Smithsonian Curator Carlene Stephens discusses quartz watches and much more

2022-09-29

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This is one of the most wide-ranging conversations we have ever had on a Collectability Podcast. Topics covered range from Charles Darwin, Alexander Graham Bell, Einstein and Lindbergh to the development of quartz technology and the importance of electronic clocks in horological history. Even elephants get discussed in relation to collecting watches! Carlene E. Stephens is a Curator at the Division of Work and Industry in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Her specialities are broad as she oversees the museum's historical clocks and watches, robots and automatons, and acoustic sound recording technologies. She is the author of "On Time: How Americans Learned to Live by the Clock", and other publications relating to the cultural history of timekeeping, and is a leading expert on quartz technology.

Carlene's appreciation for quartz timekeeping dates back to the mid 1980s when she realized that the museum did not own a single electronic watch in its' collection. Her quest to learn more about quartz timekeeping opened a huge world of discovery as she needed to study the components of quartz technology -- the development of batteries, integrated circuits, displays such as LED, LCD -- the list went on. Her research led to the fact that quartz technology started back in the 1920s when it was tied with communication, particularly in the U.S.A. with companies such as Bell Labs and AT&T. Appreciating that quartz is a very under-studied part of the horological story-line, Carlene has been writing a book in the hope to address this under-reported, but essential part of history. As Collectability discovered with our exhibition of Patek Philippe electronic clocks, the so-called Quartz Crisis is an often mis-understood period of time.

In this fascinating and engaging conversation, John Reardon and Carlene Stephens dive deep into the meaning of time, the history of quartz and electronic clock development -- and much, much more.

For further information, please see this article on Patek Philippe electronic clocks.

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