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 132
Scan 132
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
14 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 110. See the scan on archive.org.
1T. Gilbert & Company went out of business nominally in 1868 but the name was used later.
3It appears from the frequent forming and changing of partnerships in the early 1800's that a skilled mechanic who had been trained in some good shop or factory started out for himself alone or with another such mechanic and presently dissolved that partnership to form another. Such makers were often spoken of as "seceders." Small capital was required to start, but as businesses grew more funds became necessary and many changes of ownership were due to this lack.
5What information about other former firms the writer has been able to gather from pianoforte manufacturers, dealers and tuners is given in Appendix I B.
7Along with the growth of pianoforte manufacturing in Boston an occupation has developed which has been taught to the blind all over the country with great success, namely, pianoforte tuning. This movement was started at the Perkins Institute and Massachusetts School for the Blind, founded in 1832 by Dr. S. G. Howe, with Lowell Mason as the first teacher. Mr. J. W. Smith was the teacher who instructed the blind to take a pianoforte apart, repair, put together and tune it. For many years now graduates of this school have cared for the tuning and repairing of the pianofortes in Boston city schools.22
9Aside from a few outstanding inventions like Erard's repetition action and Steinway and Sons' combination of the full metal plate and the overstrung scale, it is difficult to assign the improvements to any one manufacturer as the changes have been by gradual steps. Many experiments were tried for one that was really successful.
11Furthermore, competition in this line has always been so keen that as soon as one manufacturer made a real improvement, others bought one of his instruments, took it apart, studied it and copied the idea. If the invention was patented, some way was generally found to produce the same effect by a construction sufficiently dissimilar to avoid infringement. Improvements and inventions by American firms, whose source is generally acknowledged, are discussed under the respective manufacturers.
1322 Dwight, John S. Memorial History of Boston. Justin Winsor Editor p. 460.
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