Rudolph Wurlitzer

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Franz Rudolph Wurlitzer (born February 1, 1831 in Schöneck , Saxony , † January 14, 1914 in Cincinnati , Ohio ) was a German-American musical instrument maker and dealer who became famous for the pianos and jukeboxes named after him .

Career

One of his early ancestors, Nicholas Wurlitzer (* 1659), made lutes. Rudolph Wurlitzer attended schools in Schöneck and Plauen. His father, Christian Gottfried Wurlitzer , was a musical instrument dealer, 12 km from Schöneck was what was then the center of the German musical instrument trade ( Markneukirchen ). From 1851 in particular, there was a brisk trade in string and wind instruments. After his training in family business, the conflicts between father and son increased because Rudolph wanted to emigrate to America. When the father finally appointed his youngest son, Constantin, to own the company, Rudolph's desire to emigrate grew stronger. According to the company's history, his uncle gave him $ 80 for the passage on the ship that took him from Bremen to Hoboken, New Jersey, in June 1853 .

Penniless and without any knowledge of English, he became a salesman in a grocery store. On the onward journey he found no work in Philadelphia and made his way to Cincinnati , where he worked as a peddler. In 1854 he was employed by Heidelbach & Seasonground (the city's first investment bank) in Cincinnati. The nearby musical instrument retailer caught his attention. In particular, the lower quality of American instruments compared to Saxony and the high price level of instruments imported from Germany, due to several middlemen on the way from German manufacturers to Cincinnati. Wurlitzer avoided the middleman. He sent his family a $ 700 savings with a list of instruments and detailed shipping instructions with a request that the instruments be sent to him. He received string and wind instruments that he sold to local retailers for $ 2,200.

Company formation

Wurlitzer Orchestrion from 1912

In August 1856 he founded his first company in the Masonic Building of Cincinnati, called the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company . The company grew rapidly and moved to larger premises in 1858. A coincidence earned him the major order to supply the US Army with drums, some of which he had himself manufactured. So he gave up his banking job in 1859. On October 8, 1859, he was granted US citizenship. In 1861 he began producing musical instruments, and by 1865 his company was the largest supplier of musical instruments in the USA. After his marriage in 1868 to the Alsatian Leony Farny (1842–1931), the sister of the painter Henry Farny , six children were born. The first child, Howard Eugene Wurlitzer , was born in 1871, who joined his father's company in 1889. In the meantime, Rudolph Wurlitzer's brother had also emigrated in 1872 and joined the renamed Rudolph Wurlitzer and Brother company as a partner . From 1880 the shop had a catalog of over 200 pages, and in the same year the first piano bearing the Wurlitzer name was built. Two other sons, Rudolph Henry and Farney Reginald , joined the company in 1894 and 1904. Sylvia, Leonie and Percival were also born. In 1908 a large production facility was established in New York State. In 1899, his father developed a coin-paid piano that was played by a prefabricated cylinder roll - the Wurlitzer Tonophone . The rapid growth of the American music industry also allowed Wurlitzer's company to grow, so that it moved to a six-story building in 1906. One of the last activities of Rudolph Wurlitzer sen. was in 1910 the acquisition of a bankrupt organ manufacturer, the Hope-Jones Organ Company . When Wurlitzer died in 1914, his three sons were already established as managers in the company.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carry Segrave, Jukeboxes, An American Social History , 2002, p. 22
  2. ↑ Hartmut Berghoff, Between Small Town and World Market: Hohner and the Harmonica 1857-1961: Company History as Company History , 1997, p. 70
  3. ^ John Krivine, "Jukebox Saturday Night," 33, 1977, New English Library, London
  4. ^ John Krivine, "Jukebox Saturday Night," 33, 1977, New English Library, London
  5. ^ Immigrant Entrepreneurship, Rudolph Wurlitzer
  6. ↑ Billboard Magazine, August 25, 1956, Wurlitzer World of Music Built on Century of Growth , p. 87
  7. ↑ Wurlitzer catalog 1880 (PDF, 9.93 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Wurlitzer, Rudolph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wurlitzer, Franz Rudolph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American musical instrument maker and dealer
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Schöneck , Saxony
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1914
Place of death Cincinnati , Ohio