People blame Lew Wallace, of all people.

In fact, if you google—“Who invented the snooze button?” —the first search result is a somewhat defensive article from the General Lew Wallace Museum in Crawfordsville, Indiana, saying, essentially: 

“WELL IT SURE WASN’T LEW. You can leave our boy, GENERAL LEW WALLACE, famous author of Ben-Hur and fishing enthusiast, entirely OUT OF IT! Thank you very much.”

The article, while as informative as it is punchy, does not explain how this apparently spurious accusation came to be. 

Several bizarre blogs and at least one Reddit thread blame Lew for the invention of the snooze button but provide no source. Otherwise, the claim might appear credible, as the accusers are consistent. They always credit Lew with writing Ben-Hur. And many of them state that the first actual patent for an alarm clock with a snooze button was registered to General Electric-Telechron, who released the Snooze-Alarm with a nine-minute snooze feature in 1956—fifty-one years after Lew’s death. The later Drowse Electric by Westclox had a switch on their alarm clock that allowed users to set a five- or ten-minute snooze. Incidentally, the Drowse Electric was released in 1959, the same year as the Academy Award–winning adaptation of Ben-Hur.

And Lew Wallace did apparently invent things. In addition to serving in the Union army during the Civil War, presiding over the Lincoln assassination trial, serving as a diplomat in Turkey, and dabbling in oil painting, Lew invented a fishing rod. The patent describes some sort of bell mechanism, possibly to alert the fisher of a bite on the line. My best guess is that, somehow, this invention, also involving an alarm, has been confused with the mechanical snooze alarm clock, or more probably, inspired the creator of the snooze mechanism.

Inventing a feature of the alarm clock doesn’t seem entirely out of character for Lew. He led an insanely productive life—working as a lawyer, running for Congress, writing books, and taking up the violin. 

Ben-Hur is a tome, though. Nifty if you’re training your biceps to row a Roman galley. So maybe it’s fitting that Long-Winded Lew supposedly contributed the laziest feature to the cornerstone of modern productivity.

It’s a bit surprising though that those who credit Lew with the snooze button almost universally revile him. You’d think he would be the patron saint of procrastinators. (Actually, another Google search informs me that’s St. Expeditus.)

As a chronic snooze user myself, I thought that “snoozing” was a vice, leading to fragmented, poor-quality sleep. But according to an article published in Scientific American, researchers at Stockholm University found that snoozing your alarm might make for an easier transition out of deep sleep…provided you aren’t sleep deprived. 

But according to the National Council on Aging, over a third of Americans get less than seven hours of sleep in a twenty-four-hour period. So, we are sleep deprived. Honestly, we’re run ragged. 

I googled the origin of the snooze button in the first place because I missed my alarm last week. I think I hit the snooze button. Then, I rolled over and my surprisingly dewy feeling of refreshment turning into a sweaty sheen of panic as I realized I would be at least an hour late to work. 

A similar thing happened during my college internship. I had to take two connecting buses to my internship. One day, I missed my bus. 

I missed the bus because I’d missed my alarm, because I didn’t get enough sleep, because I was managing my workload poorly, because I was doing too much, because I didn’t feel like I could do any less, and I knew people doing as much or more. I’d rigged up my life like an insanely delicate Rube Goldberg machine made of dental floss, delusion, and caffeine. 

As soon as I made it to the office, I raced to my supervisor’s desk practically boiling over with anxious apologies.

My boss smiled and said, “You may eventually work someplace where people are going to give you a hard time for being late. But I’m not that person. And this isn’t that place.” 

I still think of this man as possibly the best boss I have ever had, because of his grace. It may not seem like a big deal, but the true magnitude of grace is not measured in what it costs the giver but in what it means to the receiver. And the grace here was built in—part of the place, part of the people.

The first alarm clock patented in the US was created by Levi Hutchins in the late 1700s and it could only ring at 4 a.m., which presumably worked for Levi but is a bit rigid to be much use to everyone else. Our systems are rigid or gracious as we make them. 

Lew Wallace was one of those people acolytes of the hustle often worship, a legend of productivity from before the age of Netflix binges and doom scrolling. But whether or not he invented the snooze button, he doesn’t deserve blame. If we want our world to have features like sufficient rest, and pause, and grace, we shall have to build them in.

1 Comment

  1. Sophia Medawar

    St. Expeditus… at last, I know who to pray to. Love the dental floss, delusion, and caffeine.

    Reply

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