The balance of the bequeathed funds was used to construct the Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds (Beaux Arts Museum of La-Chaux-de-Fonds), designed by renowned painter Charles l’Eplattenier and architect René Chapallaz, Le Corbusier's architecture teacher.
With this shift came great advancements in manufacturing as centrally located factories replaced small workshops, and large scale production of items with interchangeable parts quickly displaced less efficient hand-crafting.
An immediate beneficiary of this progress was America's watch and clock industry, as northern coal powered factories began turning out hundreds of high quality timepieces per day.
Jacques David, Swiss watchmaker and machine designer, was dispatched to America by Ernest Francillon to witness the exhibitions first-hand, and report his findings back to the Intercanonal Society.
While David's report helped to wake the Swiss watchmaking industry from its comfortable complacency, increased revenues were needed for the Society's members to initiate the developments required to meet these new challenges.
Besides his acute knowledge of the growing threat posed by worldwide competition from US manufactures, Gallet understood the tastes of the American consumer and the opportunities the new world also held for the Jura watchmakers.
Within a short period, exports of Swiss watches to America rapidly increased, greatly expanding the reach of watchmakers whose previous market was limited only to the local economies.
As a result, Leon L. Gallet's American marketing activities helped to provide the needed capital for the watchmakers of the Jura region to industrialize, and successfully meet one of the greatest challenges in Swiss timekeeping's history.