The following is a press release from The American Clock and Watch Museum:

The American Clock & Watch Museum is excited to announce the publication of the new book, Joseph Ives and the Looking Glass Clock. Author Mary Jane Dapkus presents a trove of never-before-published primary source information and relates previously untold stories about one of Bristol’s best-loved clock makers.

Included in the book is an addendum analyzing Ives’ looking glass clock movements written by
Peter Gosnell, retired Professor of Applied Technology at the University of the Arts, London.

Joseph Ives (1782-1862) was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, one of ten children born to Amasa and Huldah
Shaylor Ives. The family was related by marriage to the Roberts family of Bristol, Connecticut. Gideon Roberts
is recorded as the first clockmaker to have worked in Bristol, and it is likely that he trained Joseph and his
brothers in the clock making trade. 

Joseph Ives possessed a keen and inventive mind. During his career, he was granted six United States patents
pertaining to clocks. He started making wooden gear clocks about 1811.

Around 1818, Ives began producing looking glass clocks. Since clocks at that time were typically smaller and had 30-hour wooden works movements, Ives’ looking glass clocks were unusual because of their 8-day, iron plate roller pinion movements and the use of a large mirror glass in the case.

These mirror clocks were also at the center of a scandal involving Lott Newell, the Lewis family, and the Miles Lewis House (now the Museum’s headquarters). Their production caused chaos in the lives of Ives and his partners long after the last of them was made. Joseph Ives and the Looking Glass Clock tells this story and more. 

In 1825, Ives moved to Brooklyn, New York, hoping to find a successful market for his clocks. By 1830, Ives
was on the verge of being sent to debtor’s prison. He returned to Connecticut where he sold the rights to his
patents to pay his debts. Although Ives was never financially successful, he is credited as being one of the most
ingenious Connecticut horologists. 

Mary Jane Dapkus, author of Joseph Ives and the Looking Glass Clock, is an independent scholar and former
curator at the American Clock & Watch Museum. She has previously published several other books on the
history of early American clock making, including Middletown and Berlin, Connecticut, Wooden Movement
Shelf Clock Makers: An Interpretive History and Antebellum Shelf Clock Making in Farmington and Unionville
Villages, Connecticut (co-written with Snowden Taylor). 

The American Clock & Watch Museum would like to thank the following people for their support of this
project: anonymous donor; Colleen and David Houtz; Tom Manning; G. Russ Oechsle; NAWCC Chapter 8(New England), in memory of Dick Trepp; NAWCC Chapter 148 (CT); Richard D. Saul; and Brendan
Sullivan. 

Joseph Ives and the Looking Glass Clock has over 190 pages with color photographs of many of these stunning
clocks. It retails for $35.99 (plus shipping and sales tax). American Clock & Watch Museum Members receive a
10% discount. The book is available on-line at clockandwatchmuseum.org/apps/webstore or in the Museum
Store, which is open Wednesday-Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. For more information, call 860-583-6070
or go to www.clockandwatchmuseum.org.

The American Clock & Watch Museum is located at 100 Maple Street, Bristol, Connecticut. The museum
houses one of the largest collections of American clocks and watches in the world with approximately 6,000
timepieces in its collection. As visitors travel through the museum’s eight galleries, many timekeeping devices
chime and strike upon the hour.  Located in the historic “Federal Hill” district of Bristol, the museum is housed
in an 1801 Federal-style home with a sundial garden that is beautifully maintained by the members of the
Bristol Garden Club.
 
The museum is devoted to collecting, preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting the history and science of clocks,
watches, and other timekeepers of horological interest; operating a research library with historic and
contemporary literature devoted to the history, development, and manufacture of timekeepers; supporting a
publication program to acquire, prepare, edit, publish, and distribute new and reprinted documentary materials
relative to clock and watch making and manufacture; encouraging the preservation of information, objects,
architecture, and historic sites related to American horology; and studying and interpreting the history of
American horology through educational programs for both general audiences and clock enthusiasts, cooperating
with other public and private agencies to make programs available to the widest possible audience.
 
The museum is open Wednesday-Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  There is an admission charge. For more
information, call 860-583-6070 or go to www.clockandwatchmuseum.org.