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Percorsi della globalizzazione nella prima metà del XX secolo: il caso di “West End Watch Company”
Paths of globalization in the first half of the 20th century: the case of West End Watch Company
Favretto, Andrea
Krasna, Francesca
2022
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e-ISSN
2282-572X
Abstract
Through time globalization has not followed a uniform trend. For example, between 1914 and 1945 there was a strong slowdown in the international trade dynamics. This paper investigates an interesting case study concerning a Swiss watchmaker and its economic activity in the first half of the 20th century. West End Watch (WEW) was established in the end of the 19th century in Switzerland. Right from the beginning, its business appeared to be deeply involved in the globalization process. Even its name took inspiration from a London fashionable district, revealing a deep relationship with Britain and its political and economic interests in the Near and Far East. WEW has always enjoyed a special reputation, based on the specific technical features of its products and their remarkable presence in some strategical international markets (India, Middle East, China and South-East Asia). WEW watches were (and actually are) solid and reliable, suitable for every kind of use even in very bad or extreme conditions and therefor commonly adopted by the military forces as a part of their equipment. With regard to the international distribution network of the Company, Bombay represented a very important hub. The watches, here arrived after a long and often difficult journey from Switzerland to Asia, had to pass a quality control before proceeding further to their final destinations. Transports at that time and in that area specifically could be complicated and dangerous. In this paper the Authors describe the route followed by WEW watches on their journey from Switzerland to Bombay in 1922. We could rebuilt this route from the storytelling derived by the diary of M. De Siebenthal, a young WEW employee in charge of bringing a consignment of watches to Bombay before the dreaded doubling of import taxes in India.
La globalizzazione non ha seguito un percorso evolutivo uniforme. In particolare, il periodo fra il 1914 ed il 1945 segnò un deciso rallentamento, se non una vera e propria battuta d’arresto delle dinamiche commerciali a livello internazionale. Il presente lavoro intende proporre un interessante caso studio, relativo all’attività economica di una “maison” svizzera produttrice di orologi, nella prima metà del XX secolo. La maison in oggetto, West End Watch (WEW), nacque alla fine del XIX secolo in Svizzera ma fin dall’inizio della sua storia si distinse per una dimensione fortemente globalizzata della propria attività. Il nome stesso dell’azienda, ispirato da un quartiere alla moda di Londra, suggeriva un forte legame con la Gran Bretagna ed i suoi interessi nel vicino e lontano oriente. WEW godeva (e gode tutt’ora) di una particolare reputazione, legata ai suoi principali mercati ed alle caratteristiche funzionali dei suoi prodotti: orologi solidi ed affidabili, adatti ad ambienti sfavorevoli (se non estremi), perciò ideali per un uso militare e venduti principalmente in India, nel Medio Oriente, in Cina e nel Sud-Est asiatico. Bombay, in particolare, era un importante nodo per il successivo smistamento degli orologi, che qui erano sottoposti ad un controllo funzionale. Il viaggio della merce, infatti, non era sempre tranquillo e scevro da pericoli. Nel presente contributo viene descritto l’itinerario seguito dagli orologi nel loro viaggio dalla Svizzera a Bombay. Tale percorso è stato ricostruito sulla base del diario di M. De Siebenthal, un giovane impiegato di WEW nel 1922. Costui fu incaricato di portare una partita di orologi a Bombay, prima del temuto raddoppio delle tasse d’importazione in India.
Through time globalization has not followed a uniform trend. For example, between 1914 and 1945 there was a strong slowdown in the international trade dynamics. This paper investigates an interesting case study concerning a Swiss watchmaker and its economic activity in the first half of the 20th century. West End Watch (WEW) was established in the end of the 19th century in Switzerland. Right from the beginning, its business appeared to be deeply involved in the globalization process. Even its name took inspiration from a London fashionable district, revealing a deep relationship with Britain and its political and economic interests in the Near and Far East. WEW has always enjoyed a special reputation, based on the specific technical features of its products and their remarkable presence in some strategical international markets (India, Middle East, China and South-East Asia). WEW watches were (and actually are) solid and reliable, suitable for every kind of use even in very bad or extreme conditions and therefor commonly adopted by the military forces as a part of their equipment. With regard to the international distribution network of the Company, Bombay represented a very important hub. The watches, here arrived after a long and often difficult journey from Switzerland to Asia, had to pass a quality control before proceeding further to their final destinations. Transports at that time and in that area specifically could be complicated and dangerous. In this paper the Authors describe the route followed by WEW watches on their journey from Switzerland to Bombay in 1922. We could rebuilt this route from the storytelling derived by the diary of M. De Siebenthal, a young WEW employee in charge of bringing a consignment of watches to Bombay before the dreaded doubling of import taxes in India.
Source
Andrea Favretto, Francesca Krasna, "Percorsi della globalizzazione nella prima metà del XX secolo: il caso di 'West End Watch Company'" in: "Bollettino dell'Associazione Italiana di Cartografia 175 (2022)", EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, Trieste, 2022, pp. 4-21
Languages
it
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internazionale
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