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The Craftsman as Industrialist: Jonas Chickering and the Transformation of American Piano Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Gary J. Kornblith
Gary J. Kornblith
Affiliation:
Gary J. Kornblith is assistant professor of history atOberlin College.
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Abstract

Master craftsmen played a critical role in launching the Industrial Revolution in America. In this case study of artisan entrepreneurship, Professor Kornblith analyzes the career of Jonas Chickering (1798–1853), the foremost American piano manufacturer before the emergence of the Steinways. By revolutionizing the way in which pianos were made, Chickering—with the help of others—turned a modest craft operation into a major industrial enterprise. Yet, Kornblith contends, he remained true to the craftsman's goal of artistic excellence and won the respect of his employees as well as of the public at large. By the force of his example, Chickering contributed to the acceptance of technological change within the trade and, more broadly, to the legitimation of industrial capitalism within American culture.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1985 , pp. 349 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1985

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References

1 Mason, Lowell, “Lowell Mason upon Jonas Chickering,” New York Musical Review, reprinted in [Parker, Richard G.], A Tribute to the Life and Character of Jonas Chickering (Boston, 1854), 137.Google Scholar

2 Examiner's Report of Henry Baldwin, Report of the Commissioner of Patents f or the Year 1852, pt. 1, 32d Cong., 2d sess., 1853, S. Doc. 55, 427; Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 2, Aeolian American Corporation, East Rochester, New York.

3 Mason, “Upon Chickering,” 137.

4 Contributions to the emerging view include Cochran, Thomas C., Frontiers of Change: Early Industrialism in America (New Vork, 1981). esp. chap. 4Google Scholar; Gordon, David M., Edwards, Richard, and Reich, Michael, Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical Transformation of Labor in the United States (Cambridge, Eng., 1982), chap. 3Google Scholar; Gutman, Herbert G., “The Reality of the Rags-to-Riches ‘Myth’: The Case of the Paterson, New Jersey, Locomotive, Iron, and Machinery Manufacturers, 1830–1880,” in Nineteenth-Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History, ed. Thernstrom, Stephan and Sennett, Richard (New Haven, 1969), 98–124Google Scholar; Hirsch, Susan E., “From Artisan to Manufacturer: Industrialization and the Small Producer in Newark,” in Small Business in American Life, ed. Bruchey, Stuart W. (New York, 1980), 80–99Google Scholar; Ross, Steven J., Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 (New York, 1985), chap. 4Google Scholar; Scranton, Philip, Proprietary Capitalism: The Textile Manufacture at Philadelphia, 1800–1885 (Cambridge, Eng., 1983)Google Scholar, chaps. 4–7; and Wilentz, Sean, Chants Democratic: New York City & the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York, 1984)Google Scholar, chap. 3. For an example of the standard view, see Taylor, George Rogers, The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 (1951; reprint, New York, 1968)Google Scholar, chaps. 10–11.

5 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 28–41; [Gould, Augustus A. and Kidder, Frederic], The History of New Ipswich, From Its First Grant in MDCCXXXVI to the Present Time (Boston, 1852), 349–50.Google Scholar

6 Johnson, H. Earle, Hallelujah Amen! The Story of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (1965; reprint, New York, 1981), 38Google Scholar; “Jonas Chickering,” Dwight's Journal of Music, A Paper of Art and Literature, 17 Dec. 1853 (reprint, New York, 1967), 85. The quotation is from the article in Dwight's Journal, which can also be found reprinted in [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 140–48.

7 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 43.

8 On the rise of the piano and piano making in America, see Loesser, Arthur, Men, Women and Pianos: A Social History (New York, 1954), 433–69Google Scholar; Spillane, Daniel, History of the American Pianoforte; Its Technical Development and the Trade (New York, 1890), 45–136.Google Scholar For further information on developments in Boston, see Ayars, Christine Merrick, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston 1640 to 1936 (New York, 1937), 104–10, 239–40Google Scholar; Johnson, H. Earle, Musical Interludes in Boston 1793–1830 (New York, 1943)Google Scholar, esp. chaps. 3, 9.

9 Parker, John H., “Communication ‘Fiat Justicia,’” New-England Palladium & Commercial Advertiser, 23 Feb. 1819.Google Scholar

10 Spillane, History of American Pianoforte, 57.

11 Euterpeiad, or Musical Intelligencer, 10 June 1820 (reprint. New York, 1977), 44. See also ibid., 8 April 1820, 8.

12 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 43. Parker added, however, that Chickering's “principal duty … was the manufacture of the keys.” Ibid.

13 Ibid.; Spillane, History of American Pianoforte, 57, 84–85.

14 “Stewart and Osborn's Piano Fortes,” Euterpeiad, Nov. 1822, 135.

15 Thomas Appleton to George H. Chickering, 21 April 1872, in “The American Pianoforte Manufacture,” Musical and Sewing Machine Gazette, 21 Feb. 1880, 35. I am indebted to Cynthia Adams Hoover for supplying me with a copy of this article.

16 Ibid.; [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 44; Ayars, Music Industries of Boston, 111.

17 Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1.

18 On the growing wealth of Boston's elite, see Pessen, Edward, Riches, Class, and Power before the Civil War (Lexington, Mass., 1973), 39Google Scholar; Main, Gloria L., “Inequality in Early America: The Evidence from Probate Records of Massachusetts and Maryland,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 7 (Spring 1977): 578, 580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 “Piano Fortes,” Euterpeiad, Feb. 1823, 179.

20 On the concept of “true womanhood,” see Welter, Barbara, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860,” American Quarterly 18 (Summer 1966): 151–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 “Piano Fortes,” 179–80.

22 List of Employees of Messrs. Chickering & Sons, and the Time each has been Employed by said Firm (Boston, 1867), 6; Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1.

23 Appleton to G. Chickering, 21 April 1872, 35; Spillane, History of American Pianoforte, 58.

24 Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1.

25 Appleton to C. Chickering, 21 April 1872, 35; The Boston Directory (Boston, 1830), s.v. “Chickering, Jonas.”

26 Spillane, History of American Pianoforte, 85–87; The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. “Mackay.”

27 Appleton to G. Chickering, 21 April 1872, 35; [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 46.

28 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 59.

29 Documents Relative to the Manufactures in the United States, Collected and Transmitted to the House of Representatives, in Compliance with a Resolution of Jan. 19, 1832, by the Secretary of the Treasury, 2 vols., 22d Cong., 1st sess., 1833, H. Doc. 308, 1:456–57; Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1.

30 Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1.

31 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 49–50.

32 Grafing, Keith G., “Alpheus Babcock: American Pianoforte Maker (1785–1842): His Life, Instruments, and Patents” (D.M.A. thesis, University of Missouri, Kansas City, 1972), 14–19, 39–64Google Scholar; Good, Edwin M., Giraffes. Black Dragons, and Other Pianos: A Technological History from Cristofori to the Modern Concert Grand (Stanford, 1982), 126–36Google Scholar; Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1.

33 “Mechanics' Register: List of American Patents which Issued in October, 1840,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 32 (Dec. 1841). 387, Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1. Chickering's 1840 patent was “for an improvement in iron framed pianos [which] consists in attaching or combining the bridge, over which the strings pass, to the straining pins, and the socket, through which the damper wires pass, to the iron frame, by casting them thereon, or by casting the whole together in one piece.” “Mechanics' Register,” 387. For a drawing of the patented frame, see Rosamond E. M. Harding, The Piano-forte: Its History Traced to the Great Exhibition of 1851 (1933; reprint, New York, 1973), 212.

34 Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1.

35 The Commemoration of the Founding of the House of Chickering & Sons upon the Eightieth Anniversary of the Event (Boston, 1904), plate opp. p. 46; Stimpson's Boston Directory (Boston, 1837), s.v. “Chickering & Co.”; Stimpson's Boston Directory (Boston, 1838), s.v. “Chickering & Co.”

36 List of Persons, Copartnerships, and Corporations, who were Taxed Twenty-Five Dollars and Upwards, in the City of Boston in the Year 1838, Specifying the amount of the Tax on Real and Personal Estate, severally, conformably to an Order of the City Council (Boston, 1839), s.v. “Jonas Chickering & Co.”; [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 62, 72. On the undervaluation of property holdings in the published Boston tax lists of this period, see Pessen, Riches, Class, and Power, 13–14.

37 Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1; Will of John Mackay, file 33021, Suffolk County Probate Records, Suffolk County Courthouse, Boston, Mass.

38 List of Persons, Copartnerships, and Corporations Taxed in Boston 1838, s.v. “Jonas Checkering & Co.”; “The Tax Payers,” Boston Daily Evening Transcript, 20 April 1839 (clipping enclosed with volume of published tax lists, 1826–39, at the Boston Public Library).

39 Compendium of the Enumeration of the Inhabitants and Statistics of the United States, as obtained at the Department of State, from the Returns of the Sixth Census (Washington, D. C, 1841), 112; Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1; Lindstrom, Diane, Economic Development in the Philadelphia Region, 1810–1850 (New York, 1978), 50–51.Google Scholar

40 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 58; Will of John Mackay; New Grove Dictionary, s.v. “Mackay.”

41 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 59. Parker may have exaggerated the magnitude of this transaction. Unfortunately the inventory of John Mackay's estate does not include an estimate of the overall value of the business at the time of his death; his half interest in the factory was valued at $30,000. Inventory of John Mackay's estate, file 33021, Suffolk County Probate Records.

42 Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 1.

43 The quotation is from Chickering's successful application for a patent as reported in “List of American Patents which Issued in the Month of September, 1843, with Exemplifications by Charles M. Keller, late Chief Examiner in the U. S. Patent Office,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 48 (Dec. 1849): 479. The patent also covered Chickering's version of the harmonic bar. For further discussion of this patent, see Spillane, History of American Pianoforte, 92–93.

44 The Fourth Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, at Guiney Hall, in the City of Roston, September 16, 1844 (Boston, 1844), 126.

45 Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851, Reports by the Juries on the Subjects in the Thirty Classes into Which the Exhibition was Divided (London, 1852), 333.

46 U.S. Manuscript Census of Massachusetts, 1850, schedule 5, Suffolk County, City of Boston, ward 7, in Federal Nonpopulation Census Schedules for Massachusetts, 1850–1880, National Archives Micro film Publication T1204 (Washington, D.C., 1975), roll 6. A comparison of the data in the census and in the firm's piano registers reveals certain discrepancies. According to the registers, while the firm produced 1,000 pianos for the calendar year 1850, it manufactured 889 pianos during the year ending 1 June 1850—the period supposedly covered by the census. An extensive sample of prices listed in the registers indicates that the mean price per instrument at this time was $304—$104 more than that implied by the census-making for an estimated total value of $270,256 for the year ending 1 June 1850, and $304,000 for the calendar year 1850. Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vols. 1, 2.

47 O[liver] D[yer], “A Chapter on the Pianoforte,” Musical World and New York Musical Times, 18 Dec. 1852, 243–45. This article is reprinted under the subtitle, “The Pianoforte—Jonas Chickering” in [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 148–62.

48 Dyer, “Chapter on Pianoforte,” 243.

49 Ibid., 244.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid., 245.

53 Ibid., 244.

54 Ibid. Dyer does not specify when in the production process the iron frame was inserted into the case. In this instance, I have supplemented his account with the later description of Bishop, J. Leander, A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860, 3d ed. (1868; reprint. New York, 1966), 3:286.Google Scholar

55 Dyer, “Chapter on Pianoforte,” 244.

56 Ibid., 245.

57 Ibid., 244.

58 Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Cannan, Edwin (Modern Library ed., New York, 1937)Google Scholar, bk. 1, chap. 1.

59 An attempt was made to compare the total factor productivity of Chickering's firm with that of nine other Boston piano-making firms for the year ending 1 June 1850, using data listed in the 1850 federal census. The census data for the nine competing firms fit a Cobb-Douglas production function:

where V is value added in dollars (value of annual product minus annual cost of raw materials), L is number of hands employed, K is capital investment in dollars, and e is an error term. Standard errors of estimates are in parentheses; the corrected R2 was 0.92. If Chickering's firm fit the production function of these competitors, this equation predicts his value added would have equaled $134,109 and would have been less than $210,506 with 95 percent probability. According to the census data, Chickering's value added for the year ending I June 1850 was $164,000—a figure greater than the point estimate of $134,109 but less than the 95 percent upper limit of $210,506. However, if the census data are adjusted to reflect Chickering's output as listed in the firm's piano registers (see above, note 46), then the value added for the year ending 1 June 1850 rises to $234,256—an amount exceeding the 95 percent upper limit. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that Chickering's firm was more productive than its competitors. Of course it is possible that other adjustments should also be made in the census data, in which case the issue of relative productivity cannot be resolved. I am indebted to Luis Fernandez for his assistance in analyzing the available data. U. S. Manuscript Census for Massachusetts, schedule 5, Suffolk County, City of Boston; Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vols. 1, 2. On the application of the Cobb-Douglas function to nineteenth-century data, see Laurie, Bruce and Schmitz, Mark, “Manufacture and Productivity: The Making of an Industrial Base, Philadelphia, 1850–1880,” in Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Hershberg, Theodore (New York, 1981), 66–78Google Scholar; Sokoloff, Kenneth Lee, “Industrialization and the Growth of the Manufacturing Sector in the Northeast, 1820–1850” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1982)Google Scholar, chap. 4.

60 Dyer, “Chapter on Pianoforte,” 244.

61 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 75; Spillane, History of American Pianoforte, 260–67. Chickering's three sons inherited control of the business upon his death.

62 List of Employees of Messrs. Chickering & Sons.

63 On labor turnover in antebellum textile mills, see Dublin, Thomas, “Women Workers and the Study of Social Mobility,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 9 (Spring 1979): 647–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ginger, Ray, “Labor in a Massachusetts Cotton Mill, 1853–60,” Business History Review 28 (March 1954): 81–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prude, Jonathan, The Coming of Industrial Order: Town and Factory Life in Rural Massachusetts, 1810–1860 (Cambridge, Eng., 1983), 144–57Google Scholar; Wallace, Anthony F. C., Rockdale. The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (New York, 1978), 63–65.Google Scholar

64 U.S. Manuscript Census for Massachusetts, 1850, schedule 5, Suffolk County, City of Boston, ward 7.

65 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 66–67; Ryan, Thomas, Recollections of an Old Musician (New York, 1899), 108.Google Scholar See also Dyer, “Chapter on Pianoforte,” 243; Loesser, Men, Women and Pianos, 525.

66 Massachusetts vol. 67, p. 121, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston, Mass.

67 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 63, 72–73; Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vols. 1, 2; Dolge, Alfred, Pianos and Their Makers (1911; reprint, New York, 1972), 272.Google Scholar For examples of agents’ advertisements, see “Chickering's Piano Fortes,” Manufacturer and Farmers Journal and Providence and Pawtucket Advertiser, 30 Sept. 1847; “Chickering's Pianofortes,” Musical World, 18 Sept. 1852, 47.

68 Blake, John L., “Jonas Chickering,” in Lives of American Merchants, ed. Hunt, Freeman (Boston, 1856), 1:519.Google Scholar

69 Massachusetts vol. 67, p. 121, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection.

70 Pessen, Riches, Class, and Power, 333–34.

71 Forbes, A[bner] and Green, J. W., The Rich Men of Massachusetts, Containing a Statement of the Reputed Wealth of About Fifteen Hundred Persons, with Brief Sketches of More than One Thousand Characters (Boston, 1851), 21.Google Scholar Upon Chickering's death in 1853, his estate was valued at $321,252. Inventory of Jonas Chickering's estate, file 38774, Suffolk County Probate Records.

72 Dyer, “Chapter on Pianoforte,” 243. See also [Parker], Tribute to Checkering, 17.

73 See, for example, Dawley, Alan, Class and Community; The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge, Mass., 1976)Google Scholar, chap. 1; Faler, Paul G., Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts, 1780–1860 (Albany, N.Y., 1981)Google Scholar, chap. 4; Laurie, Bruce, Working People of Philadelphia, 1800–1850 (Philadelphia, 1980)Google Scholar, chap. 1; and Wilentz, Chants Democratic, chap. 3.

74 Johnson, Hallelujah Amen!, 60–70.

75 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 98; “Jonas Chickering,” Dwight's Journal, 85.

76 [Gould and Kidder], History of New Ipswich. 351.

77 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 21–22, 63, 72–73.

78 [R. S. Willis], “A True Story,” Musical World, reprinted in Dwight's Journal, 24 Dec. 1853, 91. This article is quoted in full in [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 23–26, and in Blake, “Chickering,” 1:523–25.

79 “Destructive Fire on Washington Street,” Boston Daily Evening Transcript, 2 Dec. 1852.

80 Ibid.; [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 60.

81 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 77–78.

82 Boston Daily Evening Transcript, 4 Dec. 1852.

83 Ibid., 7 Dec. 1852.

84 Chickering & Sons Piano Registers, vol. 2.

85 “New Pianoforte Wareroom,” Boston Daily Evening Transcript, 4 Oct. 1853, reprinted in Dwight's Journal, 8 Oct. 1853, 7.

86 [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 83–84.

87 Bishop, History of Manufactures, 3: 285–86; Blake, “Chickering,’ 1: 514–15. Though no longer used for piano making, the building still stands today.

88 Blake, “Chickering,” 1: 515; [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 112–13.

89 “A Good Man Fallen,” Boston Herald, 9 Dec. 1853, reprinted in [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 117–18; “The Good Man's Example,” Boston Daily Evening Transcript, 12 Dec. 1853, reprinted in [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 124.

90 “Death and Funeral of Jonas Chickering,” Boston Traveller, 12 Dec. 1853, and “Funeral of Jonas Chickering,” Boston Journal, 13 Dec. 1853, both reprinted in [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 119–23, 127–30.

91 “Death and Funeral of Jonas Checkering,” 122.

92 Boston Post, 12 Dec. 1853, reprinted in [Parker], Tribute to Chickering, 127.

93 In addition to the sources cited in note 4, see also Kornblith, Gary J., “From Artisans to Businessmen: Master Mechanics in New England, 1789–1850” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1983), esp. 1:210–37.Google Scholar