It is a difficult matter to secure accurate figures in estimating the piano output, because the individual manufacturers are not in the habit of letting outsiders into their confidence in too large a degree. Then, within a radius of 100 miles of Chicago, we can very truthfully add to this amount another 30,000 pianos, which will bring the total piano production of the Middle West to 105,000, or over one third of the entire product of the whole country. This is the product of the Chicago piano manufacturers alone. If in the United States, 300,000 pianos were made last year, it is safe to assume that the Chicago piano manufacturers, those whose headquarters are in Chicago, and who place the name “Chicago” on the fall board of their pianos, produced fully 75,000 pianos. Good judges have reached the conclusion that within the next fifteen years the player piano will bring up the total piano output at least to 500,000 pianos a year. The advent of the player piano, or the piano with the playing mechanism in its interior, is largely augmenting the annual production of pianos, simply because it brings into the homes of the nation, where music is loved but not mastered, the means of gratifying every musical taste. It gives each year a new field to be tilled by the piano manufacturers with profit, and this new field, with the old that is being constantly worker! over, demands a steady output of pianos. The yearly percentage of increase in the 85,000,000 population of the United States, the accretion, as it were, is in itself immense. If one looks at the situation in the abstract and declares that these 300,000 pianos represent a retail value of something like $90,000,000, then it is that the larger aspect is impressed upon the mind. It must be borne in mind that piano fashions change that pianos wear out that thousands of new homes are being established every year in which the love of music is manifest, and the piano is its ordinary means of expression. Those who are unacquainted with the piano field and with piano statistics will be inclined to look upon these figures as something enormous.

This year, owing to prevailing conditions, it is likely that the output will be somewhat less, but if so, there will not be any serious falling off. That was approximately the piano product of the United States during 1906. “Chicago The Great Central Market Magazine” July 1907

1918 kimball baby grand piano