| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Ian R. Bartky. Selling the True Time: Nineteenth-Century Timekeeping in America. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2000. Pp. xvi, 310. $45.00.

This book is the story of an episode in American history that all U. S. historians know something about—the creation of standard time—but few will know the story as Ian R. Bartky tells it: a tale of nineteenth-century astronomers and their relationships with railroads, government, business, men, telegraph companies, clock makers, and even jewelers. 1

Bartky begins his book with a discussion of the railroad industry's timekeeping problem. In 1853, train wrecks caused by errors in timekeeping alarmed the country. At the time, a single track served railroad traffic in both directions. It was up to the conductors and the station manager to know the schedules for all trains using the same track and also to keep close watch on their own time. A Providence-bound train was running a few minutes late, but the conductor's watch told him he had five minutes to reach the double tracks into the station. He encouraged the engineer to speed up. The conductor of the out-bound train waited five extra minutes, but seeing no train approach, he gave the signal for the train to start. Less than a minute out of the station the trains collided. The in-bound conductor's watch had been wrong. At the ensuing inquest, the jury found the in-bound conductor guilty of manslaughter and the company guilty of negligence for allowing the conductor to carry an inaccurate watch. Incidents like this one resulted in widespread public recognition of something railroad men already knew: the importance of accurate timekeeping. Railroad men went further: they wanted standard time. . . .

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