But, really, it’s the topic of this five-volume book set that elicits the biggest surprise: the Illinois Watch Co.Advertisement
“My goal was to finish the book in two years,” said Friedberg, 75, a retired attorney who lives in Irvine. “I almost fried my brain on finishing the five-volume set.”And among the indoctrinated — people like “A Clockwork Orange” star Malcolm McDowell — Friedberg’s project is peerless. “Look, none of us need watches, we have the iPhone,” said McDowell, who befriended Friedberg around 2012. “It’s about telling a story. A watch tells the rest of the world who you are. And Illinois watches really are as good as anything made in Europe. These are under the radar. You feel a little bit special that you know something about them.”
The Illinois Watch Co. was started in 1870, co-founded by industrialist John Whitfield Bunn, who had been a close friend of Abraham Lincoln.The Illinois Watch Co. was Friedberg’s salvation. Realizing he needed to narrow his focus, Friedberg homed in on the company’s wristwatches, their Art Deco elegance captivating him.
The factory that turned out Illinois’ precision instruments was a Gilded Age marvel. In a stroke of industrial innovation often overlooked amid praise for Henry Ford’s later accomplishments, the company’s timepieces were made on assembly lines. It’s an inspiring era for modern American watchmakers including Cameron Weiss, who founded his eponymous Torrance-based watch brand in 2013.
And by the end of the 1960s, Hamilton, Elgin and Waltham had all ceased operating as American companies, either shuttering or selling to the Swiss.Before “The Illinois Watch & Its Hamilton Years,” there was an opening act. In 2004, Friedberg released “The Illinois Watch: The Life and Times of a Great American Watch Company.”
“I never watched movies, but I would sip wine and work on the book,” he said. “I wasn’t good at sleeping on planes anyways.” Friedberg delighted in canvassing the array, which he keeps at a bank and brought home for a recent interview. He bobbed around the table as his wife, Joy, cooked vegan hamburgers she insisted Times journalists try .