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 202
Scan 202
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 176. See the scan on archive.org.
1Company was formerly Steere & Turner of Springfield, Massachusetts, established in 1867. Mr. Turner died and the firm became J. W. Steere & Son Organ Company. That was succeeded by the Steere Organ Company, which located in Westfield when its Springfield factory was burned. After Henry F. Van Wart became Superintendent in 1911 they built many large fine instruments. These included organs in Woolsey Hall, Yale University, the Municipal Auditorium, Springfield, Massachusetts, Piedmont Church, Worcester, Massachusetts and First Church of Christ Scientist, Kansas City, Missouri.
3In 1932 a new company was formed—the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company—taking over the assets of the Skinner Organ Company and the pipe organ assets and business of the Aeolian Company, the control, however, remaining in the Skinner Organ Company by virtue of its holding 60 per cent of the stock of the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company.
5At that time the pipe organ factory of the Aeolian Company at Garwood, New Jersey, was closed, and since then all of the operations have been carried on at the Skinner factory in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The Skinner Organ Company had studios at its factory, [address hidden], Dorchester, and in New York City, Cleveland, Ohio, and San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. Since the formation of the new company studios are maintained at Dorchester, Massachusetts, and in New York City, one at the Aeolian Company office and another at the Skinner Organ Company office.
7This combination of Skinner and Aeolian brought together one of the leaders in each field of work (in the United States)—Skinner, a leading builder of church organs, and Aeolian, the leader in residence organs.
9"Aeolian has probably built 80 per cent of all the residence work in this country, and numbers among its clients such well-known people as John D. Rockefeller, Charles M. Schwab, H. C. Frick, W. K. Vanderbilt, Pierre S. duPont and many other distinguished citizens."18
11The Skinner Organ Company enjoys a prestige in church organs, having built many large instruments for famous cathedrals, churches and universities. It has also built concert, residence and a few theatre organs, none of the last recently, however. A total of about
1318 Statement of George L. Catlin, Vice President and Treasurer of Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc.
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