Rebecca Struthers on Watches, Watchmaking, and the Hands of Time

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

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Summary

Called "a poem in clockwork," the self-winding Breguet watch made for Marie Antionette was meant to be the most beautiful example of mechanical art in the world. Yet when she was imprisoned in the Tour du Temple, she wanted only a simple watch that would mark the passing of the hours until her meeting with the guillotine. Listen as Rebecca Struthers, the watchmaker, antiquarian horologist, and author of the Hands of Time talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how our need to keep time has shaped watchmaking history, and how, in turn, the development of watches has shaped human culture and society. Other topics include the precise and painstaking craft of bespoke watchmaking and the challenge of restoring watches from another time.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.8	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover
0:12.7	Institution.
0:13.7	Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode and find links down
0:18.6	the information related to today's conversation.
0:21.4	You'll also find our archives, but every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.8	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.3	We'd love to hear from you.
0:37.8	Today is April 25th, 2023, and my guest is Watchmaker and author Rebecca Struthers.
0:44.3	She is the author of Hands of Time, a Watchmaker's History, and that is our subject for today.
0:51.9	Rebecca, welcome to econtalk.
0:53.7	Thank you so much for having me.
0:56.2	This is a wonderful book.
0:57.7	It's a history of timekeeping, time, Rebecca Struthers.
1:04.9	It's got a lot of fascinating observations about all the above.
1:09.5	I'm going to start with your day, if you have one, that's somewhat typical.
1:17.2	You make your own watches with your husband.
1:21.7	You repair watches, you restore watches.
1:25.0	What proportion of the time divides between those tasks?
1:30.6	Is there a typical day?
1:32.6	Ideally, my typical day was start at 8.30 in the morning, getting to work, try not to
1:40.8	be distracted by emails and talk straight into a job.
	...

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