Chickering & Sons

Allgemeines

FirmennameChickering & Sons
OrtssitzBoston (Mass.)
StraßeWashington street
Art des UnternehmensKlavierfabrik
Anmerkungen-
Quellenangaben[Bishop: History of American manufacturers 3 (1868) 285]




Unternehmensgeschichte

Zeit Ereignis
15.02.1818 Chickering kommt in Boston an und findet Arbeit als Möbeltischler.
1819 Chickering beginnt bei Osborn, dem einzigen Klavierbauer der Stadt, wo Chickering vier Jahre arbeitet.
15.02.1823 Chickering geht eine Partnerschaft mit Stewart bei der Herstellung von Klavieren ein.
1826 Die Verbindung mit Stewart geht zu Ende.
1852 Die große Fabrik in der Washington Street wird durch Feuer zerstört. Der Schaden beträgt $200.000
1853 Die Fabrik wird fertiggestellt.
03.1853 Fertigstellung der neuen Fabrik (als Ersatz für die im Vorjahr abgebrannte)




Betriebene Dampfmaschinen

Bezeichnung Bauzeit Hersteller
Dampfmaschine um 1868 unbekannt




Allgemeines

ZEIT1868
THEMAFirmenbeschreibung
TEXTIs one of the very largest Manufacturing Establishments that have as yet been erected in this country. It was completed in 1853, and is built in the form of a hollow square - enclosing a spacious court - with a front on Tremont street of two hundred and forty-five feet, and wings two hundred and sixty-two feet in length, and a uniform width of fifty feet. It is five stories in height from the street, and six stories from the centre court. Three millions of brick, two thousand perches of stone, one million six hundred and five thousand feet of lumber, three hundred casks of nails, and two thousand five hundred casks of lime and cement, were consumed in its construction. It has nine hundred windows, with eleven thousand panes of glass, and the superficial area of the floor room exceeds five acres. The interior is arranged with a special view to convenience and facility in workmanship, and is provided with every known mechanical contrivance to assist manual labor. The engine which propels the machinery is of one hundred and twenty horse-power, and the furnaces and boilers, situated below the engine room, furnish steam not only for the engine, but for heating the whole building, in which there are eleven miles of steam pipe. The steam, after traversing the building, is returned to the boilers at one hundred and ninety degrees, and does its part in heating the rest. Passing from the Engine room to the room between the two wings, we enter the Steam mill, where the rough material, taken from the lumber yard in the rear, is fashioned, on numerous machines, into the shapes required. Rosewood and mahogany logs are here sawed into veneers. The Dimension room is on the first floor of the north wing, where all the stock is cut and sawed to its proper length, and prepared for use in the room above, where it acquires the form of a Piano case. The third story of this wing is the Case room, where the veneerings are applied. In the fourth story the Piano case receives its sounding-board and iron frame. And going up to -the fifth story, it passes through the Yarnish room, in the main building, and begins its descent on the other side, gradually assuming shape and finish, until it is ready for the Sales room. Elevators, at each wing, moved by steam, make the passage of the Piano to the various rooms, a distance exceeding a mile, perfectly easy and expeditious. The Drying room, which is at the top of the building, where the sounding-boards are finished, is kept all the year round at a heat of ninety, Fahrenheit. These boards are all made out of spruce, which comes from Herkimer county, New York, and have to undergo a probation of several years before they are admitted into the Piano-forte. As an illustration of the relative proportion of materials that enter into the composition of a Piano, the following statistics of the yearly consumption in this vast establishment are interesting, viz. : six hundred thousand feet of pine, maple, and oak; eighty-five thousand feet of black walnut; two hundred thousand feet of pine, for packing-boxes; twenty thousand feet of spruce, for sounding-boards; three hundred thousand rosewood veneers; thirty thousand feet chestnut veneers; thirty thousand feet of walnut and twelve thousand feet of oak veneers; seventeen thousand pounds of glue; sixty reams sand paper; seventeen hundred and fifty gallons varnish; twelve hundred pounds white lead; thirty-one pounds pumice-stone; three barrels linseed oil; two barrels spirits turpentine; fifteen barrels alcohol; three hundred dollars' worth gold bronze, for plates; six hundred dollars' worth paints; three hundred thousand pounds iron castings; thirty-three hundred pounds brass-castings; twenty thousand six hundred pounds iron wire; five thousand pounds steel wire; thirty-three hundred pounds brass wire; five hundred pounds bar steel; three thousand pounds wrought bar iron; fourteen thousand pairs hinges; three thousand one hundred and fifty gross screws; two thousand locks; eight thousand castors; and two thousand sets ivory. The founder of this large Manufactory was Jonas Chickering, who, however, did not live to witness its completion. He was born in the State of New Hampshire, near the town of New Ipswich, where he served an apprenticeship of three years at the cabinet-maker's trade'. He early evinced a taste for Music, and at the age of nineteen, undertook the reparation of a disordered Piano - the only one in the town - which, after much labor, he succeeded in restoring to usefulness. This instrument belonged to Samuel Batchelder, elsewhere alluded to, and was no doubt the first Piano-forte that Mr. Chickering ever saw. On February 15th, 1818, he arrived in Boston, and found employment at cabinet-making, commencing work on the very day of his arrival. One year afterward he entered into the employment of Mr. Osborn, then almost the only manufacturer of Piano-fortes in the city, with whom he remained four years. On February 15th, 1823, he entered into a copartnership with a Mr. Stewart in the manufacture of Pianos, which continued for three years, when it was dissolved; and Mr. Chickering prosecuted the business without a partner for several years. He then became associated with Mr. Mackay, a capitalist of Boston, and by the erection of large buildings, and the importation of rare kinds of wood, prepared for an extension of the business, which rapidly followed. It is a noticeable circumstance in his career, that all his partnerships, and all his most important undertakings, date from the fifteenth day of February, the anniversary of his arrival in the city of Boston. In 1852, his large Manufactory on Washington street was destroyed by fire, involving a loss of two hundred thousand dollars; and he then laid the foundations of the present establishment, which has been described. But before its completion, in March, 1853, he died, leaving to his sons the most famous name in the annals of musical mechanism, and a business which his genius and skill had increased from fifteen instruments - the number made by him the first year - to thirteen hundred per year. Since Mr. Chickering's decease, the business has been conducted by his three sons, who have had the advantage of a thorough training and long experience, and who have made and adopted improvements that render the instruments which they now manufacture far superior to the best made by their father. They employ about five hundred workmen, some of whom earn forty dollars per week, and have been connected with the establishment for thirty years; and they turn out over two thousand Pianos a year. They have received, from Fairs and Exhibitions, gold and silver Medals sufficient to form an extensive numismatic collection, and Testimonials from eminent performers and competent musical critics, which, if arranged in a volume, would make a bulky octavo. Their Square and Grand Pianos have been repeatedly subjected to the most rigid tests of comparative merit in competition with the best instruments made in Europe and America, with results so satisfactory, that their superior quality and excellence cannot now reasonably be questioned; and recently Messrs. Chickering & Sons have made such improvements in Upright Pianos - which have heretofore not been popular in this country - that they can confidently recommend them for refined beauty of tone as well as elegance of design and perfection of finish. These instruments, from their size and form, are suitable for many rooms where a Grand or Square Piano would prove an incumbrance. To the Messrs. Chickerings the country is also indebted for the introduction of the "Circular Scale", which has contributed as much, cer-tinly, as any other improvement, to the present excellence of the American Piano.
QUELLE[Bishop: History of American manufacturers 3 (1868) 285]