Throughout his career, Dietrich tried to make his watches smaller, thinner and more comfortable to carry in a vest pocket, without sacrificing reliability or accuracy. Pocket watches in the late 1800s were large and heavy. Most Gruen watches have Gruen-made Swiss movements and were assembled and adjusted in the U.S. Later, they would build their own movement factory in Switzerland. Initially, Dietrich and Fred designed the watch movements in America and manufactured them in Germany. Fred’s younger brother, George, joined as business manager and treasurer, and the company was moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where it became the Gruen Watch Company. In 1894, after an economic depression had forced them out of the Columbus Watch Company, Dietrich and Fred formed a new partnership. To graduate, Fred was given bars of metal from which he had to build working watch movements, designing and manufacturing all the parts. In his youth Fred worked in his father’s factory, then was sent to Germany to study watchmaking. At 29 he co-founded the Columbus Watch Manufacturing Company the successful enterprise was soon building complete watches in its own 300-employee factory buildings.įred, Dietrich’s oldest son, was born in 1872 and followed in his father’s footsteps. A hard-working young man, Dietrich was awarded his first watchmaking patent at age 27, in 1874.
In 1867 he went to America and settled near Columbus, Ohio. Among the first companies to sell wristwatches, the Gruens split their manufacturing between two continents, exporting American technology to Germany and Switzerland, and bringing German and Swiss traditions of craftsmanship to America.ĭietrich was born in Osthofen, Germany, in 1847, and started his watchmaking career at age 15. One of the most important and prestigious American watch manufacturers was the Gruen Watch Company, founded by a brilliant father-and-son team of horologists, Dietrich and Fred Gruen.
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