Bulova is an American timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 and has been owned by Japanese multinational conglomerate
Citizen Watch Co. since 2008. The company makes
watch
A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached ...
es,
clock
A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and ...
s and accessories, and it is based in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
History
Founding
Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
n immigrant Joseph Bulova. It was reincorporated under the name Bulova Watch Company in 1923, and became part of the
Loews Corporation in 1979
and sold to Citizen at the end of 2007.
In 1912, Joseph Bulova launched his first plant dedicated entirely to the production of watches. Manufacturing watches at their factory in
Biel
, french: Biennois(e)
, neighboring_municipalities= Brügg, Ipsach, Leubringen/Magglingen (''Evilard/Macolin''), Nidau, Orpund, Orvin, Pieterlen, Port, Safnern, Tüscherz-Alfermée, Vauffelin
, twintowns = Iserlohn (Germany) ...
(Switzerland), he began a standardized
mass production
Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...
new to watchmaking. In 1919, Bulova offered the first complete range of watches for women and men in 1924. The visual style of his first popular advertising made its watches popular with the American public. But beyond the original style, precision and technological research also became imperative for Bulova. In 1927, he set up an observatory on the roof of a skyscraper located at 580
5th Avenue to determine
universal time
Universal Time (UT or UT1) is a time standard based on Earth's rotation. While originally it was mean solar time at 0° longitude, precise measurements of the Sun are difficult. Therefore, UT1 is computed from a measure of the Earth's angle wit ...
precisely.
Bulova established its operations in
Woodside, New York, and
Flushing, New York
Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial and retail area, and the i ...
, where it made innovations in watchmaking, and developed a number of watchmaking tools.
Its
horological innovations included the
Accutron
Bulova is an American timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 and has been owned by Japanese multinational conglomerate Citizen Watch Co. since 2008. The company makes watches, clocks and accessories, and it is based in New York ...
watch, which used a resonating
tuning fork
A tuning fork is an acoustic resonator in the form of a two-pronged fork with the prongs ( tines) formed from a U-shaped bar of elastic metal (usually steel). It resonates at a specific constant pitch when set vibrating by striking it agains ...
as a means of regulating the time-keeping function.
Advertising milestones
Bulova became a renowned watch company in 1923. Bulova produced the first advertisement broadcast on radio in 1926, announcing the first beep in history: ‘At the tone, it’s eight o’clock, Bulova Watch Time’, an announcement heard by millions of Americans. In 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh became the first solo pilot to cross the Atlantic nonstop. His crossing earned him a Bulova Watch and a check for $1000, and it became an emblem for the brand that created the model "Lone Eagle" in his likeness. Bulova claims to have been the first manufacturer to offer electric clocks beginning in 1931, but the Warren
Telechron Company began selling electric clocks in 1912, 19 years prior to Bulova. In the 1930s and 1940s, the brand was a huge success with its rectangular plated watches whose case was strongly curved to better fit the curve of the wrist.
Bulova produced the world's first
television advertisement
A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
, on July 1, 1941 (the first day that commercial advertising was permitted on television), before a baseball game between the
Brooklyn Dodgers
The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, Californi ...
and
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...
over New York station WNBT (now
WNBC
WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo stati ...
). The announcement, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 () to $9.00 (), displayed a WNBT
test card modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulova Time", was shown in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute.
In the 1940s, Bulova made a few examples of their complex
four sided, five-dial per side "sports timer" analog game clock for use in
NHL pro ice hockey games and for the nascent
NBA pro basketball league of that time. They were put in indoor sports arenas such as
Boston Garden
The Boston Garden was an arena in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who also built the third iteration of New York's Madison Square Garden, it opened on November 17, 1928, as "Boston Madison Square Garden" (la ...
,
Chicago Stadium
Chicago Stadium was an indoor arena in Chicago, Illinois, that opened in 1929, closed in 1994 and was demolished in 1995. It was the home of the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks and the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls.
...
and the
Detroit Olympia
Detroit Olympia, also known as Olympia Stadium, was a multi-purpose arena in Detroit. Nicknamed "The Old Red Barn", it was best known as the home of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL) from its opening in 1927 to 1979.
Hist ...
. The last example was taken out of service in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
in 1976, all replaced by digital-display game timepieces.
In 1945, Arde Bulova, chairman of the board, founded the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking to provide training for disabled veterans after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. The school later became a full-fledged rehabilitation facility, an advocate for disabled people nationwide, and one of the founders of wheelchair sports in the United States. The school closed in 1993.
In 1967, Bulova bought the Manufacture des Montres Universal Perret Frères SA at
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...
and sold it in December 1977. The factory in Biel was closed in 1983.
Accutron
Bulova's "Accutron" watches, first sold in October 1960,
[.] use a 360
Hz tuning fork
A tuning fork is an acoustic resonator in the form of a two-pronged fork with the prongs ( tines) formed from a U-shaped bar of elastic metal (usually steel). It resonates at a specific constant pitch when set vibrating by striking it agains ...
instead of a
balance wheel as the timekeeping element.
The inventor, Max Hetzel, was born in
Basel, Switzerland, and joined the Bulova Watch Company in 1948.
The tuning fork was powered by a one-
transistor
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink).
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
electronic oscillator
An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a periodic, oscillating electronic signal, often a sine wave or a square wave or a triangle wave. Oscillators convert direct current (DC) from a power supply to an alternating ...
circuit, so the Accutron qualifies as the second "
electronic watch", following the
Hamilton Electric released in 1957. Instead of the ticking sound made by mechanical watches, the Accutron had a faint, high-pitched hum which came from the vibrating tuning fork. A forerunner of modern
quartz watch
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical fo ...
es which also keep time with a vibrating resonator, the Accutron was guaranteed to be accurate to one minute per month, or two seconds per day, considerably better than
mechanical watch
A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a clockwork mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to quartz watches which function using the vibration modes of a piezoelectric quartz tuning fork, or radio watches, which are quartz watc ...
es of the time.
The Apollo 15 watch
In the 1960s, the company was involved in a rivalry with
Omega Watches
Omega SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Founded by Louis Brandt in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1848, the company formerly operated as ''La Generale Watch Co.'' until incorporating the name ''Omega'' in 1903, becoming ' ...
to be selected as the 'first watch on the Moon'. In 1971, a Bulova chronograph was carried on board
Apollo 15
Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greater focus on science than ear ...
, the fourth mission to land men on the Moon, by mission commander
David Scott. All twelve men who walked on the Moon wore standard
Omega Speedmaster watches that had been officially issued by
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
. Those watches are deemed to be government property. Transcripts from the Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Journal attest to the fact that during Scott's second excursion on the Moon's surface, the crystal on his Omega watch had popped off. So, during his third lunar walk, he used his backup Bulova watch. The Bulova Chronograph Model #88510/01 is the only privately owned watch to have been worn on the lunar surface. There are images of Scott wearing the watch, when he saluted the American flag on the Moon, with the
Hadley Delta expanse in the background. The watch shows "significant wear from exposure while on the Moon, and from splashdown and recovery." In 2015, the watch sold for $1.625 million at
RR Auction in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, which makes it the one of the most expensive astronaut-owned artifacts ever sold at auction and the
one of the most expensive watches sold at auction. The watch is also a unique timepiece as it seems to have been a prototype, only revealed by Scott to Bulova's fans in 2014. Therefore, the company released an homage edition of the lunar watch in early 2016, using a modern high frequency quartz movement for the watch that took more than 40 years to make its way into production line.
Computron
During the
quartz crisis
The quartz crisis was the upheaval in the watchmaking industry caused by the advent of quartz watches in the 1970s and early 1980s, that largely replaced mechanical watches around the world. , Bulova followed the lead of other watchmakers creating electronic
quartz watches by introducing the Computron watch in 1976. The Computron was Bulova's first watch with a
LED display and first digital watch. It featured a distinctive trapezoidal steel case profile, with the display located on the side of the case rather than the main face. It was marketed as a beneficial design for drivers so that they could view the watch without needing to roll their wrists or release the steering wheel, but this was mitigated by the need to press a button on the side of the case to wake the display. In later versions, repeatedly pressing the button cycled the display to the seconds, date, day, and a second timezone. The success of the Computron was a significant factor in keeping Bulova financially viable through the next several years.
21st century
On January 10, 2008,
Citizen
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
bought the Bulova Watch Company for $250 million.
Currently Bulova designs, manufactures, and markets several different brands, including: the signature "Bulova", the stylish "Caravelle" (formerly "Caravelle New York"), the dressy/formal Swiss-made "
Wittnauer Swiss", and the "Marine Star". In 2014 Bulova ceased the sale of watches under the "Accutron" and "Accutron by Bulova" brand, eliminating some Accutron models and subsuming others under the "Bulova" brand.
In 2010, Bulova introduced the Precisionist, a new type of
quartz watch
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical fo ...
with a higher frequency crystal (, eight times the industry standard ) which is claimed to be accurate to ±10 seconds per year () and has a smooth sweeping seconds hand like
automatic watch
An automatic watch, also known as a self-winding watch or simply an automatic, is a mechanical watch where the natural motion of the wearer provides energy to wind the mainspring, making manual winding unnecessary if worn enough. It is distingui ...
es rather than the typical
quartz watch
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical fo ...
seconds hand that jumps each second.
From 2012 to 2015, Bulova produced a line of
Swiss-Made watches known as Accu•Swiss, which took the place of the previously discontinued Accutron line. Accu•Swiss itself was discontinued in 2015 at the direction of Citizen.
In 2019, Bulova reissued the Computron brand, preserving the size and appearance of the originals, but updating the internal electronics. The new Computrons were made available in chrome, gold, and black, the first two colors being what had been used for the originals.
In 2020, Bulova relaunched the Accutron brand.
See also
*
Benrus
Benrus is an American watchmaking and lifestyle company founded as a watch repair shop in New York City in 1921 by Romanian-American Benjamin Lazrus and his two brothers. Benrus watches were worn for decades by the U.S. military from World War II ...
*
Electric watch
In horology, the term electric watch is used for the first generation electrically-powered wristwatches which were first publicly displayed by both Elgin National Watch Company and Lip on March 19, 1952, with working laboratory examples in Chic ...
*
Gruen Watch Co.
*
Hamilton Watch Company
References
External links
*
Bulova ClocksmyBulova vintage watch community
{{Authority control
1875 establishments in New York (state)
American companies established in 1875
American subsidiaries of foreign companies
Manufacturing companies established in 1875
Manufacturing companies based in New York City
Watch brands
Watchmaking conglomerates
Watch manufacturing companies of the United States
Citizen Watch