American Made Pianos

An Outstanding Manufacturing Tradition

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American Piano Company

Factory Location: New York, New York
Serial Number Dates: 1908 - 1985

History:

Established in 1908, The American Piano Company produced nine different makes of pianos, a production design that was intended to cover the price range established by the class divisions of American society. Later, in 1932, the American Piano Company merged with the Aeolian Piano Company to form Aeolian-American Co., and with aggressive strategies for merging with other American manufactures, eventually became the umbrella for a long list of piano names, including Aeolian, Acoustigrande, Ampico, Armstrong, Brewster, Chickering, A.B. Chase, Duo Art, Ellsworth, Emerson, J & C Fischer, Foster-Armstrong, Marshall-Wendell, Mason & Hamlin, Franklin, Gabler, Haines Brothers, Holmer & Sons, Knabe, Laffargue, Normandie, Lindeman, Primatone, Stuyvesant, Pianola, George Steck, Stratford, Stroud, Vose, Weber, Wheelock, and Primatone. The company closed its Rochester factory doors in 1982 and its Memphis factory in 1985.

 

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.