Rim-Bending department at Steinway factory, c. 1913.

The Steinways’ improvement of the piano in structure and musical tone serves as an example of the inventive craftsmanship and use of technology that was responsible for the rise of American industry and commerce during the mid-19^th century. The growth of the Steinway company is an example of that development, as students can see by comparing the photo of first Steinway factory on page 3 with the photo of the later factory on page 10. The piano manufacturing industry flourished in four cities: New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, but especially the first two cities. Both New York and Boston were large hubs for national and international transportation. In the case of New York, the construction of the Erie Canal in 1825 made it possible to bring heavy raw materials such as lumber from upstate New York and the West down to the City. Manufactured goods, such as pianos, could be shipped across the country by canal, rail and boat.

Workers at the foundry, cleaning castings.

Who bought all the pianos? By mid-century, the growing American middle class joined the wealthy and/or the musically-inclined as purchasers. The piano was not only a source of home entertainment, it was a symbol of social refinement. Young ladies of marriageable age were virtually required to list piano-playing among their social skills. The nation was engulfed in pianomania. An 1879 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine article noted that 125 domestic piano manufacturers produced about 30,000 pianos a year! "Every concert hall and steamship must have a piano: every hotel at least one; every public school must have several; the young ladies’ ‘institute’ of the day jingles with them, sometimes using as many as thirty; and the piano has come to be so established an article of furniture in private parlors that the lack of it attracts notice, and often elicits apology as well." The author estimated that 3 to 4,000 second-hand pianos were rented out in New York City annually! Pianos for sale at that time ranged in price (and quality) from $150 to $1,500. As can be seen in the 1869 price list in a later lesson, Steinway & Sons sold quality pianos in the moderate to high-end range.

By filling in the graph on the Piano Production page based on the numbers supplied, students will see a pattern emerge. See if they can connect the decline in production in 1861 and the rise between 1865-66 with the dates of the Civil War.