He built America’s first home-grown clock–out of wood
Banneker was 22 in 1753, writes PBS, and he’d “seen only two timepieces in his lifetime–a sundial and a pocket watch.” At the time, clocks weren’t common in the United States. Still, based on these two devices, PBS writes, “Banneker constructed a striking clock almost entirely out of wood, based on his own drawings and calculations. The clock continued to run until it was destroyed in a fire forty years later.”
This creation, which is believed to be the first clock built in America, made him famous, according to the Benjamin Banneker Memorial’s website. People traveled to see the clock, which was made entirely out of hand-carved wooden parts.

In 1896 Ingersoll introduced a watch called the Yankee, setting its price at $1. This made it the cheapest watch available at the time, and the first watch to be priced at one dollar; the "dollar watch" was born. It was cheaply mass-produced from stamped parts and without jewels so that it would be affordable to everyone.
By 1899 the Waterbury Clock Company were producing 8,000 of these watches per day for Ingersoll, who started advertising that 10,000 dealers carried their dollar watch. By 1910, Waterbury was producing 3,500,000 dollar watches per year for Ingersoll.

Timex, as a brand, has fundamentally redefined what it means to manufacture and sell watches. Bringing an affordable and mass-produced watch to the market, their innovations have historically eased the price for everyday folks—making convenient timekeeping accessible for more than a century. Although they’re a household name now, Timex had to put in some serious leg work to establish itself so well in wristwatch culture. With 165 years worth of history, the scope and evolution of Timex as an existing entity is impressive—and didn’t always involve wristwatches. In fact, in order to survive in an ever changing world—both culturally and technologically—Timex wore many faces to get where it is today.