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     | The Cuckoo Clock
The first clocks were very primitive and made almost entirely out of wood including the clock mechanism. The clocks later evolved into the carved form most people recognize today. Music boxes were added to play after the cuckoo call on some clocks and to compete with the quarter striking function of Austrian, French and English clocks of the period, a second bird, the quail, was added to call the quarter hours. The clock mechanism made the transition from wood to all metal materials at a later date.
Johann Babtist Beha is credited with starting one
of the first larger companies to manufacture cuckoo clocks. He started his work
in his fathers work shop and in 1845 opened his own The cuckoo clock industry still flourishes today. Large modern manufacturing plants exist but each clock is still produced one by one by skilled artisans.
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The cuckoo clock originated in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald)
region of Germany. Credit for creating the first clock generally goes to Franz
Anton Ketterer in the year of 1730 but that is open to debate as written
information from this time period is scarce. One legend goes that a gentleman
who was the local tinkerer and inventor was out walking with his young son one
day when the call of the cuckoo was heard. The son liked the cuckoo call and
wished to hear it at
home more often. The inventor set about making a clock that
would reproduce the call using organ pipes and bellows and the cuckoo clock was
born. Whether that inventor was Ketterer is anybody's guess.
Cuckoo clock manufacturing grew out of the need
for the Black Forest farmer to supplement his income during the long winter
months when farming was not possible. The industry remained largely cottage
based for a while with a single person using various subcontractors to produce a
finished clock. As the clock gained in popularity larger companies began to
appear and the clocks were produced in larger numbers to meet the demand.
company and soon began
producing clocks in large numbers. Beha was instrumental in introducing the
cuckoo clock to the world as he often traveled, displaying his clocks
at World's Fair Exhibitions. He employed very skilled craftsmen and
his clocks reflected this with a high degree of detail in the carving and
advancements in engineering in the mechanism. Many of his key wound shelf and
wall clocks employed a mechanism with a fusee device for better time keeping.
The fusee also produced a cuckoo call that was more consistent and didn't slow
down as the clock began to run down. Today clocks attributed to Beha are highly
sought after and are becoming very scarce.