Alarm Clock

Alarm clocks, like almost all other consumer goods in the United States, ceased production in the spring of 1942,
as the factories which made them were converted over to war work during World War II, but they were one of the first consumer items to resume manufacture for civilian use,
in November 1944. By that time, a critical shortage of alarm clocks had developed due to older clocks wearing out or breaking down.
Workers were late for, or missed completely, their scheduled shifts in jobs critical to the war effort.
In a pooling arrangement overseen by the Office of Price Administration, several clock companies were allowed to start producing new clocks, some of which were continuations of pre-war designs, and some of which were new designs, thus becoming among the first "postwar" consumer goods to be made, before the war had even ended.
The price of these "emergency" clocks was, however, still strictly regulated by the Office of Price Administration.

The French inventor Antoine Redier was the first to patent an adjustable mechanical alarm clock, in 1847.