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 29
Scan 29
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
16 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1B. Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Publishers Out of Existence
3As has been shown, the contributions of Boston's earliest publishers were mostly in the field of church music, though some secular sheet music, chiefly patriotic songs, was brought out near the close of the eighteenth century. One of the latter was Adams and Liberty, widely known as the Boston Patriotic Song.
5From the information available it appears that most of the publishers of the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries were musicians, who felt the lack of sufficient fine music to play on their various instruments. So they brought out reprints of standard European classical works or composed and published their own works or those of fellow Americans.
7One of these was Elias Howe, Jr. who started in business for himself in 1840, just five years later than Oliver Ditson, with his own collection of jigs, reels, dances and airs arranged for the violin. The success of this first publication in the United States of a book of that type of popular music for the violin¹ led its author to bring out at a popular price different series of instruction books for strings, woodwinds, and accordeons. The basic idea was to present few instructions with many tunes for playing.
9Good music for the pianoforte, which was constantly being improved and growing in popularity, was published by a number of firms no longer in existence, notably G. P. Reed & Co., Nathan Richardson, G. D. Russell & Co., Carl Pruefer, J. B. Millet Co.
11Boston was early a centre for military and other bands and orchestras. Thus naturally it became probably the first city to publish band and orchestra music. The firm of Jean White was the first notable contributor in this field, starting in 1867, five years before Carl Fischer in New York City. E. A. Samuels starting about 1875 also specialized in band and orchestra music as did Thompson & Odell organized in 1878 and E. C. Ramsdell organized about 1886.
13George W. Stratton made a unique contribution in the field of operettas, composing them expressly for children and publishing
15¹ Statement of Edward F. Howe, son of Elias Howe, Jr.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.