10 Milestones From 150 Years of Bulova Watches

In 2025, the Bulova Watch Company will commemorate 150 years in operation, highlighted by numerous historical firsts, impactful innovations, and bold breakthroughs on both the business and technical side. Founded and still based in the United States, Bulova began the anniversary celebration early with the release of a new documentary film, America Telling Time: 150 Years of Bulova. The film, which premiered in New York City on September 19, traces the heritage of Bulova from its origins through to the modern day, spotlighting the company’s milestones and its unique role in the American story. For those who haven’t yet seen the film, and for anyone intrigued by the scope of Bulova’s historical narrative, here is a mostly chronological and (hopefully) comprehensive look at the brand’s most significant milestones over its first 150 years.

The “Henry Ford of Watchmaking”

Joseph Bulova (1851 - 1935)

One of the most famous names in American watchmaking history has its origins in Central Europe, and might even be spelled a bit differently now than it was then. Joseph Bulova (or Josef Bulowa or Bullawa) was born in 1851 in a small town outside of Prague, in an area then known as Bohemia and today known as the Czech Republic or Czechia. He was the youngest of five children born to Anton, a toll-keeper, and Barbara, a homemaker who moved the family to Prague after her husband’s death at age 41 and supported them by opening a grocery store. Joseph found his calling at a very young age, apprenticing with a jeweler and learning watchmaking while still in his teens. At age 19, Joseph left home, as well as a promising career with an up-and-coming jewelry firm called Tiffany & Co., to emigrate to the United States. He settled in New York City and established his own small business, J. Bulova & Co., on Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan, which initially focused on the manufacture and repair of jewelry and pocket watches. Bulova’s success enabled him to establish, in 1912, a factory in Bienne, Switzerland, for the manufacturing of parts for his timepieces. Unlike many others at the time, Bulova’s factory utilized the assembly-line-based “American System” of watchmaking, with its emphasis on interchangeable parts and standardized production techniques, earning Bulova the moniker “The Henry Ford of Watchmaking.”

Bulova made watches that helped win World War II

As the 19th Century gave way to the 20th, timepieces were starting to make their great migration from the waistcoat to the wrist, and the biggest catalyst for this societal style shift was World War I. The war, which began in July 1914 and raged through November 1918, wrought enormous impact on the industrial world in general and watchmaking in particular. Wrist-worn watches had been on the scene for many decades, though they were almost exclusively made for, and worn by, women, while men still preferred pocket watches. This gender gap began to narrow after 1904, when Louis Cartier made the first wrist timekeeper designed specifically for a male client, the now-legendary Santos-Dumont, but it was the practical needs of soldiers on the battlefield that really changed the perception of the wristwatch for men. An infantryman, for example, needed to load his weapon with one hand while checking a watch on the other to determine the distance of incoming artillery fire, and a watch that required one of those hands to pull it out of a pocket would have proved to be a hindrance. A handful of watch manufacturers started jerry-rigging pocket watches into wristwatches by soldering strips of metal wire onto their cases and attaching them to straps. When the surviving veterans of the so-called “War to End All Wars” brought these timekeepers back with them to civilian life, they quickly acquired mainstream popularity. It was Joseph Bulova’s son Arde, who had become the company’s vice president, who foresaw the dominance of wristwatches and urged his father to shift Bulova’s production accordingly. Little did he know that another global conflict a few decades hence would demand even more of the family firm’s resources and innovative spirit. 

Bulova Hack Watch

After the United States entered World War II in 1941, Bulova took its patriotic duties as one of the few American-based watch companies quite seriously. Many of its male employees joined the armed forces while female employees took over much of the watchmaking work at the factory. Bulova also devoted 25 percent of its advertising to the promotion of war bonds and stamps, a service for which it was awarded a distinguished service certificate by the U.S. government. Most notably, in the early 1940s, the company contracted with the United States government to produce instruments that would aid the war effort — altimeters, variometers, range-finding telescopes for artillery, time fuses for explosives, and (or course) wristwatches to be issued as official gear for American troops. From this national necessity came one of Bulova’s most influential inventions: the so-called Bulova “Hack” Watch, which got its name from its special feature, a lock-down mechanism for the running seconds that allowed for perfect synchronization, or hacking, of multiple watches in the planning of a mission. Movements with hacking seconds are now available throughout the watch industry, many in watches that are decidedly non-military in design. Meanwhile, a modern version of the Bulova Hack Watch continues to find fans among soldiers and civilians alike. 

Bulova trained disabled veterans to be watchmakers

Joseph Bulova Watchmaking School

In 1945, after the war, Arde Bulova established the Joseph Bulova School for Watchmaking, named after his father, who had died in 1935, and dedicated to training disabled war veterans as watchmakers to assist in their return to civilian life. The tuition-free school was the first of its kind and graduated its first class in 1946. It closed after several decades in operation, populating the watch industry with hundreds of skilled watchmakers and repairers. The spirit of mission of the original school lives on today as the Veteran Watchmakers Initiative (VWI), founded in 2017 bu retired Baltimore police officer and Swiss-trained watchmaker Sam Cannan and still supported as a sponsor by Bulova, carrying on a patriotic mission established by its founding family. 

Bulova introduced the first line of watches for women

An early Bulova Rubaiyat watch

In 1917, Bulova registered the name “Rubaiyat,” and applied it to a line of wristwatches — possibly the first watch series ever marketed by Bulova and almost definitely one of the earliest models designed with female customers in mind. Taking its name from a 12th-Century book of poetry by Omar Khayyam, the original Rubaiyat broke significant ground when it was introduced, as no other watchmaker at the time was producing a style of watch that was specifically targeted at women. The first men’s collection followed in 1919 and the first ladies’ watches with jewels, in 1924. Bulova revived the Rubaiyat collection in 2017.

Bulova has never lost sight of that early dedication to its female customers, as evidenced by its marketing efforts, particularly in the turbulent 1970s, an era largely defined by the crusade to pass the Equal Rights Amendment prohibiting sex-based discrimination in employment, education, and other areas. Bulova left no doubt as to where it stood on the issue as an employer, famous and somewhat controversially running ads that trumpeted “Equal Pay, Equal Pay.”

The first TV commercial was for Bulova Watches

Radio and television were relatively new communication media in the early part of the 20th Century, but Bulova was already seeing the potential in both as channels to spread the word about its products. In 1926, the company aired the first national radio advertisement, which established its memorable refrain: “10 PM B-U-L-O-V-A, Bulova Watch Time.” Just a year later, Bulova introduced the world’s first clock radio, an invention that many firms would imitate over the coming years and decades, and which Bulova itself would adopt as a product specialty in the 1950s and ‘60s.  

Bulova's first TV advertisement aired in 1941.

Bulova made history again on July 1, 1941. At 2:29 PM EST, on the NBC television station WNBT, a 10-second advertisement was broadcast over the airwaves immediately before a televised baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Brooklyn Dodgers. It features a clock superimposed over a map of the continental United States along with a caption, “America runs on Bulova Time.” According to Guinness World Records, Bulova paid $9 for the groundbreaking spot, the first television advertisement. It was only the beginning of many decades of bold and forward-thinking approaches toward marketing. (Oh, and the Phillies won the game, 6-4.) 

Bulova pioneered the celebrity endorsement

Celebrity endorsers appearing in advertisements for watches are are pretty commonplace in this day and age, but in the early 20th Century, it was a rare feat for a watch manufacturer to get a famous person to tout the benefits of one of its timepieces — much less the most famous person in the world at the time. But that is what Bulova accomplished with one of the very first celebrity endorsements, by none other than the pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh, in 1927. “Lucky Lindy” had just completed his historic flight across the Atlantic Ocean when he accepted the invitation to become the face of an ornately Art-Deco-engraved Bulova wristwatch whose name, “Lone Eagle,” was also a reference to Lindbergh’s legendary accomplishments in solo flight. The watch, which Lindbergh said in the ads “keeps accurate time and is a beauty,” sold for $37.50 and was Bulova’s best-selling product at the time. 

Bulova’s partnerships with boldfaced names continued into the postwar years and throughout the modern era. The company became a sponsor of Frank Sinatra’s ABC-TV variety show in the 1950s and ran advertisements featuring other megastars of the time, including actor/entertainer Jackie Gleason of Honeymooners fame, and Olympic swimmer and “Tarzan” movie actor Johnny Weissmuller.

Muhammad Ali appeared in a famous 1970s ad campaign.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, Bulova produced some of its most noteworthy celebrity ads (in print and on TV), featuring prolific “Rocky” actor Burgess Meredith, country-western singing star Johnny Cash, and primetime soap siren Morgan Fairchild, among others. Perhaps the most memorable were boxing champ Muhammad Ali’s “My Face is So Pretty I Deserve Two” campaign and supermodel Kathy Ireland’s “I’m Naked Without My Bulova” spot.

An American war hero led Bulova in its creation of the Accutron

Omar Bradley (right) spearheaded Bulova's collaboration with NASA.

After the Second World War came the Cold War, and with it the Space Race between the U.S.A. and Russia that dominated the 1960s. Bulova tapped a legitimate World War II hero, General Omar Bradley, to serve as its Chairman of the Board from 1958 to 1973, and Bradley wasted no time in continuing the dual missions that Bulova had been engaged in since the ‘40s: contributing its expertise to the national defense effort and innovating toward the goal of increased accuracy in timekeeping. The historic result came in 1960: the Accutron Spaceview 214, the brainchild of a Swiss-born Bulova engineer named Max Hetzel that became the world’s first fully electronic watch.

Bulova’s American-founded competitor, Hamilton, had introduced a predecessor in 1957 that used a balance wheel driven by a battery’s electrical current, but the Accutron upped the ante with its revolutionary movement that incorporated a tiny, 360-Hertz tuning fork, powered by an electronic oscillator, to drive the timekeeping functions rather than a traditional balance wheel. The Accutron’s groundbreaking Caliber 214 achieved an oscillation rate of 360 times per second — nearly 150 times faster than that of a mechanical movement — and guaranteed an accuracy to just one minute per month. This unprecedented precision level, distinguished by the telltale humming of the tuning fork in place of the usual ticking, inspired the name Accutron, for “Accuracy through Electronic.” 

Bulova made it into space before Omega

An Accutron clock made for NASA in the 1960s

The Accutron became the centerpiece of the partnership that Bradley had established with the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Starting as early as 1958 with the launch of Vanguard 1, the first successful Earth-orbiting satellite since the USSR’s Sputnik 1, Bulova began outfitting NASA space missions with timekeeping devices built around the groundbreaking Accutron technology. Throughout the decades-long partnership that followed, all manned NASA spacecraft carried Accutron timers onboard, including instrument-panel clocks, for reasons that were entirely practical. NASA scientists figured that the electronic, tuning-fork-driven Accutron clocks might function much more reliably than mechanical ones in the low- and zero-gravity conditions encountered aboard a spacecraft.

Modern Accutron Astronaut 

In 1962, Bulova installed the Accutron technology into its own dedicated Astronaut Watch. Designed for the space-travelers it was named for, that watch had a vastly different, more utilitarian look than the Spaceview, with a solid dial, a day-night 24-hour bezel, and a GMT hand to indicate a second time zone. After Omega had essentially cornered the astronaut market, with its Speedmaster model becoming the officially certified timepiece for NASA space travel, Bulova shifted its focus to another Cold War demographic, the military aviators (some of them future astronauts) who were test-piloting the new supersonic aircraft and spy planes that were becoming essential to Cold War supremacy. The Accutron Astronaut found itself worn in the cockpits of early X-15 jets and top-secret, experimental aircraft like the CIA’s A-12 Oxcart, a predecessor to the better-known SR-71 Blackbird, which flew clandestine missions over the Soviet Union. Bulova resurrected the Astronaut model, installing inside it the modern, cutting-edge Precisionist movement, in 2023.

Bulova Lunar Pilot Chronographs

As watch-history buffs are well aware, it was the Omega Speedmaster that won the coveted title of First Watch Worn on the Moon and remains the only watch officially certified for NASA missions. However, Bulova’s Accutron established its own, arguably even more enduring connection to the moon on that original mission. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the same Apollo 11 crew member who wore that history-making Speedmaster on the lunar surface, also placed an Accutron timer inside the lunar vehicle parked in the moon’s Sea of Tranquility — a large, basaltic plain on the lunar surface, created by ancient asteroid impacts, that was mistaken for an actual body of water by early astronomers who saw it through telescopes. That Accutron clock, which was installed to transmit critical information to the crew remains there to this day. Just a few years later, in 1971, astronaut Colonel Dave Scott famously wore his personal Bulova watch — a gift from the company, customized for space travel — during NASA’s Apollo 15 mission. That watch, the only privately owned watch ever to visit the moon, provided the template for the modern Lunar Pilot series, which I explore in much greater detail here.

Bulova introduced the world’s most accurate quartz watch in 2010

Bulova Precisionist watch, circa 2010

It had been 40 years since Bulova’s historic introduction of the Accutron when the company, which had been acquired two years earlier by Japan’s Citizen Watch Group, unveiled its most significant technological breakthrough of the 21st Century. The Precisionist movement, which made its debut in 2010 inside a watch of the same name, was designed to be “the world’s most accurate quartz watch with a continuously sweeping seconds hand.” Like the Accutron technology — at least up until the spinoff of Accutron as its own brand in 2020 — the Precisionist was to be used exclusively in Bulova watches. The movement has an oscillator that vibrates at 262,144 times per second, eight times as fast as a standard quartz crystal, which equates to a precision of +/- 10 seconds per year. The oscillator has three prongs instead of the standard two and functions as a “torsional resonator,” meaning that instead of vibrating back and forth like a standard quartz-watch oscillator, the prongs twist like the strings of an electric guitar. Unlike other high-precision watches that rely on external time signals, like atomic clocks, or need to be recalibrated after a battery change, Precisionist watches use easily replaceable lithium ion batteries like those in other quartz timepieces.

Bulova Jet Star

Today, the Precisionist animates a number of Bulova’s most popular and enthusiast-targeted timepieces, including the Lunar Pilot models spotlighted above, as well as the contemporary versions of 1970s cult classics like the Jet Star and the recently re-introduced Super Seville. Much more background on the Precisionist, and details on the watches that carry it, can be found here.  

Bulova is the watch of choice for the musician community

Marc Anthony

As a sponsor of the Frank Sinatra Show back in the 1950s — and as a brand reputed to be personally beloved by Old Blue Eyes himself — Bulova was quite early on the scene in the world of popular music and the iconic musicians who made it. (One tidbit I was unaware of before viewing the movie at its New York premiere: a Bulova clock is visible on the wall above the stage during one of the Beatles first televised performances in the United States.) Appropriately for a brand whose longtime emblem is a tuning fork, Bulova has continued its strong association with the world of music into the modern era. Today, Bulova maintains strong relationships with legendary songwriter and record producer Nile Rodgers and singer-actor Marc Anthony, the best-selling salsa artist of all time, among other performers. Anthony in particular is one of Bulova’s most important partners in the entertainment industry, actually contributing suggestions and ideas for a series of timepieces that bear the artist’s name.

Bulova Frank Sinatra "Fly Me to the Moon"

Bulova is the official timepiece partner of the Latin Recording Academy and the Latin Grammys, and regularly produces special editions with the official branding of the Academy. In 2020, Bulova initiated a partnership with the Sinatra estate to produce an entirely new collection of elegant, vintage-inspired dress watches, the Frank Sinatra collection. The watches’ designs are inspired by Sinatra’s 1950s-1960s heyday, when smaller, thinner watches were in vogue, and take their names from some of Frank’s most beloved hits, including “Fly Me to the Moon,” “My Way,” “Young at Heart,” and “The Best is Yet to Come” — that last title perhaps signaling Bulova’s determination to keep making history in its 150th year and beyond.