William Steinway
William Steinway , born Wilhelm Steinweg (born March 5, 1835 in Seesen , Duchy of Braunschweig , † November 30, 1896 in New York ) was a German-American piano maker, businessman and philanthropist .
biography
First years in Germany
Wilhelm Steinweg was born in Seesen as the fourth son of the piano maker Heinrich E. Steinweg , the founder of Steinway & Sons , and his wife Juliane. In addition to a general school education, he also received lessons in languages and music. He spent two years as an apprentice in his father's organ and piano manufacturer.
Steinway & Sons
He came to the United States of America with his father and brothers in 1850 and settled in New York. Williams' second oldest brother, Karl (Charles), had emigrated in 1848, had explored the conditions in New York and wrote home enthusiastic letters about it.
There the family Anglicized their name to Steinway. Together with his father and brothers Charles and Henry, William founded Steinway & Sons in 1853 . Before that, the men who worked in various New York piano manufacturers had also made piano components at home and apparently also built complete table pianos that they had delivered to Broadway dealers for sale under strange names . These instruments must have been counted when it was then claimed that the family company founded in 1853 was already very experienced with 482 previously built instruments.
During his father's lifetime, the young William became the commercial driving force behind the rapidly growing company. At the age of 23, he bought an entire block of land in front of what was then the gates of the city on a family contract to build a large new piano factory, which opened in 1860, seven years after the company was founded, on Fourth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets and caused a sensation with the second largest enclosed space behind the Capitol in Washington. Almost ten years later, this area was too small again. William Steinway began to buy up land on a large scale on Long Island, where US manufacturing still stands today, across from Rikers Island . First of all, prefabrication, the sprue and the keyboards as well as the furniture construction were carried out there. Final assembly continued in Manhattan until 1910. William Steinway resided at Steinway Hall on 14th Street, and had his office directly to the left of the entrance for decades. Theo planned the pianos and researched the factory, first Albert, then from 1877 the husband of her sister Dorothee (Doretta) Ziegler. William did the business, made advertising, dealt with the external image of the company, and made the company known with his social presence in the "Liederkranz", in the Democratic Party and his commitment to public transport and local transport in New York . He became “Mr. Music America ".
In 1871, after the death of his father, William took over the overall commercial management of the company. Although he was not the oldest (his brother Theo, who subsequently emigrated in 1865, was ten years older), William Steinway owned most of the shares, especially since he was also the executor of the widows of both brothers who died in 1865. The Steinway women were kept out of business decisions by partner agreements. In particular, the Steinway men wanted to prevent the in-laws , married couples, brothers-in-law, from making decisions at Steinway & Sons. William Steinway adopted this patriarchalism from his father unchanged. He also governed the decisions of his brother families, for example by having the children of his brother Charles' widow in Braunschweig via lawyers friends and wanting to have them raised by people he trusted. That decision was then successfully challenged in a New York court - one of the few defeats William Steinway suffered. In 1876, William Steinway was officially named President of Steinway & Sons at a shareholders' meeting after settling his private problems with Regina Roos Steinway's divorce.
The remaining brothers Albert, William and Theo had some internal disputes, in which, however, William always had the upper hand due to his majority stake. Theo was against the continuation of Steinway Hall at bad times , wanted to turn it into a storage room for over-produced and unsold grand pianos. Theo was also against providing the piano virtuosos with free instruments. He had no chance of asserting himself against William. Outwardly, William then built up Theo as a technical genius, and with an intensive publication of all patents registered to the Steinway brothers, especially Theo, ensured that the memory of the two Henrys, father and son, faded.
Built in 1866, William Steinway modeled on the Paris -house concert halls of Érard and Pleyel the Steinway Hall , in order to create a place for displaying exceptional musical abilities. His new trick was to lay the footpath to the hall for the concert-goers right through the exhibition of pianos ready for sale. This became a great achievement for the company. He founded the Concert & Artists division for concert events, which still exists today, and organized the first concert tour of a piano virtuoso with Anton Rubinstein in 1872, which, with more than 200 concerts across the USA, was a great success not only for the pianist, but was also used for advertising by Steinway.
In 1870, William Steinway began building his own corporate housing estate , Steinway Village in Astoria in Queens, New York . He also relocated the Steinway piano manufacturing facilities there to avoid the overcrowded streets and poor working conditions in Manhattan . Steinway & Sons pianos are still made there today. Houses for the workers, a church, a library and a kindergarten were built near the factory. A company-owned horse-drawn tram connected the site. In 1939, the recreational area Steinway had developed east of Astoria in North Beach was converted into North Beach Airport , which was later renamed LaGuardia Airport .
In 1876 business success culminated at the World's Fair in Philadelphia , where the new concert grand piano designs by Theodor Steinway won the prizes. Since then, the D-models from Steinway & Sons have been the benchmark on concert platforms around the world. The family motto ( To build the best piano possible ) had come true. In the reviews of European music magazines, these concert grand pianos were referred to as the "Stradivarias of the pianos".
The brothers William and Theo had realized very shortly after Theo's family-forced arrival in New York in 1865 and his sale of the shares to Grotrian's son that this step had been a mistake - the strong demand in Europe for Steinway grand pianos and the problems with it the import and customs regulations made it sensible to manufacture Steinway pianos in Europe again. Previously, an attempt initiated in 1867 to build pianos with US sound systems together with a small French manufacturer had been given up and the license agreement with the Mangeot brothers terminated; the Steinway Chronicle only tells the unpleasant end of the story that William Steinway then had to sue the Mangeot brothers in Nancy for "illegal copying". There must have been around 200 grand pianos with French inscription "Mangeot & Steinway" on the key flap, four of these instruments are still documented. Initially, they were created under license. The Mangeots built the furniture, installed the sound system and keyboard supplied from New York, regulated the instruments and then sold them in France and England as a Steinway exclusive dealer - an arrangement that lasted until around 1871/1872 and was then canceled by William was in order to manufacture completely in-house again. Which then prompted William to take legal action in France - just as he took the Grotrians to court in Braunschweig for their continued use of the name “Steinweg Successors”.
A short-term attempt to build pianos in the second Steinway Hall , which had also existed in London since 1875 , was abandoned after a few months and after great anger over an unfaithful London management. Together with his brother Theodor, who was pushing back to Germany, William Steinway rented a sewing machine factory in today's Schanzenstrasse in St. Pauli in order to start building pianos on European soil again from 1880.
William Steinway made friends with Gottlieb Daimler on one of his many trips to Germany ; they agreed on a business collaboration that would create internal combustion engines and later also cars under license from Daimler in a part of the Rikers Plant of Steinway, "The American Daimler". During a visit by Gottlieb Daimler to the factory in Queens, however, a dispute almost broke out because Daimler demanded improvements and greater commitment from Steinway, which William Steinway was not prepared to provide in his tense financial situation.
William Steinway was also largely successful in building the next generation of leadership. However, one of the nephews trained in the company and initially picked out as his successor caused him considerable difficulties, which led to a number of unpleasant lawsuits, always with the risk for Steinway & Sons that another Steinway company would have another Steinway company as competition elsewhere using the family name can be established. Ultimately, William Steinway broke up with this rebellious nephew and gave him a court-enforced house ban. This was the only case in well over 100 years and four generations of the family management in which it was not possible to resolve disputes over the management of Steinway & Sons internally.
In the later years of his life, especially after the death of his eldest brother Theodor in 1889, professional problems increased. The real estate speculation sparked by William Steinway with the company village "Steinway Village" next to the Rikers factory turned out to be a money pit , an insatiable pit of sinking money. Only years after William Steinway's death in 1896 did the rapid rise in land prices on Long Island provide a subsequent justification for his high level of involvement in the real estate sector.
In evaluating the person William Steinway for Steinway's company history, it emerges that he was one of the three geniuses among the children of Juliane and Heinrich Engelhard. The brothers Henry Jr. and Theodor established and completed the technical basis in the maturation phase of the standard in wing construction that is still valid today; and William was the commercial driving force, the business power-conscious, extremely brand-conscious, creative head in marketing, as well as being musically, singingly and socially very active, people-loving person an excellent representative of the company's interests. At the age of 61 he died, comparatively early, like all his brothers who emigrated with him in 1850.
His successor as managing director was Charles Herman Steinway , son of one of his brothers. Another nephew of William Steinway was followed by Theodore E. Steinway and Henry Z. Steinway, a son and a grandson in the management of the company.
Connection with Daimler
William Steinway and Gottlieb Daimler , who both wanted to achieve the best possible quality in their field of business, met in Germany in 1888. Shortly afterwards, Steinway supported Daimler in entering the US market with the establishment of Daimler Motor Co, New York on September 29, 1888. The connection between the manufacturers Steinway and Daimler lasted until 2011: The hand-polished wood for the interior trim of the Daimler cars The Maybach brand was supplied by the Steinway factory in Hamburg .
Local public transport
In the 1890s Steinway began extending the Steinway Estate's horse tram under the East River to Manhattan. This project eventually led to the IRT Flushing Line . William Steinway did not live to see the completion of the project, the tunnels he had dug under the East River were named Steinway Tunnels in his honor . The excavation from the excavations was poured into an island in the East River, which is now called U Thant Island . Steinway also chaired the New York Subway Commission , the committee that planned the New York subway network.
Private
William Steinway married Regina Roos, the daughter of a wealthy Buffalo brewery owner . The couple had three children. From 1874 Regina cheated on her husband when he was traveling. In 1875, a year before William Steinway's greatest business success, he abandoned his wife and sent her with the youngest son on a boat trip to Europe. After further incidents in Europe, Steinway filed for divorce in New York. Her son was resident in Munich under the maiden name of his mother as a doctor and was supported for life by William Steinway. William Steinway later married Elisabeth Ranft, with whom he had another son.
William Steinway was a member and long-time president of the "Liederkranz" association, a men's choir of business people and dignitaries of German origin. He was friends with Grover Cleveland , who later became President of the United States. When William died in 1896, New York was in mourning.
William Steinway had the allegedly first Steinway & Sons piano produced in New York, a large square piano with the serial number 483, brought to the museum in his hometown Seesen, where it can still be viewed today, but is no longer playable. The family counted the 482 instruments allegedly produced in Seesen with the name Steinweg up to 1850 and continued the series counting from 1853. The first New York year of production and the serial numbers are considered somewhat controversial, however, as the just 18-year-old William was commissioned by the illiterate father to keep the delivery books of the manufacture; There are a number of corrections and torn pages on the first pages of the delivery books. A square piano with an earlier number in the area of 400, apparently manufactured in New York, is said to have been found in the company's warehouse in Manhattan in the 1920s when the large Steinway factory built in 1860 on 4th Avenue in Manhattan prepared for sale and was evacuated, quickly destroyed.
The city of Seesen made William Steinway an honorary citizen. A large room on the first floor of the Seesen Museum is dedicated exclusively to the piano and Steinway theme. In addition to the square piano, there is also one of the early New York high pianos, and a Parlor Grand Style II semi-concert grand piano from 1864 with a serial number in the early range of 8,000, which comes from a Hamburg family, served the Seesen men's choir for decades and is still playable, the piano design Masterpiece by father Henry Steinway and William's brother Henry Junior.
heritage
William Steinway died on November 30, 1896 and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery .
The main street in Astoria was renamed Steinway Street in his honor . A station on the IND Queens Boulevard Line also bears this name. His birth town Seesen, where he had part of today's spa park laid out, made him an honorary citizen in 1888. Today a memorial stone commemorates him there.
literature
- Dirk Stroschein: William Steinway. Where he was in Seesen and New York. A search for clues. Seesen 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-041939-3 .
Web links
- William Steinway diaries (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steinway & Sons. In: Owners' Magazine. 2009, p. 95.
- ↑ Find A Grave
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Steinway, William |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Steinweg, Wilhelm (birth name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American piano maker, businessman and philanthropist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 5, 1835 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Seesen , Duchy of Braunschweig |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 30, 1896 |
| Place of death | new York |