The Rise and Fall of Timex: How America's Watch Stopped Ticking

At its peak, Timex sold nearly half of every wristwatch in America. Two Norwegian immigrants fleeing the Nazi invasion built a bomb fuse factory in Connecticut and turned it into the most worn timepiece in the Western Hemisphere. They bypassed every jeweler in the country, sold watches in drugstores and hardware stores, and proved their product on live television by strapping it to boat propellers and dropping it over dams. Thirty thousand employees. Four continents. Then they forgot the one thing that made it all work. This is the story of how America's watch stopped ticking. Sources: "History of Timex Corporation," Reference for Business — referenceforbusiness.com/history2/63/Timex-Corporation.html "1968 Timex Corporate Brochure," Vintage Timex Watches — vintagetimexwatches.com/1968-timex-corporate-brochure/ "The crazy, true-life adventures of Norway's most radical billionaire," Shawn Tully, Fortune, March 2015 — fortune.com/2015/03/07/fred-olsen/ "Joakim Lehmkuhl," Norsk biografisk leksikon (Norwegian Biographical Encyclopedia) — nbl.snl.no/Joakim_Lehmkuhl "Striking Dundee Timex workers seized the factory in 1983" and "Timex Dundee: Note on locked gates marked closure in 1993," The Courier — thecourier.co.uk "The (Inexplicably Tri-Intertwined) History of the Timex Ironman Watch," Sarah Wassner Flynn, Triathlete Magazine — triathlete.com/culture/news/the-inexplicably-tri-intertwined-history-of-the-timex-ironman-watch/ "Timex Headquarters in Connecticut Threatened by Warehouse Development," The Cultural Landscape Foundation — tclf.org/timex-headquarters-connecticut-threatened-warehouse-development