The clock and the factory

Before the eighteenth century most people did not know what time it was, and did not need to. Work followed tasks, not hours. A farmer worked until the field was done; a weaver worked until the cloth was finished. Days were long in summer and short in winter, and nobody was late, because there was nothing to be late for.

The factory changed this, because a factory is a machine that requires many people to be in the same place at the same moment. A water wheel turning at a fixed speed cannot wait for the person who finished breakfast slowly. For the first time, a worker's day was divided into units that belonged to somebody else.

This was resisted, and the resistance tells you how strange it felt. Early factory owners complained constantly about workers who arrived when they were ready. Some factories employed a person to wake workers by tapping on their windows, since few households owned a clock. Some owners were accused of adjusting the factory clock, a charge that only makes sense in a world where one clock decided everyone's pay.

Within two generations the new arrangement had become invisible. Punctuality turned into a personal virtue rather than an industrial requirement, and being on time came to feel like a statement about character.

It is worth noticing how recent that is. The idea that a reliable person is a person who arrives at a stated minute is younger than most of the buildings in a European city centre.