Schoolhouse clock
The octagon-topped pendulum wall clock that hung in American classrooms and offices, sold by its makers as a drop octagon and renamed by collectors.
What a schoolhouse clock is
A schoolhouse clock is a pendulum wall clock with a large round dial set in an eight-sided wooden frame, above a smaller box, or drop, that holds the pendulum. The drop usually has a little glass window so you can see the pendulum bob swinging.
Kovels, the antiques reference, describes the octagon drop as a popular style of wall clock used in offices, homes and schools from about 1885 to the 1930s. Its large, easy-to-read dial made it a natural fit for classrooms, and the Henry Ford museum notes that such clocks were commonly used to teach children to be on time.
Where the name comes from
The clockmakers did not call these schoolhouse clocks. The Henry Ford explains that the name drop octagon refers to the shape of the case. The collector and restorer behind the antiquevintageclock.com blog reports that none of the labels on his own clocks use the word schoolhouse; his Sessions is labeled as a drop octagon, and the others carry model names.
According to the same blog, the schoolhouse name was applied later by collectors because so many of these clocks were found in school settings, though makers may have informally called them school clocks when a school ordered them. A Waterbury Clock Company wall clock at the Henry Ford carries a paper label calling it an English drop, another period name for the form.
How it works
Schoolhouse clocks are mechanical pendulum clocks. The movement sits behind the dial and the pendulum hangs down into the drop, where its bob can be seen through the window. The Sessions drop octagon that blog examined, from the 1920s, has an eight-day, time-only movement, a solid oak case and a 9-inch dial, and measures about 19 by 13.5 inches.
The cheapest and most common versions were time-only, showing the hours and minutes without striking. Others added an hour strike, and some carried a calendar hand. The Henry Ford's New Haven example has what the museum calls a simple calendar, which must be corrected by hand at the end of every month with fewer than 31 days.
Larger schools sometimes linked their classroom clocks together. The Smithsonian holds a classroom clock of about 1880 from Jefferson Junior High School in Washington, D.C., sold by A. Hahl and Company of Baltimore, in which a master clock sent a pulse of air through tubes once a minute to advance every clock in the building at the same moment. The system rested on patents granted in 1873 and 1877 to Hermann J. Wenzel, a German immigrant in San Francisco, and the museum notes that pneumatic systems competed with early electric clock systems, which were often unreliable.
Makers and museum examples
Connecticut clock companies made the style in quantity. The Henry Ford holds a drop octagon wall clock by the New Haven Clock Company of New Haven, made between 1871 and 1900, with a rosewood case about 23.5 inches high and a label naming the maker and an 1871 patent date. The same museum owns an English drop by the Waterbury Clock Company of Waterbury, with walnut and rosewood in its case. The museum catalogs it as about 1875, yet its pendulum bob is stamped with a patent date of December 11, 1883, a reminder that catalog dates and marked dates do not always agree.
Collectors also find the form from Sessions, whose labels read Drop Octagon, from Ansonia, including a short-drop octagon with a 12-inch dial, and from Waterbury models such as the Arion. The same blog also shows an Arthur Pequegnat model called the Brandon II.
Some collectors link the American clocks to the English drop dial clock, made from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth, which looks very similar but uses a fusee to even out the pull of its spring. That ancestry is a matter of opinion rather than settled history.
How to recognize one
Look for the outline: an eight-sided frame around a round dial, usually with a brass bezel, and a smaller box below with a glazed opening for the pendulum. Golden oak is common, and Kovels also lists rosewood, walnut, mahogany and pressed oak.
Check the dial size and movement. Dials of about 9 to 12 inches are common in collector examples, and an original clock will have a key-wound mechanical movement and a real pendulum. A paper label inside the case, if it survives, often names the maker and model.
Size is another clue. The New Haven drop octagon at the Henry Ford measures about 23.5 inches high and 16.75 inches wide, and the Waterbury English drop is a similar 24.5 by 16.5 inches, so a typical original is roughly two feet tall.
Look for dates stamped on parts. Patent dates on a label, dial or pendulum bob, like the 1883 stamp on the Waterbury clock's bob, tell you the earliest that part could have been made, not the exact year the clock left the factory.
Kovels notes that reproductions have been made since the 1970s, so a schoolhouse-style clock is not automatically an antique. A modern clock in this shape may also hide a quartz movement behind the dial.
See also: plain battery wall clocks for classrooms and kitchens on OnlineClock.app.
Questions people ask
Why is it called a schoolhouse clock?
Because so many hung in classrooms. The makers themselves usually called the style a drop octagon or English drop; the schoolhouse name came from later collectors.
When were schoolhouse clocks made?
Kovels dates the style's popularity to about 1885 through the 1930s. Museum examples such as the Henry Ford's New Haven clock carry patent dates as early as 1871, and reproductions have been made since the 1970s.
What does drop octagon mean?
Octagon refers to the eight-sided frame around the dial, and drop to the smaller pendulum box that hangs below it.
Keep exploring
Sources
- Drop Octagon Type Wall Clock, 1871-1900, The Henry Ford
- Waterbury Clock Co. Wall Clock, circa 1875, The Henry Ford
- Octagon Drop or Schoolhouse Clocks, Kovels
- Wall Clock, A. Hahl and Company, National Museum of American History (Smithsonian)
- The schoolhouse clock that was never called the schoolhouse clock, antiquevintageclock.com