Industry Pianos Founded February 1895 | Products Pianos Area served North America | |
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Founder Williard Naramore Van Matre, Sr.
William Straube Headquarters Hammond, Indiana, United States, Downers Grove, Illinois, United States | ||
The Straube Piano Company (1895–1937) and its successor Straube Pianos Inc. (1937–1949) were American piano manufacturers of uprights, grands, players, and reproducing grands.
Contents
History
The years 1875 to 1932 were a golden age of piano making, a time when pianos had few competitors for home entertainment. Straube manufactured pianos for the last thirty-seven of those years. Industry-wide, nearly 364,545 pianos sold in the United States at the peak in 1909, according to the National Piano Manufacturers Association. By comparison, in 2011, 41,000 were sold, along with 120,000 digital pianos and 1.1 million keyboards, according to Music Trades magazine. The Straube Piano Company had its own golden era, from about 1904 to 1935, from several perspectives. The company flourished as an innovator of player pianos, rapidly grew into a high-volume producer of premium and affordable pianos, and earned acclaim for its concert grands.
Straube Piano Company developed influential business models based on innovative management, promotion, advertising, and pricing. Its company executives and plant superintendents, particularly E.R. Jacobson (president) and William G. Betz (superintendent and inventor/innovator), were influential industry exponents who held leadership roles in industry organizations. The company produced premium pianos under the Straube name—but also manufactured Hammond, Gilmore, and Woodward brands, some of which sold at lower prices, but were still of high quality. It distributed all models nationally, and its players internationally, particularly in Australia.
The Straube Piano Company was the outgrowth of Van Matre & Straube (aka Straube & Van Matre), a partnership formalized in February 1895 by Williard Naramore Van Matre, Sr. (1851–1939), and William Straube (né Straub; 1857–1928). That same month, Van Matre and Straube leased a factory near Chicago at Downers Grove, Illinois, on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, at the present intersection of Warren and Forest Avenues. The original wareroom was at 24 Adams Street, Chicago.
Straube manufactured its first piano in June 1895 at that factory, which was also the factory of Van Matre & Co. W.N. Van Matre & Co. was a music dealer at 105 State Street in Rockford, Illinois. Around July 1896, Van Matre and Straube dissolved the partnership, after Straube purchased Van Matre's share. Straube continued the business under his own name.
In 1907, Straube Piano Company executives publicly recognized 1895 as the founding year. However, in 1911, Alfred Dolge published an influential reference book, Pianos and Their Makers, that gave 1878 as the founding year. The December 19, 1914, issue of Music Trade Review began using the 1878 founding date. At some point, Straube Piano began casting the numerals "1878" in the piano plates (aka iron frames). Straube Piano in 1924 attributed 1879 as the founding year. In 1996, a book author provided 1859 as the founding year.
William Straube, an investor, not a piano expert, incorporated Straube Piano Company in 1897 as an Illinois entity.
James (Jim) Francis Broderick (19 August 1854 Philadelphia – 17 November 1920 Chicago) became president on January 1, 1898, and served in that role until March 1911. Before joining Straube Piano, Broderick had been a traveling salesman for Steger & Company and the B. Shoninger Co.
William Straube (1857–1923) had sold all his interest around 1901 and signed a 5-year non-compete agreement. But in 1901, Straube, his two brothers, Herman Charles Straube (1867–1921) and Martin Straube, Jr. (1869–1934), and an associate, Charles Jacobsen (no relation to the Jacobsons of Straube Piano Company), formed another piano manufacturing company and leased the Club Block in Downers Grove, Illinois. The Straube Piano Company challenged and won an injunction on December 16, 1901, in Cook County Circuit Court forbidding the Straubes and Jacobsen from using the Straube name in the manufacturing of pianos.
Ernfrid (Ernest) Reinholdt Jacobson (25 December 1877 Gothenburg, Sweden – 19 June 1976 Chicago) – who began at Straube in August 1898 as a bookkeeper and stenographer – purchased the entire interest of the remaining partner and became president in March 1911.
In 1901, Straube Piano Company was one of 31 Chicago area piano manufacturers that were recognized nationally.
In 1904, the Straube Piano Company moved its manufacturing and executive offices from Chicago to a newly built piano factory in Hammond, Indiana – in the Calumet Region – on five acres served by the Monon and the Chicago, Cincinnati & Louisville railways. The new factory was custom designed and owned by the company.
It was a 3-story facility, with a basement, with 34,000 sq. ft. of factory space. The exterior of the building was a light gray colored brick, made in Michigan City, Indiana, known as Oehlmacher brick. The factory was of mill construction. The main structure was 160 x 50 feet, two stories high. The engine house was 50 x 35 feet, detached, and the boiler house was 60 x 45 feet and detached. The Monon dry kiln was 35 x 65 feet and held 20,000 feet of lumber over six days. It had shipping facilities. And it was equipped with automatic fire doors and fire walls. It had standpipes throughout the structure with separate hose attachments and concrete floors in the basement engine and boiler rooms. At full capacity, the new factory required 200 employees and was capable of producing 3,000 finished pianos a year.
Straube Piano introduced its first player piano in November 1909.
After initially purchasing a small interest in the company, Ernfrid Reinholdt Jacobson became secretary, and continued to acquire stock from time to time. When Ernfrid Reinholdt Jacobson became president in March 1911, he appointed his brothers as executives: Charles (Carl) Herman Jacobson Thorby (1875–1946), vice-president; and James Frithiof Jacobson (1885–1968), secretary, who all became owners and were actively involved with the further development of the business.
According to Fred E. Cooper, contributor to the Presto-Times, prior to E.R. Jacobson presidency, the Straube Piano Company was just an ordinary piano manufacturer. But under Jacobson and his associates, Struabe Piano became one of the most successful contenders in the high quality piano field.
In 1913, construction began on the 3rd addition to the original Straube factory erected in 1904 at 205 Manila Avenue. On January 30, 1930, the Hammond City Council enacted dozens of street name changes – including the change from Manila Avenue to Wildwood Street. The architect was J.T. Hutton (Joseph T. Hutton; 1861–1932) and the contractor was Mahlon Abraham Dickover (1856–1932)
In late 1914 or early 1915: The Straube Piano Company was incorporated in Indiana by E.R. Jacobson, J.F. Jacobson, and C.H.J. Thorby with $150,000 capital stock. Around that time, the factory was producing about 12 finished pianos a day worth about three-quarters of a million dollars a year and employed about one hundred and fifty men, paying them wages of about $125,000 a year.
Around 1916, the Straube Piano Company was manufacturing ten to twelve finished units a day.
The company reached a new all-time high monthly production volume in November 1922, surpassing its previous monthly high in March 1920. It has been estimated that, of the some 360,000 pianos produced in America in 1909, 56% were players.
In 1925, construction began on the fifth and largest addition to the original Straube factory. The architect was J.T. Hutton & Son, the son being William Sturgeon Hutton (1890–1975). The structure was four stories with a basement. The new addition was devoted largely to the manufacturer of grand and re-producing grand pianos.
June 1925, Straube moved into the new plant. The new plant added 70,000 square feet of manufacturing space and provided a suite of new executive offices. The total floor-space, including the addition, was about a hundred and sixty thousand square feet. The new space was especially designed for a new unit that could produce 2,500 Straube grands a year to meet demand. William G. Betz – Straube's plant superintendent since 1917, piano design engineer, and inventor who was highly regarded by the industry – had spent several years perfecting the construction and design of the new Straube grands. Straube also hired William David McIlwrath (né McIlwraith; 1872–1931), a veteran piano factory superintendent and piano engineer with years of experience in the production of grands, to take charge a department in the new unit. McIlwrath had been the manufacturing superintendent of Jesse French & Sons Piano Co. of New Castle, Indiana, since February 16, 1920, and had been employed there since 1913. McIlwrath learned the profession in Canada, having been associated with many of the leading factories in the East.
In 1929, Straube began producing radios.
In 1930, Straube was using the advertising firm of Lamport, Fox & Co., Irvin Sylvester Dolk (1891–1981), ad executive of South Bend, Indiana.
Sales of pianos and player pianos, industry-wide, began to slip in the early 1920s, due partly to the rising popularity of radio as an alternative for home entertainment and due partly to the rising popularity of automobiles, which cost about the same as premium Straube pianos ($325). And, like pianos, automobiles were commonly purchased on installment. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and into the Great Depression, sales declined further and Straube began to struggle financially. In 1925, 80% of pianos sold by the retail trade were done so on installment plans.
In an attempt to survive, the Straube Piano Company sold its Hammond factory in 1931 to the J.L. Metz Furniture Co. for $125,000 and leased back a large portion of the building. In May 1934, the Straube Piano Company went into a friendly receivership. Roy Francis McPharlin (1893–1980) was appointed as receiver. On January 4, 1935, McPharlin distributed a "first and final" dividend of 8/10 of 1 cent of one dollar (i.e., 86¢ for $100) to the creditors. During the summer of 1935, the company reorganized. By then, it was still producing pianos, but occupied only a portion of the factory it once owned. The remainder of the plant was occupied by J.L. Metz Furniture Co. In 1935, the Straube Piano Company was being operated by the Fidelity Security Company, John Leonard Keilman (1867–1946), president. Fidelity Security was the finance arm of Straube Piano – dealing in piano paper and other securities.
When Straube went into receivership, all of its officers departed, including E.R. Jacobson, president; C.H.J. Thorby, vice-president; and Alfred Theodore Schuldes (1892–1981), secretary-treasurer. Also, in 1935, William G. Betz (1871–1957), longtime superintendent with over 50 patents, left the company. In the interim, after the departure of Betz and before the appointment of Charles Henry Bartolomee as plant superintendent, Alvin Detloff Meyer (1879–1970), a Straube purchasing agent and longtime employee, took charge of manufacturing.
Around June 1936, Straube Piano Company moved its offices from the First Trust Building in Hammond to the Straube factory at 5049 Columbia Avenue in Hammond. And its board of directors elected Lemuel (Lem) Kline (1868–1945) as secretary-treasurer.
A new company was formed in Indiana on March 27, 1937, as Straube Pianos Inc. located at 5049 Columbia Avenue and production of Straube pianos resumed in the leased portion of the Hammond factory that the former company once owned. The 1937 executives were
Walter Ernst Schrage (1912–1982), president, whose father, William Ernst Schrage (1884–1941), was president of the Bank of Whiting, Hammond, Indiana Max B. Pattiz (1890–1979), vice-president and general manager (former president of Lauter Piano Company, maker of the Lauter-Humana player piano, Newark, New Jersey) Harry E. Powers (1899–1954), secretary and treasurer; Powers was a lawyer from nearby Whiting, IndianaOn May 1, 1940, Straube Pianos Inc. moved to Chicago Heights to occupy 48,000 sq. ft. of a warehouse owned by National Tea.
Walter Ernst Schrage, Jr., president Charles Henry Bartholomee (1874–1960), who began as superintendent in 1935 and became Vice President of Straube Pianos Inc. in July 1940 Penfield Emory Mason (1875–1963), sales manager (sales manager many years with the Haddorff Co.) Charles Roy Arnold (born 1900), Atlanta manager (later, president) of Continental Music Inc., a division of C.G. Conn Charles Henry Bartholomee, vice president Straube Pianos Inc. Herbert A. Koehlinger (1902–1955), vice president and New York manager (Eastern Manager of the Continental Music Co.); Koehlinger later was sales manager of the Fred Gretsch Manufacturing Company Paul M. Gazlay (1896–1966), president of Continental Music Inc.; Gazlay was president of C.G. Conn from 1949 to 1958C.G. Conn acquired Straube Pianos Inc. in October 1941. For the previous two years, Continental Music Co. of Chicago – a subsidiary of Conn – had been the sales representative for Straube, with P. E. Mason as sales manager. Mason, in the mid-1920s, had been vice president of the Cable-Nelson Piano Company before it had merged with the Everett Piano Company in 1926. C.G. Conn extended the relationship with Continental and kept Bartholomee as the head of manufacturing. Mason, who for many years had been the sales manager for the Haddorff Piano Co., Rockford, Illinois, joined Continental when C.G. Conn acquired Haddorff in November 1940.
Sometime before May 12, 1942, the U.S. War Production Board restricted piano production by C.G. Conn, Ltd., to 120 pianos a month. On May 12, 1942, C.G. Conn, Ltd., announced that it would consolidate its piano manufacturing by moving its Straube manufacturing from Chicago Heights to its Haddorff Piano manufacturing plant in Rockford, Illinois, at Railroad Avenue and 9th Street—a leased facility that Haddorff shared with the Rockford Chair and Furniture Company. Haddorff had sold its original Rockford plant on Harrison Avenue in 1940. In December 1940, a month after C.G. Conn's acquisition of the Haddorff Piano Company, Conn moved the Haddorff's manufacturing operations into the Railroad Avenue plant, which it had modernized.
On May 30, 1942 – a few weeks after C.G. Conn consolidated the manufacturing of Haddorff and Straube pianos at the Haddorff plant in Rockford – the War Production Board (WPB) ordered that manufacturing of pianos at the Rockford plant cease by July 31, 1942. Under a war contract between C.G. Conn, Ltd., and the U.S. War Department, the Rockford plant produced parts for gliders and trainer planes from 1942 to 1946.
The last published reference to the sale of a Straube piano was in July 1946, when the Haddorff Piano Co. of Rockford, Illinois, exhibited a complete line of Haddorff and Straube grands and spinets at the Palmer House in Chicago during the Convention of the National Association of Music Merchants. Production of Straube pianos ceased in 1949.
C.G. Conn retained ownership of Straube Pianos Inc. until 1969, when C.G. Conn was acquired by the Crowell-Collier MacMillan Company. The assets of Straube Piano Inc. included those acquired from the March 1937 receivers sale of the former Straube Piano Company. The Indiana corporate charters of (i) Straube Pianos Inc. (incorporated March 25, 1937), (ii) Straube Piano Company Inc. (incorporated November 14, 1941), and (iii) Struabe Piano and Music Company (incorporated October 24, 1922) expired January 1, 1970.
Straube Piano & Music Company
The Straube Piano & Music Company was the retail division and subsidiary of the Straube Piano Company. It was launched around 1920. Also, in 1920, the retail division purchased a two-story building on S Hohman Street in Hammond, Indiana for $75,000. The building housed four stores and six office suites yielding rental income of about $9,000 a year. The build was made of brick and terra cotta and had frontage of 100 feet on S Hohman Street. The directors of Straube Piano Company incorporated its retail division in 1922.
Straube brands
Straube models
Hammond models
In 1924, Straube introduced individual names for its players rather than alpha letters in an effort to stimulate retail sales. A year earlier, Straube introduced a uniform national pricing policy. In 1923, Straube also launched a national advertising campaign.
Explanation of the term Studio Grand: A tall upright piano – 50 inches or taller, one that a person of average height can't see over when seated at the bench – is sometimes referred to as an "upright grand". Straube branded it as a "Cabinet Grand". Use of the word "grand" with uprights should not be confused with concert grands. Upright grands can be of high quality and – short of concert grands – are often the choice of serious pianists, recording studios, and performance venues. A mid-high upright – one that one can barely see over – is often used in dance studios, where an accompanist can see the dancers. A short upright, one that rises less than a foot above the keyboard, is referred to as a spinet. Serious pianists typically regard spinets as inadequate because the soundboard is too short to produce a full sound with full overtones.
Sample Straube serial numbers
National Music Museum No. 14434. Upright piano with player mechanism (Hammond Melo-Harp) by the Straube Co., Hammond, Indiana, manufactured 1916, serial no. 26494. AAA-c5 (7+ octaves). Three pedals: half blow, "Melo-Harp" (tabs with staples for a jarring, "honky-tonk" tone), dampers. Purchased by Perry Fulton Pinkerton (1873–1952) for his wife, Isadora Edna (née Rouff; 1876–1923), in 1918. Delivered by train and wagon to the family farmhouse in Quimby, Iowa, where it remained until coming to the NMM, this player piano filled family events with music and provided accompaniment for dancing. Gift of Edward and James Pinkerton, grandsons, in memory of their parents, Ross Cavanaugh Pinkerton (1913–2009) and Arlene Jane (née Bugh; 1919–2009) late of Quimby, Iowa.
Notes: In 1954, the Hammond Organ Co. acquired the Everett and Cable Nelson names and also started building Hammond pianos. These Hammond Pianos are of no relation to those once produced by Straube. Hammond pianos were discontinued around 1965.
James (Jim) Francis Broderick (19 August 1854 Philadelphia – 17 November 1920 Chicago) became president on January 1, 1898, and served in that role until March 1911. Before joining Straube Piano, Broderick had been a traveling salesman for Steger & Company and the B. Shoninger Co.
E.R. Jacobson was the son of Charles Frithiof Jacobson (1852–1906), and Helena (née Nicholson; 1845–1910). Ernfrid Jacobson, with his parents, immigrated to the United States in 1882 and settled in Chicago. Jacobson received his public school education in Chicago. He began his career as an office boy, then a bookkeeper and general office utility man for various concerns till August 1898.
In addition to being president part owner with his brothers of Straube Piano Company and Straube Piano & Music Co., which operated several music stores; E.R. Jacobson also was president of the Fidelity Security Co., dealers in piano paper and other securities, and treasurer of the Hammond Machine and Forge Works.
Politically, E.R. Jacobson he was a Republican. He was a member of the Bethlehem Swedish Lutheran Church of Englewood, Illinois, where he had been a trustee since 1898, and was also the treasurer of the church. He resided at 5754 Fifth avenue.
William Straube, before 1894, had been president of the Schaeffer Piano Company, which in 1896, had a sales room on the second floor of 236 Wabash Avenue, Chicago.
After Straube sold his interest in the Straube Piano Company in 1901, he focused on his real estate development business in Downers Grover, Illinois. In 1902, Straube became a director of the Cerro Mojarra Plantation Company, a ranching and agricultural firm operating in Oaxaca, Mexico.
The Schaeffer Piano Company, founded by William Schaeffer (1832–1888) in Württemberg, Germany, around 1872, was established in New York in 1877. Schaeffer had factories at 472 West 43rd Street, and 456 West 37th Street, Manhattan, New York. Then, in 1889, after Schaeffer's death, the company was established in Illinois and incorporated on December 31, 1891, in Illinois, by Charles M. Herman, Isaac Newton Rice (1847–1929), and Samuel Ringgold Huyett (1946–1911).
In 1892, the Schaeffer's piano factory, located in Oregon, Illinois, had 90 employees and was producing 20 pianos a week.
In the fall of 1894, Scheaffer Piano Co. (William Straube, president), moved its manufacturing operations from Oregon, Illinois, to River View – on the Wisconsin Railway, two miles from the Chicago city limit. The new facility had twice the floor space.
Under financial duress in 1896, the assets of Schaeffer Piano were assigned its assets to the creditor, Floyd E. Jennison (1857–1920), in the Cook County Court. The goodwill and patents were sold to Thomas Edwin Dougherty who, in 1895, re-established and re-incorporated the company as Schaeffer Piano Manufacturing Company.
In 1902, while Thomas Edwin Dougherty (1856–1943) was president, the Schaeffer Piano Company manufacturing plant in River View had a fire. The company subsequently erected a new plant in Kankakee, Illinois.
In 1891, William Straube went into partnership with Alfred Roland Heckman (1859–1914), a brother of his wife, Jessica Fremont Heckman (1857–1944), both of 8 Heckman siblings. Their firm, Heckman & Straube, sold land lots in Downers Grove beginning 1891.
The 1910 Census shows Martin living in Oregon, Illinois, perhaps working for the Schiller Piano Company sometime before 1910. In 1940, he was living in Los Angeles, still working in the piano business.
James (Jimmy) Frithiof Jacobson (5 February 1885 Chicago – December 1968 Hammond, Indiana) attended public schools in Chicago. After leaving school worked in a warehouse for two years, then spent eight years with the Crerar-Adams Company, a railway supply firm. Following that, he and his brother, Ernfrid Reinholdt Jacobson, became associated in a music store at Indiana Harbor.
Clinton Wilson Howe (born 1875), bookkeeper at Straube Piano from 1895 to 1897
Retail sales
1898–19??: 24-26 E. Adams Street, Chicago 1911: 59 Adams Street, Chicago 1915: 209 S. State Street, Chicago 190?–1922 (and longer?): 631 Hohman Street, Hammond 5247 Hohman Avenue, HammondFactory: 252 Wildwood Road
Straube photo archives
Videos
Other Straube names in music not related to Straube Piano
Straube Piano Company was not related to J. Straube & Co., in Berlin, an organ maker founded in 1869 that endured until 1972. In 1903, its founding owners were Johannes Straube (1843–1906) & Karl Straube (1873–1950), father and son. Johannes, an organist, was the superintendent. Johannes was also the son of J.C.F. Straube, a violin maker. In 1923, Otto Pappe (1882–1972) became the owner. Otto's son, Reinhard Pappe (1908–1972), succeeded him as owner until his death in 1972, when the firm was dissolved. William Straube (de), the German painter, was also a son of Johannes. None of the Straubes from this family were directly related to William Straube of the Straube Piano Co.
William J. Straub (1859–1946), who is listed in the 1901, 1902, and 1904 Syracuse City Directories, was an organ builder. This Straub is unrelated.
Alois Straub (1826 Baden, Germany – 1883) was a manufacturer of reed organs. He learned cabinet making and worked with the manufacturing of musical instruments in Germany before emigrating to the United States in 1849. Straub settled in Akron, Ohio, and, from about 1852 to 1856, made organs for H.B. Horton (Henry Bishop Horton; 1819–1885). Straub then worked as a traveling salesman for Horton & Rose (Ira Rose; 1820–1891) from 1857 to 1861. Straub opened Akron's first music store 1861 at 148 (later 163) S. Howard Street. Straub was a manufacturer of reed organs under his own name from about 1870 to 1875.
Affiliations
Selected patents
In the mid 1920s, Straube Piano had some patents that intrigued the industry. In 1926, Straube introduced its patented Duplex Overstringing system – US Patent No. 1769284 – claiming that it enabled smaller Straube uprights to produce the sound of full uprights and Straube's smallest grand, the Sonata Grand, to produce the sound of a full concert grand. The Straube Artronome player piano had many patented innovations, including one that improved pumping power from the foot pedals.