It came about, as already stated, in a manner that was typically American. Young Ingersoll left his father's farm near Lansing, Michigan, in 1879, at the age of nineteen, and went to New York to seek his fortune. He was entirely without technical training save in farming, but he had a considerable first-hand knowledge of the needs and desires of what Lincoln called the "common people." Finding employment for a time, he saved One Hundred and Sixty Dollars, and, with this large capital, started in business for himself in the manufacture and sale of rubber stamps. Before long he was able to send back to Michigan for his younger brother, Charles H. Being of an inventive turn of mind, he devised a toy typewriter which attained a considerable sale as a dollar article. This was followed by a patented pencil, a dollar sewing-machine, a patent key-ring and other novelties of his own creation.
In the course of time, the products of other manufacturers were added to the list. Thus the brothers soon found themselves with an embryo manufacturing and wholesale jobbing business. The business grew, and the next development was that of a mail-order department. In this branch they were pioneers and preceded by some years the famous mail-order houses of Chicago and elsewhere. Their catalog ran into editions of millions of copies. Next, the Ingersolls became pioneers in another sales-plan. They developed the chain-stores idea, starting with a retail specialty store in New York, and following it with six others. Incidentally, they found themselves among the largest wholesale and retail dealers in the country in bicycles and bicycle supplies.
All of this was a strange but none the less effective preparation for watch-making and the marketing of watches by millions. Robert Ingersoll, who had remained in the selling and promoting end of the business, knew little about watches, but since he was constantly engaged in traveling about the country and in talking with merchants and others, he was gaining a great fund of knowledge as to human needs and market possibilities.
Presently he became convinced that his business, in spite of its prosperity, lacked something vital. He grew dissatisfied with handling a succession of unimportant novelties. It began to dawn upon his mind that these things were hardly worth while as a subject for a business, since they satisfied only passing fancies on the part of the public. He must find something which was really worth while, something which filled a real human need on a large scale and yet in a new way. If this something could be found, and the incredibly large buying power of the great American public could be focused upon it, there was hardly any limit to the business which would result.
When this belief had crystallized in the form of a definite conclusion, he began at once to search for the "big idea." The "big idea" had long been waiting for him to reach this state of mind. It had been looking him in the face for many days had he but been ready to perceive it.
On the wall of his room in a Brooklyn boarding-house there hung a very small "Bee" clock. It was unobtrusive and apparently unimportant. He had glanced at it hundreds of times with no thought beyond that of learning the time. Suddenly, it ceased to be a clock and became an open door into the future. Its ticking became articulate with a new meaning.
A Glimpse of a Giant Industry