Emil Welte

Emil Welte, ca.1907

Emil Welte (born April 20, 1841 in Vöhrenbach in the Black Forest , † October 25, 1923 in Norwichtown, Norwich (Connecticut) ) was a German-American manufacturer, inventor and businessman. He was the first child of the famous music box maker Michael Welte and his wife Maria Adelheidis Ganter (1819–1857).

Life

In Furtwangen he attended the Grand Ducal Baden Watchmaking School, founded in 1850 . He was then instructed in harmony with the Karlsruhe court conductor Joseph Strauss (1793–1866) . In his obituary in the Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau it says: “ ... He was active in the art of clock making, namely the music box . Already in his youth he showed such genius and mastery in this field that at the age of 21 he received the honorable commission from Grand Duke Friedrich von Baden to represent the Black Forest watch and music box industry at the London World Exhibition in 1862 . In 1865 he traveled to the USA to set up an orchestrion in New York in the then world-famous Atlantic Garden by William Kramer . This was a landmark in New York for many years. He founded the company " M. Welte & Sons " to represent his father's business in the USA . Another orchestrion, which he set up in New York in “Theis' Alhambra Court”, also became a sight.

In 1871 Emil married Emma Foerster from Norwich in Connecticut, born in 1853 , a daughter of German immigrants from Prussia. The couple had two children: Carl M. Welte (1872–1955) and Emile Welte (1873–1881), who died at the age of eight.

In 1880, after the father's death, the Freiburg motherhouse was taken over by the brothers Emil, Berthold and Michael Jr.

On October 30, 1883, Emil Welte was granted US patent 287,599, with which the Freiburg company M. Welte & Sons and their American subsidiary protected the control of musical instruments by a perforated sheet of music. On October 28, 1883, the German Imperial Patent No. 26,733 followed. This process, which works with compressed air, was constantly being further developed because it had not proven itself in practice. Two further patents from 1889 (DRP 48.741 and 58.252) improved the process decisively and made it practical. This piano roll system, which works with suction air, was decisive for further business success. It replaced the sensitive pin rollers previously used to control the instruments with perforated strips of paper, the so-called piano rolls . From then on, Welte switched the entire production to the piano roll, other companies followed.

With the piano roll, the industry had for the first time an easily producible and exchangeable sound carrier available. This new medium had an enormous influence on the development of the music industry , which was beginning at that time , which was able to supply its customers with the latest music for the first time. M. Welte & Sons had now changed from being a manufacturer of musical instruments to being a manufacturer of media. Logically, the company offered owners of older instruments that were controlled by wooden rollers the conversion to the new system for free, as customers could be won for the sale of the media here.

With the launch of the Welte-Mignon - Reproduction Piano 1905 Welte succeeded finally the breakthrough to the forefront of manufacturers of mechanical musical instruments.

literature

• Augustinermuseum (ed.): Automatic musical instruments from Freiburg into the world - 100 years of Welte-Mignon . Exhibition from September 17, 2005 to January 8, 2006. Freiburg, 2005. With contributions by Durward R. Center, Gerhard Dangel u. a.
• Georg von Skal: History of German immigration in the United States and successful German-Americans and their descendants . New York, Smiley, 1908, pp. 174, 213.
• Sketch of Emil Welte, Famous Inventor Obituary in Presto , Chicago, Dec. 1, 1923, p. 15 (PDF).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau, Volume 44 (1923/24), obituary on p. 276. "
2. ↑ Information on the US census sheet
3. ↑ US Patent 287,599 (1883)