Synopses & Reviews
Up until the end of the eighteenth century, the way Ottomans used their clocks conformed to the inner logic of their own temporal culture. However, this began to change rather dramatically during the nineteenth century, as the Ottoman Empire was increasingly assimilated into the European-dominated global economy and the project of modern state building began to gather momentum.and#160; In
Reading Clocks, Alla Turca, Avner Wishnitzer unravels the complexity of Ottoman temporal culture and for the first time tells the story of its transformation. He explains that in their attempt to attain better surveillance capabilities and higher levels of regularity and efficiency, various organs of the reforming Ottoman state developed elaborate temporal constructs in which clocks played an increasingly important role. As the reform movement spread beyond the government apparatus, emerging groups of officers, bureaucrats, and urban professionals incorporated novel time-related ideas, values, and behaviors into their self-consciously andldquo;modernandrdquo; outlook and lifestyle. Acculturated in the highly regimented environment of schools and barracks, they came to identify efficiency and temporal regularity with progress and the former temporal patterns with the old political order.
Drawing on a wealth of archival and literary sources, Wishnitzerandrsquo;s original and highly important work presents the shifting culture of time as an arena in which Ottoman social groups competed for legitimacy and a medium through which the very concept of modernity was defined. Reading Clocks, Alla Turca breaks new ground in the study of the Middle East and presents us with a new understanding of the relationship between time and modernity.
Review
“Marking Modern Times is a terrific book. Creative, well researched, well written and original, Alexis McCrossen’s account of public time and public clocks really captures nineteenth century notions of time and timekeeping. Her documentation of this era is really superb.” Michael O'Malley
Review
“Marking Modern Times beautifully captures a complicated history behind the remarkable timepieces that once adorned our streets and public buildings. Like a good cultural historian, Alexis McCrossen picks up a story we have missed—'a public clock era' punctuated by war and peace, poverty and prosperity, by the wishes of local jewelers, railroad magnates, reforming politicians and the federal government. And the illustrations are a delight!” author of Face Value: The Entwined Histories of Money and Race in America
Review
“Alexis McCrossen’s Marking Modern Times is a rich and fascinating book full of wonderful detail about the visibility of time and the material history of timekeeping in America. This is a deeply researched study that speaks to readers across a variety of fields, from urban history and cultural history to the histories of technology and time.” Ann Fabian - author of The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America's Unburied Dead
Review
"How were timepieces in public places employed as symbols of authority by both public and private entities in nineteenth-century America? How did pocket watches and other private timekeeping devices move from a symbol of prestige for the wealthy to a ubiquitous personal possession? How did the interface between public clocks and personal timepieces change the structure and schedule of life throughout the country? These questions and others are masterfully addressed in this painstakingly researched account of the culture of timekeeping in America. By tracing the different types of public clocks--from tower clocks to time balls--as well as the emergence of inexpensive pocket watches, McCrossen tells a story of a period when the quest for accurate timekeeping became an obsession in the US." CHOICE
Review
andldquo;Among the most brilliant moments of historical writing are often those that reveal the amazing and unique stories of dramatic change in things we usually take as givens. Wishnitzerandrsquo;s Reading Clocks, Alla Turca is one such moment. His meticulously detailed account of perceptions, technologies, and the regulation of time in the vast Ottoman Empire of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is a wide-ranging, exciting adventure in learning why time matters!andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The social construction of time is an astonishingly difficult topic to pursue, and Wishnitzer brilliantly mines almanacs, timetables, and schedules for what they can reveal about how the peoples of the Ottoman Empire experienced and discussed timeandmdash;but more impressively, he brings his analytical skills to bear on literary sources one might not expect, notably poetry, to broaden and deepen his account. Through a nuanced reading of these varied sources, Reading Clocks, Alla Turca demonstrates that there was no sudden shift from the seasonally oriented forms of reckoning time that prevailed among the Ottomans before the modern period, to the abstract, homogeneous form of time which dominates modern life today. This is an ambitious and important examination.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;If you want to understand nineteenth-century Ottoman history through the story of time, then this is your book. Wishnitzer tells a complex tale, not of one single temporal culture, but of time organization as an arena of competition waged by state and societal forces, meshing andlsquo;centerandrsquo; and andlsquo;peripheriesandrsquo; and featuring variegated practices. This book will fascinate Middle East historians and any scholar interested in the riddle of modern time.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Wishnitzerandrsquo;s Reading Clocks, Alla Turca breaks new ground in the study of the late Ottoman Empire by examining the shift from old-style to new-styleandmdash;mean-timeandmdash;temporal reckoning.and#160;By focusing on the important but overlooked question of this crucial transition in its many vicissitudes, ranging from the way that schedules increasingly regulated daily activities to an internalized clock consciousness, Wishnitzer skillfully demonstrates the value of what he aptly terms andlsquo;temporal cultureandrsquo; for elucidating some of the many changes affecting late Ottoman society.and#160;At the same time, the book is alive to both the continuities and the changesandmdash;the losses as well as the gainsandmdash;involved in adjusting to the new temporal order and is careful to include these in the elegant analysis offered in these pages.andrdquo;
Synopsis
The public spaces and buildings of the United States are home to many thousands of timepieces—bells, time balls, and clock faces—that tower over urban streets, peek out from lobbies, and gleam in store windows. And in the streets and squares beneath them, men, women, and children wear wristwatches of all kinds. Americans have decorated their homes with clocks and included them in their poetry, sermons, stories, and songs. And as political instruments, social tools, and cultural symbols, these personal and public timekeepers have enjoyed a broad currency in art, life, and culture.
In Marking Modern Times, Alexis McCrossen relates how the American preoccupation with time led people from across social classes to acquire watches and clocks. While noting the difficulties in regulating and synchronizing so many timepieces, McCrossen expands our understanding of the development of modern time discipline, delving into the ways we have standardized time and describing how timekeepers have served as political, social, and cultural tools in a society that doesn’t merely value time, but regards access to time as a natural-born right, a privilege of being an American.
About the Author
Alexis McCrossen is associate professor of history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She is the author of
Holy Day, Holiday: The American Sunday and the editor of
Land of Necessity: Consumer Culture in the United Statesandndash;Mexico Borderlands.
Table of Contents
List of IllustrationsAcknowledgments
Introduction Unveiling the Jewelers Clock
One Times Tongue and Hands: The First Public Clocks in the United States
Two Clockwatching: The Uneasy Authority of Clocks and Watches in Antebellum America
Three Republican Heirlooms, Instruments of Modern Time Discipline: Pocket Watches during and after the Civil War
Four Noon, November 18, 1883: The Abolition of Local Time, the Debut of a National Standard
Five American Synchronicity: Turn-of-the-Century Tower Clocks, Street Clocks, and Time Balls
Six Monuments and Monstrosities: The Apex of the Public Clock Era
Epilogue Content to Look at My Watch: The End of the Public Clock Era
Notes
Index