Frederick Mathushek
Frederick Mathushek ( born June 9, 1814 Mannheim, † November 9, 1891 in New York) was an American piano-maker with German origin, his birth name was Frederick Matuschek.
He had worked in Worms and the United States in New York City and New Haven (Connecticut ) during the second half of the 19th century. His name was still at various piano manufacturers until the 1950s continued, and was entered as an independent trademark in 2005 and 2008.
Worms
Frederick Mathushek was born in Mannheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden on June 9th, 1814. He made up to the age of 17 vocational training as a piano builder. He then went on the pilgrimage, in order to acquire knowledge in various piano factories in Germany, Austria, Russia, and also in Paris, which was required to be admitted to a master's examination and then be able to open a master his own piano Construction in Worms. His pianos were recognizable influenced by his time in Paris at the piano maker Jean -Henri Pape. [Note 1]
New York, 1850s
Mathushek initially had a superior position in the London Erard piano factory. In 1849 he emigrated to New York. There he worked for John B. Dunham, who was one of the first piano builder who had several years earlier launched the " Overstringing " ( bass strings - crossover ) in America. Alfred Dolge wrote that Mathushek 1850 a simplified press perfected, by means of this happened Befilzen of piano hammers. In 1851 he patented a method of crossing over by means of cast-iron frame in panel pianos in order to accommodate a larger number of strings with thicker diameters can. The package intended to improve the sound and stability, and the scale was under the name sweep scale known because this scale the strings led far more about the soundboard than was possible with conventional methods of stringing.
Mathushek started his own piano building in New York in 1852. This year he is out 21st Street in the address list at the 118 East, but the piano historian Daniel Spillane and Alfred Dolge wrote that he was hired in 1857 to some of the designs of Spencer B. Driggs to bring in an actionable form. Driggs was in 1856 moved from Detroit to New York after his linguine was patented a device for repeated notes. He applied a series of patents that he had derived from the Violin design to improve the piano sound. The special feature was the installation of two independent soundboards, one of which was used instead of the commonly encountered heavy supporting structure as a total bottom of the instrument. Both floors were arched and connected by a sound bridge to improve the rigidity and sound characteristics. [Note 2]
At the end of 1859 Mathushek was associated with Wellington Wells. They drew together responsible for patents in the piano and grand piano action. This bass crossed pianos had very close positioning of the strings, which were in sharp angle to the keyboard; you could see similarities to the double -strung parlor wings of Chickering and Sons, which had been introduced in the early 1850s ( hats now known cocked under the name ), and even small spinets, harpsichords, who had a Saitenklemmung on the webs by means of clasps. This jammed, the strings so that the sound board is pulled upwardly concave.
1863 was Mathushek part of Mathushek & Kuhner, in partnership with Leopold Kuhner. They won a bronze medal for a " piano from new and elegant form " at the exhibition of the American Institute in that year. The company was established in 1864 at the address 34 Second Avenue and 1866 at address 10 Second Avenue.
The Mathushek piano factory / Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company
1866 persuaded Morris Steinert, a newly -drawn music seller in New Haven, Connecticut, Mathushek to move from New York to usher in a new piano factory under the name " Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company ". [Note 3]
Steinert and his investors withdrew soon from the group back, and ownership was transferred to Henry S. Parmelee, whose cousin Spencer T. Parmelee of New Haven had been patented at the tuning peg, the hollow dowels, single wooden tube pieces that were inserted into openings of the cast frame to hold the tuning pins in place of a one-piece pin block.
Thus were banished almost all the structural elements of wood from the table pianos; only cast iron made from about 1862 to 1865, the support structure. Mathusheks grandson described in 1882 in a report for the magazine Music and Drama, that Parmelee was involved from the beginning in the company and "the total voting rights controlled than those who belonged Mathushek ".
Alfred Dolge, who had worked in this factory 1867-1869, wrote that the newly built factory carried out a series of experiments for the construction of soundboards, and presented their importance for then executed constructions dar. Man but also led radical strings arrangements at the panel pianos one. Your tiny four feet high and 147 cm wide square piano with the name Colibri had in 1867 won the highest prize at the fair of the American Institute, [note 4] and both this piano as well as the 208 cm long Orchestral panel wing cross took the entire width of the soundboard, rather than as in other conventional panel pianos only the right part. They distributed the strings to the entire cast iron frame and the entire soundboard. The equalizing scale, as they called him claimed, " to produce sound volume and beauty of his tone, which is usually found only in grand pianos " one.
1871 offered the company also living room wing ( parlor grands ) in " harp arrangement " to, as well as a grand piano, and within ten years led to a one 175 cm long square piano and a high piano ( "upright " ), had the tuning pin bushings to set the mood better than keep in conventional pianos.
1880 established the Mathushek Piano Mfg.. Co. their own showrooms in New York City at 23 East 14th Street, and advertised that they had built and sold more than 5,000 pianos. 1897, the factory was then located on Washington Avenue corner Brown Street in West Haven, Connecticut., And one advertised to have sold more than 30,000 pianos.
The Parmelee Piano Works, where the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company produced their instruments, had one of the first non- experimental sprinkler systems installed by M. Seward & Son from New Haven, based on the patented design by Henry S. Parmelee of 1874. Parmelee licensed 1879, the Patent and improvements to it on the basis of percentage interests in the Providence Steam and Gas Pipe. Henry S. Parmelee patented seven improvements for sprinkler 1874-1882. He received 1884 patents for the construction of soundboards and 1885 for the construction of high piano enclosures that built the central housing part on a kind of support base vertically.
Parmelee died in 1902, but the company continued at the same address continued its work. 1912 Charles Jacob was president.
New York, 1870s
As described in the 1882 article published at Music and Drama Mathushek had returned to New York in 1870 and was only the name associated with the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company; Dolge is dated a year later, when he was listed for not specifically assigned patents, whose purpose was compensating the bending load of string tension, and in conjunction with vertically arranged buttons levers for upright pianos. 1874 was Mathushek with David H. Dunham of Dunham & Sons together with which he patented improvements in iron frame and wrest plank bridges.
1877 advertised the Mendelssohn Piano Company its last triple -strung square pianos, the " used Mathusheks new duplex overstrung scale, the biggest improvement in the history of piano-making, " to have been given and claimed, recommendations on the highest awards and honors, which in Centennial Exhibition were distributed in 1876, where the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Co. had issued pianos.
Mathushek & Son
1879 patented Frederick and Hugo Jr. Mathushek a new arrangement of Stegagraffen in conjunction with a development to limit the vibrations of the front attachment lengths that were already in place with a patent in 1860. The web structure, called equilibre system, bending the strings included alternating back to the soundboard and the soundboard off to two different levels of attachment pins - a difference that should be up to 15 degrees in order to minimize the pressure on the soundboard and balance ( a angle for conventional web design with studding zigzag usually less than two degrees ).
The following year the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Co. warned the public against " fake pianos its original brand name at auctions and elsewhere ."
1881 were " the only original Mathushek with the Equilibre system" advertised that they had " invented and manufactured by the original Mathusheks in New York," and the public was informed that " Mathushek, New York" cast into the cast iron frames are should, as a warning against pianos that would made in West Haven, Connecticut under the same name.
Frederick Mathushek died on 9 November 1891 in the 242 West 123rd Street, where he had lived with his grandson five years. He was superintendent at Mathushek & Son at the address 344 and 346 East 23rd Street.
Victor Hugo Mathushek continued the design ideas of his grandfather and received 1891 and 1895 patents for soundboards ( Duplex Sounding Board ) and 1896 for metal frames.
Jacob Brothers
In 1900 came the piano maker and brothers Charles and Albert C. Jacob of the Jacob company Brothers, founded in 1877 in New York, the company Mathushek as directors at. C. A. Jacob was CFO. The company named in the following year with the tax authorities a capital of $ 50,000. 1908 James P. Beckwith was managing director.
Victor Hugo Mathushek died 1910. The following year, the company belonged entirely to the brothers Jacob, which included the piano-maker James & Holmstrom and Klaviergehäusebau company Wellington Piano Case Company and the keyboard Abbott Piano Action Company at the same time.
Mathushek & Son was reported from about 1918 to 1930 in 37 West 37th Street.
1930 was the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company, who had given up their old factory on Campbell Avenue around 1906, in the 88 Elm Street, West Haven, and at 43 West 57th Street, New York, resident.
1931 brought the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company a spinet piano out, square piano, which required only the " Place a lounge ." They attacked the old Colibri design, and replaced other wing and damper mechanisms based on a patent by Fernando A. Wessell, Red Bank, New jersey in 1935 based. [ Note 6 ]
C. Albert Jacob, president of both companies, the Jacob Brothers and the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Co. died 1940. He was followed by his sons Albert C. Jacob, Jr. as Vice President and as a former president he piano manufacturers association agreement once, and Charles Hall Jacob.
Charles Hall Jacob died in 1953; 1954 Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company was sold to Alexander P. Brown, an inventor who held patents for nineteen Spinettmechaniken and housing. The production moved from the corner of 138th Street Walton Avenue in the Bronx to the address 4401 11th Street, Queens, Long Iceland City.
2005 to today
The company Burgett Brothers, Inc., owner of Mason & Hamlin and Sohmer & Co. claimed the court to use the name for pianos in 2005, but they gave the trademark in 2007.
Geoffrey Immersive from Woodbridge, Conn., of the name Gildemeester & Kroeger registered in 2006, another long -been already inactive piano construction company, sought the name Mathushek in the spring to be able to use 2008.