American Made Pianos

An Outstanding Manufacturing Tradition

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Emerson Piano Company

Factory Location: Boston, Massachusettes
Serial Number Dates: 1850 - 1940 (?)

History:

Emerson Piano Company began making pianos around 1850, continuing production for almost a century. The name made several mergers, including ones with the United Piano Corporation, the American Piano Company and the Aeolian Piano Company. Besides the Emerson name, the company also made the Gramer piano.

 

Information source: Pierce Piano Atlas

The Resonance of a Continent: The American Piano Tradition

The American piano manufacturing tradition is a story of unparalleled craftsmanship meeting the boundless natural resources of a new world. At its heart lies the selection of materials—most notably the vast, old-growth spruce forests of the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast. These superior stands of Sitka and Adirondack spruce provided the tight-grained, resonant timber essential for crafting the world’s finest soundboards, offering a tonal depth and "singing" quality that European makers envied. Combined with a relentless spirit of industrial innovation, American makers refined the overstrung scale and the heavy cast-iron plate, creating instruments of such structural integrity and powerful projection that they redefined the modern piano.