The Clock That Started Clocking You In

On November 20, 1888, the U.S. Patent Office granted Letters Patent No. 393,205 to Willard L. Bundy, a jeweler in Auburn, New York, for a mechanical time recorder. Workers turned a personalized key that engaged a set of gears and type-wheels, stamping the exact time and their employee number onto a paper strip the moment they showed up. The idea was blunt: replace the watchman standing at the factory gate with a machine that never got tired or looked the other way. A year later Willard's brother Harlow organized the Bundy Manufacturing Company in Binghamton to build the things, and by the end of the century thousands were clicking away in shops and factories across the country. The company that grew out of one Auburn jeweler's patent eventually became part of the corporation that runs the world's payroll systems today.