Perhaps not a few Americans watch fans must sometimes regret they were not born some generations earlier. If they'd been around in the late 19th century, they very well could have seen firsthand the heyday of the U.S. pocket watch industry, when they quality of its outpost was unsurpassed. A few decades later, in the 1920s and '30s, they could have seen the flowering of U.S. wristwatch design.

A current exhibition called American Watchmaking at the National Watch & Clock Museum in Columbia, PA., enables watch aficionados to see much of what they missed. It tells the story of how, in the 19th century, American watch companies adopted a new system for mass production that depended on interchangeable parts that for a brief period made the U.S. industry the equal of its Swiss counterpart.

The exhibit, which has a total of 95 watches, also highlights American railroad watches. And it shows how American companies were major producers of military watches and made superb marine chronometers that were vital to the U.S. effort in World War II.