Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 121
Scan 121
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
61 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 99. See the scan on archive.org.
1Part III. Instrument Making
3A. Pianoforte Makers
51. Importance in the Pianoforte Industry of Massachusetts Manufacturers as Shown by United States Census Figures of 1860, 1927 and 1931
7The first census giving separate figures for musical instrument manufacturing was in 1860. This showed 223 establishments in the United States with a total invested capital of $4,431,900. Of these, 110 with an invested capital of $3,644,250 produced annually pianofortes worth $5,260,907. Massachusetts had 22 or one-fifth of the pianoforte establishments, with a capital of $923,000. These produced instruments worth $1,583,500 or 30 per cent of the annual total of pianofortes.
9The Biennial Census of Manufactures for 1927 shows the conditions in the pianoforte manufacturing industry in normal times. The latest census available, that of 1931, shows the situation in one of the industries hit hard by the depression. The figures from these censuses for the entire country and individually for the three largest pianoforte producing states are compared in the following table.
11TABLE NO. 1
13Number of Establishments Manufacturing All Styles of Pianofortes and Total Annual Value Produced in 1931 as Compared with 1927
15<table>
16 <tr>
17 <th rowspan="2">Regions Compared</th>
18 <th colspan="2">Number of Establishments</th>
19 <th colspan="2">Total Annual Value Produced</th>
20 <th rowspan="2">% of Decrease</th>
21 </tr>
22 <tr>
23 <th>1931</th>
24 <th>1927</th>
25 <th>1931</th>
26 <th>1927</th>
27 </tr>
28 <tr>
29 <td>United States</td>
30 <td>50</td>
31 <td>124</td>
32 <td>$15,293,048</td>
33 <td>$75,490,661</td>
34 <td>79.7</td>
35 </tr>
36 <tr>
37 <td>New York</td>
38 <td>19</td>
39 <td>53</td>
40 <td>5,312,235</td>
41 <td>28,431,507</td>
42 <td>81.3</td>
43 </tr>
44 <tr>
45 <td>Illinois</td>
46 <td>13</td>
47 <td>22</td>
48 <td>4,456,059</td>
49 <td>17,668,781</td>
50 <td>74.8</td>
51 </tr>
52 <tr>
53 <td>Massachusetts</td>
54 <td>5</td>
55 <td>10</td>
56 <td>1,502,812</td>
57 <td>6,614,451</td>
58 <td>77.3</td>
59 </tr>
60</table>
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