Robert Hawley Ingersoll was an American businessman, was famous for his "Dollar Watch, " the first mass-produced inexpensive pocket watch in 1896.
Background
Robert H. Ingersoll was born on December 26, 1859 in Delta, Michigan, United States to Orville Boudinot Ingersoll and Mary Elizabeth Beers. He was the eighth child of a family of nine, was descended from John Ingersoll, a native of England, who emigrated with his brother Richard to America in 1629 and settled first at Salem, Massachussets.
Education
Ingersoll was sent to common school until he was ten but then his help was needed on the farm and except for three terms scattered over as many years after this, his schooling was ended.
Career
Ingersoll worked the farm with his father until he was twenty and then followed the example of his oldest brother and went east.
After a few profitless months of farming in Connecticut, he joined his brother, Howard S. Ingersoll, in New York City. By the end of a year he had saved $160 which he used to establish himself in the manufacture and sale of rubber stamps. The business prospered and he was able to send to Michigan for his younger brother, Charles H. Ingersoll. Together the brothers devised a toy typewriter employing rubber type which had a successful sale and became the first of a long line of novelties that they began to manufacture and sell. These notions included patent pencils, a dollar sewing machine, a patent key ring, and many other articles.
When the sales of the business outgrew the capacity of their small factory in Brooklyn, the Ingersolls added the products of other manufacturers to their selling list. Robert became the director of the sales and promotion of the business, while Charles managed the manufacturing. The business grew from a wholesale and jobbing concern to a mail-order enterprise and finally into a chain-store system. In both of these fields the Ingersolls were pioneers.
After establishing his business upon novelties Robert Ingersoll was wise enough to see the desirability of introducing into his lists a staple article of universal and steady demand, upon which to concentrate his powers of production and marketing and to focus the buying power of the public. A cheap timepiece had the qualities of the article needed and he purchased 1, 000 "clock-watches" from the Waterbury Clock Company, makers of a small cheap watch. These were introduced in 1892 to sell for one dollar. The experiment was successful, the watches sold rapidly, and Ingersoll adopted the watch.
He entered into a contract with the Waterbury Company to supply the watches according to his specifications under the name "Universal. " He then developed the famous selling plan of common terms, common prices, and the well-known guarantee. To combat unscrupulous competition it was necessary to put the Ingersoll name on the watch, and thus he established "the watch that made the dollar famous. " As the sales of the watch increased the contract with the Waterbury Company was continued and the factories of the Trenton (New Jersey) Watch Company and the New England Watch Company (Waterbury, Connecticut) were purchased by the Ingersolls.
In December 1921 the firm of Robert H. Ingersoll & Brother went into the hands of receivers and in March 1922 the assets of the firm were sold to the Waterbury Clock Company. In an attempt to regain his place in business Ingersoll introduced in 1924 the Ingersoll Dollar Razor Strop, which, though successful as a business enterprise, did not attain the proportions of the watch manufacture.
He died in 1928 in Denver, Colorado.
Achievements
Interests
As a hobby he collected modern works of art.
Connections
Ingersoll was married to Roberta Maria Bannister on June 22, 1904, at Muskegon, Michigan. His wife was involved in an attempted murder suicide in 1926 when she shot her lover and then took her own life with a gunshot to her breast.