Shadows That Tell Time: The Christopher St. J.H. Daniel Archive Collection

The NAWCC Library and Research Center at the National Watch & Clock Museum recently received an amazing gift – seventy 9" x 11" boxes, plus additional negatives, books, and journals that comprise the collection of Christopher St. J. H. Daniel, an expert on sundials and their design. It is my welcome task to help organize and describe these items, in order to make them more accessible to researchers interested in this fascinating topic.

After an initial career at sea, Mr. Daniel joined the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in 1964 where his curatorial duties led him to the study of gnomonics, or the art of dialing. Early on he advised others on the general principles of sundials and the proper measurements and markings required. Soon he was designing them, including the Dolphin Equinoctial Mean-Time Sundial at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, which honored the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977. The tails of two dolphins, sculpted by Edwin Russell of Brookbrae Limited of London, cast the shadows that tell the time.

Dolphin Equinoctial Mean-Time Sundial at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich

In 1986, Daniel left the museum to pursue his career as a sundial designer. His story unfolds, not in narrative text, but with the opening of each box, and with the original photographs, sketches, and correspondence that lie inside. An exact scientist and careful observer, Daniel organized his collection so that each item provides context to the sundials he designed. His notes for a 1968 sundial at Sturry in Kent discuss Britain’s intent to enter the “Common Market,” requiring “the new time arrangement . . . known as British Standard Time.” Letters from the surveyor of Westminster Abbey, regarding Daniel’s 1982 work on the vertical sundials of St. Margaret’s Church, caution not to obstruct the view of the bell-ringers, who must look out the windows to check the time.

Mr. Daniel's Sketch of his design for the Dolphin Equinoctial Mean-Time Sundial

For now, we're observing the archival principle of original order, maintaining Daniel’s arrangement in order to preserve the context it conveys. The contents of each box will be described in summary, and each item will eventually be numbered. Science, history, art, and the work of a lifetime – they’re all represented in the Daniel collection. I look forward to opening more boxes.

Lynn Schuessler
NAWCC Library and Research Center Volunteer

Wrapping up the Mystery

This week I worked on finishing up with the mystery clock exhibit. The second draft of the exhibit text has been finalized and I discussed the physical layout and general appearance of the gallery with Katie. I copied images from books in the library that I think would be helpful to put on display with the objects. Hard copies of the images along with their corresponding descriptions were included in the second draft of the text. It looks like for now I have wrapped up this project and will be working on other things around the museum.

Patent image for a mystery clock.

On Friday I helped enter names of cabinet makers into a database. I also spent some time in the workshop measuring posters which were given to us. The posters were created for an exhibit on Seth Thomas clocks and mostly featured portraits of the company’s founders and owners. Unfortunately, I only have one more week with the National Watch & Clock Museum, but I am curious to see what other work there is for me to do around the museum.

Alison, Juniata College
Exhibits Intern

Outreach: Chinese New Year Program

This week Katie, two volunteers, and I went to Hempfield Recreation Center to work with children from kindergarten through sixth grade discussing Chinese New Year. The children created their own dragon masks and took part in a dragon dance. Each child who wanted to wear the dragon head was given a chance. The older children created a water clock. Unfortunately, the sweltering weather of the day did make the event slightly more difficult. The Make and Take Event was not as successful as the past couple of weeks with only one child coming to the event. Since I was at the Rec Center during most of the event time, my volunteer took care of the Make and Take. In addition, I copied one more slideshow, proofread over the manuscript one more time, and pinned some new clocks to Pinterest.

Child wearing a Chinese dragon head costume.

In the library, I typed up James Gibbs Collection paperwork.  I then began to work on the Theodore Crom collection.  One of the other interns had began to work on the collection, but has left so I am trying to finish the work.

Sarah, Penn State University

Museum Intern

The Interesting Search for a Houdin Continues...

This week I completed a first draft of the Museum text and labels. I began working on a second draft to shorten labels and make them easier to read to ensure the information presented could be understood by a variety of visitors. Something that had been lacking from previous draft and ideas of the exhibit were images and other explanatory materials. I dove back into some of the books I used for research to select images to possibly go on display. I also got word on a collector of Robert-Houdin clocks who may potentially loan us some pieces. He is an associate of David Copperfield who we originally contacted about Houdin’s clocks since he has a private museum of magic in Las Vegas. I am excited to hear more on potential loans for the mystery clock exhibit and finding images should help me articulate and clearer and more concise story.

A couple of pages from Alison's exhibit draft.

This week I also attended a meeting in which we discussed potential re-interpretation of our museum message. We discussed important messages we want the exhibits to tell and what the visitor should leave with.

Alison, Juniata College
Exhibits Intern

Time Travel Trunks and Other Educational Forays

The Make and Take event this week saw another rise in participants. My volunteer and I had over a dozen people come to make clocks. Although most people chose to make CD clocks (normally the clock of choice), we did have more people come make flip flop clocks. This Monday we should have more choices in flip flop colors so hopefully more people will continue to make flip flop clocks. Even before the Make and Take, a local KinderCare group came into the Museum to make their own CD clocks and take a tour of the Museum. We were expecting 20 children, but instead had 23 children. In addition to the Make and Takes, I helped to organize a travel trunk that will be used this Monday at a local camp. The theme is Chinese New Year. To help get the trunk ready, I poked holes in yogurt containers. The yogurt containers are used for water clocks. The yogurt container with two holes in the bottom is taped to the top of a stick (a painter stir sticks is what we are going to use) and clear plastic cup is attached to the bottom of the stick. By using a stopwatch, you can time how much water goes in the cup every fifteen seconds (or whatever amount of time you want to use). I also finished cutting strips of paper to be used for dragon masks and marked five centimeters of plastic cups for the younger group of children at the camp.

One of the Museum's Time Travel Trunks

In the library, I finally finished going through and writing numbers of the back of the James Gibbs Collection. It seems strange to finally have finished going through all of the papers. Now I am working on the Christopher Daniel Collection. Christopher Daniel designed many sundials including Queen Victoria’s Silver Jubilee Dolphin Sundial. I was able to finish Box 1 and start Box 2 of 7.

Sarah, Penn State University
Museum Intern

Jefferson & Guilmet: More Mystery Clock Exhibit Prep

Using the research I had, I worked this week on completing my first draft of text that will be on display in the mystery clock exhibit. I discovered however, that much of my research was incomplete and I had to do a little more digging. I did some looking into Jefferson Electric Company. Information on this company was initially hard to come by and a little disorganized, which was surprising since their mystery clocks were very popular in the 1950s. I had to do a little more poking around to find useful information to put in the exhibit text. This company still exists today, however, they no longer produce clocks. I was able to gain some very useful knowledge from the website of Roger Russel who is one of the NAWCC’s Members.

A mystery watch made by Hilton

Another clockmaker, A.R. Guilmet, is more of a mystery than his clocks. Apparently his mystery pendulum clocks have been closely studied, but little is known about the man’s career and his life. Most of our knowledge of Guilmet can only be assumed by observing his clock numbering system and the various patents he took out. It is a shame more could not be discovered about this man, since I find his clocks to be some of the most striking. I also read up on mystery watches which will be included in a small section of the exhibit. Though these timepieces look and operate differently than most mystery clocks, the concept is still the same: to astound the viewer with the complexity of its operation.

Alison, Juniata College
Exhibits Intern

Appreciating Clocks, One CD at a Time

This week the Make and Take Event had even more people coming in to make CD and flip flop clocks.  Having about a dozen people, my volunteer and I were busy helping people to make these clocks. CD clocks are still the favorite type of clock to make, but we had one child choose to make a pink flip flop clock. During the little down time between people coming in, my volunteer made a new Elf on a Shelf clock. This week, however, we tried putting the image down on a wooden plank instead of on a box. I worked on editing a new guide book that the Museum is in the process of producing. Additionally, I scanned in two more slideshows into JPEGS. Education Director Katie and I went to Michaels Arts and Craft Store and Bargain Books to look and purchase new items to make clocks out of.

Elf on a Shelf Clock

While in the library, I finished Box 4 of 5. Since Box 5 is only a half box, it should not take me too long to finish it. The photo pen and other new supplies came in this week so it was much easier to write on the photographs. I will also be able to files into paper inserts instead of plastic inserts. Due to the 4th of July holiday, my time in the library was cut short this week.

Sarah, Penn State University

Museum Intern

Virtual Museum Interface: A New Way to Tour Online

Last week, I and two other interns had started to brainstorm a new design for the portion of the Museum’s website that gives site visitors a virtual tour of the Museum. After receiving approval from the Museum staff overseeing our project, we started to work on implementing the new design.

The idea that we came up with was to have a main page that resembled a clock. Each section of the clock would link to an information page on a specific section of the Museum. The clock image was divided into twelve sections, each representing a part of the Museum’s exhibits. Each section would contain a picture and a title.We had two ideas for the clock hands. The first was to have clock hands that would point to whatever section the user’s mouse hovered over. The second was to embed a live clock applet in the middle of the clock image. 

The new user interface for the Museum's online tour.

This week I spent most of my time creating the main clock image and working on the live clock applet code.  I created the clock image in Adobe Photoshop. I had no previous experience with the software so it was a bit of a learning process but I was eventually able to produce a decent image. I then created thirteen variations of the image, saved them as .jpg files, and sent them to one of the other interns. Each of the thirteen variations showed one of the sections of the clock highlighted (the rest faded) and the hour hand of the clock pointing to that section, except one variation that did not show any section highlighted. One of the other interns had created code that would switch between images when the user’s mouse hovered over a certain section. I also generated a piece of HTML code that embedded a live clock applet into the webpage.  The live clock applet was found online and was written in Java. The third intern working on this project developed most of the information pages on specific sections. This was done directly through the NAWCC’s Joomla website system. Next week, we will work on finalizing various portions of this project. 

Shay, St. Mary's College of Maryland

Museum Intern

Continuing to Unravel the Mysteries of Mystery Clocks

This week I began researching for object labels and writing interpretive panel text for the upcoming mystery clock exhibit. I used a previously drafted exhibition outline as a guide to fill in some of the story and concepts with physical text to express the ideas of the exhibit. Much of my work this week was simply translating my research into easily understandable text to be put on display with the objects.

An example of a Turtle Clock from the Museum collection. 

Because I am now refining my research and looking into the history of specific objects, I had to look closely for particular details. While reading up on French inventor of the turtle clock, Grollier de Serviererè, I had the opportunity to look at an original book published by his grandson in 1733 on his grandfather’s work with detailed illustrations of his magnificent clocks. Unfortunately the text was in French, however, another book in the library has translated excerpts from this very same publication. It was fascinating to hold such a unique piece of history in my hands. I find learning more about the lives of inspired clockmakers such as Grollier de Servierè and Robert-Houdin extremely fascinating and I can not wait to tell their story in the finished exhibit.

Alison, Juniata College
Exhibits Intern

Internship Diversity: Education & Archives

This week at the National Watch and Clock Museum, the Make and Take event was even more successful with eight people coming to take part in the event. In between helping children make the CD and flip-flop clocks, my volunteer and I created an Elf on a Shelf Clock. It was an easy project to do at home by taking a box (cereal or a regular box) adding a clock motion, wrapping the box with Christmas wrapping paper, and adding the Elf on the Shelf paper design. In addition to these activities, I copied another lecture slideshow into a PowerPoint. This week also marked the first trip to an outside child care facility to have children make a CD clock.The children seemed to enjoy the experience and especially liked the coloring pages of different clocks found at the Museum.

Make and Take participants can make a Flip-Flop Clock.

In the Library, I continued working through the boxes of the James Gibbs Collection in the Archives to write the numbers of the back of each paper. I was able to start on Box 4 of 5, which means I should be able to finish next week hopefully. The library also received a large collection of photographs, which the other intern and I will begin working on this week. Luckily, the photographs are already separated with dates so going through the boxes will be much easier than the other collections I have gone through.

Sarah, Penn State University

Museum Intern

Updating the Museum's Online Presence

At the very beginning of my fourth week on site at the National Watch & Clock Museum, I started by physically replacing the last few old Quick Response (QR) codes in the Museum. Some of the codes were underneath glass hoods that had to be unscrewed and lifted in order to change them out. Museum staff assisted me with this process. Once complete, my work with QR codes was finished and I was able to begin work on a new project.

The Museum's current interface for its online gallery tour.

I met with two other interns (Kent and Ryan) and two members of the Museum staff to discuss revamping the online representation of the Museum’s permanent galleries. The current web pages were extremely old and unexciting. The other interns and I were instructed to come up with a new design for the online exhibits. We spent a good deal of time brainstorming, touring the actual Museum exhibits and looking at the online galleries of other museums. Eventually we came up a few different basic ideas and presented them to the Museum staff that was helping us. A concept that was eventually decided on was to have the main page represent a clock and different areas or “times” on the clock link to pages containing information on specific sections of the Museum.

One of the gallery pages from the Museum's current online tour.

We are currently in the process of figuring out the best way to generate a graphic(s) that will represent the homepage of online galleries section of the Museum’s website. We have a rough design that we will most likely try to create in Adobe Photoshop. We also need to figure out how to break the Museum’s exhibits into twelve relevant sections (one for each hour position on the clock). Once these things are done, we can begin to generate some of the HTML code for the web pages. We are still considering how we want to do this. We may simply hard code the HTML in a text editor or we may look into to using a program like Wordpress or Dreamweaver.

Shay, St. Mary's College of Maryland
Museum Intern