The Black Forest industry was hard hit by American competition in the years 1842-60 and in the 1860s began to make clocks on the American pattern in factories. The old type of wall striking clock, with the striking train behind the going train, had sometimes included a small alarm mechanism placeed at the side of the movement. When striking clocks began to be replaced by the new American type, the manufacturers of the 'hang-up' clocks remodelled the design to place alarm work where the striking train had been, providing it with a long chain to give a protracted ring. The mechanism was more solid than before, and the clocks competed successfully with the American clocks with alarm work because of their greater accuracy. No one know how the name 'postman's alarm' came to be applied to these clocks, but as late as 1948 a faded inscription could be seen on a shop wall in Islington, London, 'The original Postmens' Alarms'. Sometimes these clocks were made without a separate glass, the dial itself being glass with the figures behind it. Various sizes were made, and the type did not die out until c. 1914.