Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-246) and index.

Unveiling the jewelers' clock -- Time's tongue and hands: the first public clocks in the United States -- Clockwatching: the uneasy authority of clocks and watches in antebellum America -- Republican heirlooms, instruments of modern time discipline: pocket watches during and after the Civil War -- Noon, November 18, 1883: the abolition of local time, the debut of a national standard -- American synchronicity: turn-of-the-century tower clocks, street clocks, and time balls -- Monuments and monstrosities: the apex of the public clock era -- Content to look at my watch: the end of the public clock era.

In Marking Modern Times, Alexis McCrossen relates how the American preoccupation with time led people from across social classes to acquire watches and clocks, and expands our understanding of the ways we have standardized time and have made timekeepers serve as political, social, and cultural tools in a society that not merely values time, but regards access to it as a natural-born right.

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