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The Cable Company
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The Cable Company
The Cable Company (earlier, Wolfinger Organ Company, Chicago Cottage Organ Company; sometimes called by the name of its subsidiary, The Cable Piano Company) was an American manufacturer and distributor of pianos and reed organs that operated independently from 1880 to 1936.
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the company proclaimed itself "the world's greatest manufacturer of pianos, inner player pianos, and organs". It was indubitably one of the largest, and maintained that status for several decades during the apogee of U.S. piano sales, the so-called Golden Age of the Piano. Trade publications of the day called it "the largest reed organ house in the world, and the largest wholesaler in the world of medium-grade pianos" (1895); "the largest piano and organ makers in the world" (1904); and "one of the 'great leaders' in the trade" (1922). Its premium Conover line of pianos was noted as belonging to "the highest grade manufactured".
The decline of the piano market in the late 1920s followed by the Great Depression forced The Cable Company to merge with another northern-Illinois piano maker in 1936, becoming The Schiller Cable Manufacturing Company. In 1950, the merged company was subsumed into the Aeolian Company, which closed in 1984.
Herman Cable (June 1, 1849-1899), born on a farm in Walton, New York, to Silas and Mary Goodrich Cable, was a student of such precociousness that he was at age 17 elected school principal in Easton, Pennsylvania, and a year later appointed superintendent of schools in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He later got a job in New York City with the publishing house of Barnes and Co., which in 1869 (or 1870) sent him to Chicago to manage the western department.
In the fall of 1879, Cable joined (or helped found, sources differ) the Wolfinger Organ Co. Cable served as treasurer and director, along with F.R. Wolfinger, president, and John A. Comstock, secretary. Its offices and factory were in a three-story building at Randolph and Ann (today, Racine) Streets, owned by New York financier Hetty Green and familiarly known as the Coan & Ten Broek carriage-factory after a previous occupant. A fire on April 18, 1880, caused damage initially estimated at $15,000 to $20,000, which was largely if not entirely covered by insurance.
The Wolfinger factory made small reed organs—"cottage organs"— but it also turned out furniture, sewing machine tops, elevator cabs, and more. After Cable arrived, the Wolfinger company began to separate out its various products; the furniture business, for example, would wind down by 1883.
In 1880, the subsidiary that made reed organs was named Chicago Cottage Organ Co.
In 1885, the company added two partners: E.E. Wise and George W. Tewksbury, experienced organ makers who had worked for the Western Cottage Organ Co. of Ottawa, Illinois. Williard Naramore Van Matre, Sr. (1851–1939) joined as sales manager and a stockholder; he would stay for 10 years before leaving to start the Straube Piano Company.
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The Cable Company
The Cable Company (earlier, Wolfinger Organ Company, Chicago Cottage Organ Company; sometimes called by the name of its subsidiary, The Cable Piano Company) was an American manufacturer and distributor of pianos and reed organs that operated independently from 1880 to 1936.
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, the company proclaimed itself "the world's greatest manufacturer of pianos, inner player pianos, and organs". It was indubitably one of the largest, and maintained that status for several decades during the apogee of U.S. piano sales, the so-called Golden Age of the Piano. Trade publications of the day called it "the largest reed organ house in the world, and the largest wholesaler in the world of medium-grade pianos" (1895); "the largest piano and organ makers in the world" (1904); and "one of the 'great leaders' in the trade" (1922). Its premium Conover line of pianos was noted as belonging to "the highest grade manufactured".
The decline of the piano market in the late 1920s followed by the Great Depression forced The Cable Company to merge with another northern-Illinois piano maker in 1936, becoming The Schiller Cable Manufacturing Company. In 1950, the merged company was subsumed into the Aeolian Company, which closed in 1984.
Herman Cable (June 1, 1849-1899), born on a farm in Walton, New York, to Silas and Mary Goodrich Cable, was a student of such precociousness that he was at age 17 elected school principal in Easton, Pennsylvania, and a year later appointed superintendent of schools in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He later got a job in New York City with the publishing house of Barnes and Co., which in 1869 (or 1870) sent him to Chicago to manage the western department.
In the fall of 1879, Cable joined (or helped found, sources differ) the Wolfinger Organ Co. Cable served as treasurer and director, along with F.R. Wolfinger, president, and John A. Comstock, secretary. Its offices and factory were in a three-story building at Randolph and Ann (today, Racine) Streets, owned by New York financier Hetty Green and familiarly known as the Coan & Ten Broek carriage-factory after a previous occupant. A fire on April 18, 1880, caused damage initially estimated at $15,000 to $20,000, which was largely if not entirely covered by insurance.
The Wolfinger factory made small reed organs—"cottage organs"— but it also turned out furniture, sewing machine tops, elevator cabs, and more. After Cable arrived, the Wolfinger company began to separate out its various products; the furniture business, for example, would wind down by 1883.
In 1880, the subsidiary that made reed organs was named Chicago Cottage Organ Co.
In 1885, the company added two partners: E.E. Wise and George W. Tewksbury, experienced organ makers who had worked for the Western Cottage Organ Co. of Ottawa, Illinois. Williard Naramore Van Matre, Sr. (1851–1939) joined as sales manager and a stockholder; he would stay for 10 years before leaving to start the Straube Piano Company.
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