This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our librarian, Miranda Marraccini. This article was co-written by HSNY’s Deputy Director, Carolina Navarro.

For 157 years, the Horological Society of New York (HSNY) has known how to throw a good party. On April 15, 2023, we’ll be celebrating at our annual gala at the Harvard Club of New York City, just across the street from our headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. It will be a night of tasty food, live music, and support for HSNY’s mission.

Our earliest club social events were “smokers” — not for smoking meat, as I originally guessed, but social events where men smoked tobacco, told jokes, and sang drinking songs in German. The songs were in German because the first members were German — the organization was founded in 1866 as the Deutscher Uhrmacher Verein (German Watchmakers Society). In the late 19th century, the Society went through different variations of German and English names, until 1930 when we adopted our current moniker. (We have a collection of HSNY gala programs and other historical documents at the Jost Bürgi Research Library.)

One tradition has stayed the same — HSNY members have always celebrated with food. The earliest banquet menu in our archives is from 1912. Printed in German, it is an elaborate joke as it includes some standards like oysters, chicken, and Brussels sprouts, but also some curious items like “enamel filet with cuvette sauce,” “horological cream puffs,” “spindle clock cheese,” and under salads, “etched spiral springs with double-proofed acidic chronometer oil.” All of the delicious dishes involve puns on watch and clock parts. I’m not exactly sure what the men of HSNY did end up eating on March 5, 1912, but safe to say it wasn’t a plate of hairsprings. At right, image 2 shows a banquet menu from 1937 listing some more conventional menu items.

In 1916, the New York Watchmakers Society (as we were then calling ourselves) celebrated its 50th anniversary with both a smoker and a “Golden Jubilee” banquet. Attendees sang songs in English and German, with lyrics comparing the organization to a well-constructed clock that has run for 50 years.

Though the smoker was the traditional men’s-only celebration, the banquet was not: “this invitation/ Means the ladies too, / Trusting in your expectation/ A jolly time for them and you.” Just 10 days later, the jolly time included a menu of “oyster cocktail,” “chicken consomme en tasse,” “sweetbreads en casserolettes,” “filet mignon with champignons,” and something called “ice cream, piece de resistance” (see image 3). The party roared on into the night at the Terrace Garden on East 58th Street, at the time a popular venue for German-American events.

“While we made the conscious decision to not serve tutti frutti ice cream logs as in the 40s, we will be offering a dessert table with an assortment of French pastries after dinner,” said Carolina Navarro, HSNY Deputy Director. “We hope to build on our gala success every year, so for 2023, we're reopening Harvard Hall for after-dinner drinks, live music and mingling. Perhaps we will bring back cigars one day?”

The photographs below (images 4 and 5) show a history of the organization that members produced in honor of the 50th anniversary in 1916; the cover includes our Latin motto, “Ut tensio, sic vis.” This is a version of Hooke’s law of physics (in English “as the extension, so the force”) which governs the expansion and compression of springs, including those used in watches. In image 5, resident jokester and comedy songwriter Rochus Salomon is pictured just above the words “executive committee.” It would have been a tight field in a mustache competition.

In 1918, the smoker program included a song in English, “Watchmaker’s Smiles,” written for the occasion by Salomon, a native New Yorker who had studied horology in Europe and later served as president of HSNY. “Watchmaker’s Smiles” refers to several current events in its lyrics: “It may be forever we part from the booze/ And it may be for only a while” speaks to the looming threat of prohibition. Conditions are already deteriorating: “We have heatless days/ We have meatless days/ In these piping days of war.” Inflation is happening, too: “The bills in your vest/ Look like tips at their best/ When the price of some things you tell.”

The song’s reference to World War I hints at one of the reasons it’s in English, not German. Germans had become a national enemy and the Society’s members needed to demonstrate American patriotism. It’s the same reason our 1916 banquet menu suddenly featured the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” HSNY membership was also growing more diverse around this time, and not every member spoke German well enough to sing merry songs in Deutsch.

The 1918 song goes on to personify watches according to various political personalities, for instance, “One that will not tick/ is a ‘Bolshevik’.” It also decries “bracelet watches” (wrist watches, which were rapidly gaining in popularity) as “vile”: “You should sweep from the bench”/ This trash into a trench.” It then devolves into an increasingly chaotic chorus, ending in mockery of women’s successful campaign to gain the right to vote. Nevertheless, the diversity of topics covered in this short excerpt shows the kind of society HSNY was: working watchmakers who were concerned about tight budgets and politics as much as trends in horology.

HSNY’s biggest celebrations have been on milestone anniversaries: 50th, 75th, 100th and 150th. Throughout the century, as one 1938 program put it, among our “social and entertainment endeavors…our best efforts are concentrated on our annual banquet and ball…one of the most important trade entertainments of the winter season.” A 1937 group photo (image 6) shows a crowd of about 300 members and partners dressed in tuxedos and silk dresses, with the head table at left accommodating those in leadership positions.

1941, our 75th year, was also a particularly patriotic one, taking place just a few months before America entered World War II. An American flag adorns the cover of the program for the “dinner-dance,” and a portrait of George Washington is stamped on the inside (images 7 and 8). The menu hasn’t changed much since 1916 though: still a lot of celery, olives, chicken, and potatoes, with petit fours and a “tutti frutti ice cream logue” for dessert (image 9).

In 1966, on the occasion of our 100th anniversary gala, the mayor of New York City declared February 26 “Horological Society of New York Day.” After the 1960s, HSNY’s gala programs became simpler and shorter, so I don’t have as much information about what members were eating, but we do have some pictures from the 1960s that show they were snappy dressers, celebrating in style. Image 10 shows our 94th Anniversary Banquet on Valentine’s Day, 1960.

Although we’ve updated our menu for 2023, we’ll continue HSNY’s century-plus-long traditions at this year’s gala at the Harvard Club on April 15.

“If you look closely at our gala pictures you can see something interesting," said Navarro. "No, not a picture of Nick Manousos back in 1921 as if he has always been the HSNY caretaker (The Shining reference, anyone?). If you look closely you will find the faces of the very watchmakers and supporters who built up the American watch industry and were dedicated to HSNY's mission we still live by today — to advance the art and science of horology.”