to support their dealers by offering buyers of their watches time-payment plans.

Charles Lindbergh was a real fan of Bulova watches. The 1926 the Bulova Watch Company offered a prize of $1,000 to the first pilot to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1927, when Lindbergh landed, he was given a special men’s wrist watch as a commemorative gift and then began appearing in advertising shoots until the late 1920′s. The company also produced a special commemorative line of watches called the “Lone Eagle”. The supply of 5,000 watches was sold out in three days!

Never forgetting their humble beginnings, the Bulova Watch Company was eager to work closely with our Defense Department to provide our soldiers and sailors military watches. During World War II they provided strong and accurate watches to our military, as well as mechanical devices for torpedoes and other armaments that required precision timing. Being a true patriot, the company would only charge the actual cost of production, making no profit on the war products.

At the end of the war, the company opened the Joseph Bulova School of Watch Making in New York. Here disabled veterans would learn the skills of watch making. The building was specially designed to accommodate wheelchairs and those with disabilities, including automatic doors and extra wide aisles. After graduating from the school, employment was assured with over 1,500 positions pledged by American jewelers.

The culmination of Bulova’s success has to be the fact that the NASA invited Bulova to use it Accutron technology into the computers being used by the space program. Bulova timing mechanisms were used in 46 space missions and its technology was used in the space capsules panels for the moon mission.

The story of Bulova men’s watches is the story of America. From the imagination and hands of a poor immigrant from Bohemia, came beauty and craftsmanship, endurance, and practicality. Joseph Bulova changed the way Americans kept time.