Background
Robert H. Ingersoll was born on December 26, 1859 in Delta, Michigan to Orville Boudinot Ingersoll and Mary Elizabeth Beers.
Robert H. Ingersoll was born on December 26, 1859 in Delta, Michigan to Orville Boudinot Ingersoll and Mary Elizabeth Beers.
In 1880 Robert opened his own wholesale business, also selling rubber stamps. The first Ingersoll watches, called "Universal" were introduced in 1892, supplied by the Waterbury Clock Company. In 1896 Ingersoll introduced a watch called the Yankee, setting its price at $1.
This made it the cheapest watch available at the time, and the first watch to be priced at one dollar.
The "dollar watch" was born. Ingersoll later bought the bankrupt New England Watch Company in 1914 and renamed it the Ingersoll Watch Company.
The company went bankrupt in 1921 following its over-expansion during World War I. Its assets were sold to the Waterbury Clock Company, the predecessor of the modern day Timex Group United States of America. Ingersoll died on September 4, 1928 in Denver, Colorado.