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In October 1985, the one hundred and eleven-year-old C.G. Conn Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company of Elkhart, Indiana, was sold by its Chairman of the Board and sole owner, Daniel J. Henkin, to the Swedish conglomerate, Skane-Gripen, for an undisclosed price. Although the Conn trade name was preserved for marketing purposes, the company came under the control of a new parent corporation known as United Musical Instruments. In May 1986, United Musical Instruments announced plans to close the remaining Elkhart operation. Consequently, Conn instruments are no longer manufactured in the company's home town of Elkhart, Indiana, but are now produced at several other sites in the US as well as in Mexico.
Inasmuch as these historical events have taken the ownership of the C.G. Conn Company out of American hands for the first time since the company was founded in 1874 in this tiny Elkhart building, it seems an appropriate time to document the history of the company. To that end, James Jordan, wind specialist at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and I have begun systematically to research the company's history. The results of this joint effort will begin to appear in article form in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society. We hope that eventually we may be able to publish a book which will not only detail the company's history, but also include a biography of C.G. Conn, as well as data concerning the company's patents and various instrument models. We have set up a special C.G. Conn Archive at the Shrine to Music Museum which includes original catalogues, Conn publications, photographs, and other types of documentary information concerning the company, as well as a collection of 320 musical instruments produced by the company from 1876 to the present. My presentation today is given not only in the hope of sparking interest in researching and recording the history of the C.G. Conn Company and its contribution to the American musical industry, but also to encourage the development of similar documentary projects concerning other contemporary musical instrument manufacturing firms worldwide.
The history of the Conn Company might be divided into five segments, each one defined by the ownership of the company during a particular time period. My time is too short today to enumerate the multitude of accomplishments and contributions made during each of these five eras; however, I hope that my presentation will provide some insight into the historical growth of the company and, finally, its founder, Charles Gerard Conn.
A native of the finger lakes region of upstate New York, C.G. Conn settled in Elkhart with his parents in 1851 at the age of seven. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War, both as a musician and as a sharpshooter. Following his release from a Federal prison camp at war's end, Conn worked with his father in a grocery store and bakery business, making rubber stamps as well as plating and engraving silverware on the side. His career as a manufacturer of musical instruments came to pass as a result of a fight with a fellow musician during a Fourth of July celebration in Elkhart, at which time Conn received a blow which lacerated his lip so severely that it appeared that Conn's cornet playing days were at an end. He was determined to play again, and, in 1874, Conn invented a rubber-rimmed cornet mouthpiece which conformed to the abnormalities of his lips. He patented the mouthpiece in 1875 and began production on an improvised lathe made from the frame of a sewing machine. Shortly thereafter Conn hired a few employees to assist him in producing the new mouthpiece, and began a systematic plan for marketing his invention not only in the US but throughout Western Europe.
It was while manufacturing the mouthpieces that Conn met the French instrument maker, Eugene Dupont. The two men apparently began to work together informally, repairing and eventually building cornets. A legal co-partnership was agreed upon in 1876, establishing the firm of Conn and Dupont. The cornerstone of this partnership, which lasted only three years was the production of cornets such as this one with the serial number 162, probably made in 1876 for presentation during the following year to the leader of an amateur cornet band.
In 1877, Conn and Dupont expanded their business by purchasing an idle three-story furniture factory located by the Elkhart River. According to a contemporary account, the factory included 18,000 square feet of floor space and was run by hydraulic power. In 1878, a second building was attached to this factory. By 1879, more than one hundred men were employed at this plant. A few months later the Conn-Dupont partnership was legally dissolved. Instruments made after Dupont's departure simply bear C.G. Conn's name and the city of manufacture.
A disastrous fire demolished the Conn factory on 29 January 1883 - Conn's 39th birthday. Since the city of Elkhart had no water system, firemen had to bore through 18 inches of ice on the Elkhart River in a futile attempt to get water. Conn set up temporarily in another building and soon built a larger plant on the same site.
The new factory grew rapidly as production and demand for Conn's instruments increased. In 1893, the plant was rebuilt to accommodate better its 300 employees. According to an 1897 sales catalogue, the C.G.Conn factory was described as being the largest in the world. These historically valuable engravings of the improved 1893 plant were commissioned by the company specifically for use in their advertising materials.
Instruments marked Elkhart and Worcester, Massachusetts, date from the period 1887-1898, while C.G. Conn operated another factory which he purchased from Isaac Fiske at the time of Fiske's retirement. Shortly before discontinuing his Worcester operations, Conn opened a retail store in New York City, which proved to be an immediate success. An account written in 1898, notes that "the C.G. Conn wholesale and retail establishment is fast becoming the new quarters of the leading band and orchestra musicians of New York. At no time of the day can you visit the place without meeting a half-dozen at least of the leading professionals of New York and vicinity."
In 1906, the C.G. Conn factory became unionised. The Union rule book boasted that it was "the first factory of its kind in the entire world to open its doors to the exclusive use of union labour". Local No.335 of the metal polishers, buffers, platers, brass moulders, brass and silver workers' International Union of North America was formed. Instruments made after the 15 November 1906 unionization of the factory, were stamped with the union label. According to the union rules, workers put in nine-hour days, with an hour off for lunch, and worked six days a week. Time-and-a-half was paid for overtime and double pay was the rule on Sundays and legal holidays.
A second disastrous fire destroyed Conn's factory on 22 May 1910. The plant burned while C.G. Conn was vacationing at his home in Southern California. Upon his arrival in Elkhart four days later, according to the city newspaper, The Elkhart Truth, "[Conn] was accorded a public demonstration...[the likes of which] had never been seen in Elkhart. The business district took on a gala appearance with store fronts decorated with flags and bunting and large flaring banners bearing messages of welcome and good cheer". Following his parade escort to the local hotel, C.G. Conn announced his determination to rebuild his plant in Elkhart. Work on this structure, located at 1100 East Beardsley Avenue, was started on 15 August 1910, and four months later, 12 December 1910, all departments were in full operation under one roof.
A postcard of the new Conn factory, dating from about 1913, shows a somewhat enlarged plant. According to the text, the factory employed 303 wage earners including 250 men and 53 women, with no boys or girls employed. While the men still worked nine-hour days, women were limited to eight-hour workdays. Women worked primarily in the secretarial pool, the accounting department, and in the case-making division. Men, of course, were primarily responsible for the manufacture of the instruments. The factory output was about 800 instruments per month, "not counting bugles, drums and musical traps and accessories". The plant was run by electrical power. Calendars in this series of historic postcards of the factory reveal that the pictures were taken during the months of February, March and April, 1913. The final card of the series features C.G. Conn working in his private office.
Charles Conn led the company's development from a firm which produced only cornets to one which produced all types of brass and woodwind instruments, including the first American saxophone designed in 1888. Under Conn's direction the company designed the first bell-up sousaphone basses in E-flat and BB-flat, nicknamed the "Raincatcher" by members of Sousa's band. By the 1890's, the C.G. Conn Company both made and imported stringed instruments, including all members of the violin family, as well as banjos, mandolins and guitars. Occasionally a rare 17th- or 18th-century Italian violin passed through the Conn "used instrument" department. In an advertisement from 1907, a purportedly genuine 1742 Joseph Guarnerius violin was advertised for $1,000. The company sold percussion instruments and accessories as well, such as the perforated metal shell snare drum, which was featured for a time on the company's letterhead. By 1905, Conn produced not only band and orchestral instruments, but also a portable organ which was advertised as being "better adapted than any other for students of harmony, missionaries, evangelists, Sunday School services, prayer meetings, Gospel wagons, picnics and outings, trolley parties, vaudeville artists, the village opera house, vocalists and any musicians connected with opera, dramatic, minstrel, or concert companies". This list represents a large portion of the Conn company clientele, with the important addition of the amateur and professional bandsmen.
The C.G. Conn years ended in 1915 with the sale of the company to a group of Ohio capitalists, headed by Carl D. Greenleaf. The company was renamed C.G. Conn Ltd, a seemingly minor name change, yet one which was clearly marked on instruments manufactured after 1915. One of the first improvements made by Carl Greenleaf was the expansion and upgrading of the Elkhart plant. By 1917, the workforce numbered 550 and the factory was turning out close to 2,500 instruments per month. The US Government was a major customer, ordering some $350,000 worth of the latest model Conn instruments in 1917. In the same year the corporation was valued at $1,000,000. In the 1920's, Greenleaf speeded production and reduced costs by introducing assembly-line production. His use of the hydraulic expansion process assured the production of "perfectly proportioned
instruments which were easy to play and accurately in tune".
The Greenleaf family led the company's development for a total of 54 years, with Carl Greenleaf's son Leland, assuming leadership of the company after his father's death in 1959. The "Greenleaf Years" are primarily noted for the company's ability to adjust to significant changes which took place in the musical marketplace - notably the decline of the town band and vaudeville and the rise of jazz, the big band era, and the public school band and orchestra market. Carl Greenleaf converted C.G. Conn's old mail-order business to a retail sales operation.
In 1928, Greenleaf established an active research department which was eventually headed by his son, Leland. This department not only led the industry in improving instrument design, but also led the way in the development of electronic tuning devices such as the Stroboconn which was first marketed in 1936.
Under Carl Greenleaf's leadership, C.G. Conn Ltd, made a significant contribution to the development of the public school band and orchestra. Greenleaf established the first school for band directors in 1919. In 1923 the company introduced their first educational aids for school band and orchestra directors. Conn Ltd, promoted the first national high school band contest, held in Chicago in 1928, in which 17 bands participated. Greenleaf provided monetary support for Joseph Maddy's establishment of the National Music Camp at Interlochen in 1928. In 1927, the Conn Company introduced a visible embouchure mouthpiece as a teaching aid. Made of semi-transparent bakelite, it was advertised as a useful tool for correcting pupils' lip positions. Furthermore, the company said that it contained "certain germicidal ingredients" which would make it "constantly self-sterilizing".
Other significant accomplishments during the Greenleaf years included production of the first American contrabass sarrusophone, manufactured in 1921 on a government contract for use in US Army bands; the first successful short action valves in 1934; the first all-electronic organ in 1946; and the first fibreglass sousaphone in 1960.
C.G. Conn Ltd, was purchased from the Greenleaf family in 1969 by the Macmillan Company in what has been referred to, in hindsight, as a "hostile takeover". The company headquarters were moved away from Elkhart for the first time in Conn's history. President Peter Perez managed the company from its new corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois. The Conn Ltd, factories in Elkhart were closed. In their place nine new plants and four sales and distribution offices were opened, mostly in the Southern United States and Mexico. Under Macmillan's management the Conn Company lost valuable market position, prestige and money, according to a recent account in The Music Trades Magazine.
Following four months of negotiations in September 1980, Macmillan sold the C.G. Conn Company to Dan Henkin, former Advertising Manager for Conn, for a reported $80 million. Henkin immediately moved the Conn headquarters back to Elkhart and heralded the event with a monumental "Welcome Home Conn" party, featuring Doc Sverinsen and his band. Henkin cited concerns for his own health as one of the main reasons which precipitated his sale of the Conn Company to the Swedish conglomerate in 1985.
Assembling C.G. Conn's biography, and interpreting both his personality and philosophy, is a task which should certainly be undertaken in any effort to record the history and development of the company. C.G. Conn has been characterised as having had a "flamboyant personality", which undoubtedly influenced his lifelong political aspirations. In 1880, at the age of 36, Conn was elected to the first of two terms as the democratic mayor of Elkhart. He later served a term as a representative in the Indiana General Assembly. Conn spent two years in Washington DC, from 1892 to 1894, as a member of Congress, during which time he purchased the Washington Times newspaper, and personally conducted a sensational campaign against alleged vice in the capital city. He declined a renomination for a second term. He also declined a call from Indiana labour organizations for his nomination as a Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate in 1896. His political career ended in 1910, after losing the Indiana gubernatorial nomination and a bid for nomination as US Senator from Indiana.
During his 30's and 40's, C.G. Conn was characterized by writers of his day as displaying "reckless Irish activity, Irish hospitality, Irish good nature and good humour and Irish indomitable pluck". Physically, Conn was characterised as a "tall, handsome man, with clear cut features, somewhat spare in build, but of great wiriness. His energy and activity were almost unlimited". He was a "good liver, modest and retiring in his manners, and was one of the few who everybody liked to meet, never hurried that he had not time to talk [about] Elkhart...".
Conn lived to be 87, and, during the last 15 years of his life, his formerly modest and retiring lifestyle and his idealistic crusades against vice seemed to wane in favour of his own alcoholic and sexual lusts. He divorced his wife of 46 years in 1915 and, after selling his company to Carl Greenleaf, left Elkhart to live in southern California for the remainder of his life. Conn remarried in 1919 and fathered a son at the age of 75.
His deep involvement with Freemasonry certainly influenced his philosophy towards life and, undoubtedly, his business philosophy. He published a book of philosophy in 1916, entitled The Sixth Sense,Prayer, which is a rather bizarre attempt to correlate scientific fact with generally accepted theories of religious faith. Basically, Conn believed that through prayer man would experience the growth of new brain cells, and by this means, and this means only, he would eventually conquer sin and attain salvation by his own efforts. It is interesting to note that during the last decade of his ownership of the company, Conn flavored his advertising with an almost evangelistic fervour in both his catalogues and his final issues as editor of The Musical Truth, the in-house publication which promoted his products. For example, in 1912, in an attempt to regain the profitable business he had once enjoyed, Conn wrote:"The disastrous fire of two years ago that entirely destroyed Mr. Conn's old factory plant and nearly put him out of business, enabled some of his competitors to 'grab off' some of his business and sequestrate some of the prominent musicians who were devoted to the Conn interests. But they are all coming back. They may wander temporarily from the fold, but they all come back. How do you stand with Conn? The day of judgment is near at hand, and your own convictions will soon cause you to jump into the Conn band wagon and play a Conn instrument. Get ready for the change - make your peace with the great instrument maker".
Ironically, some of Conn's own words of wisdom would return to haunt him. In an advertisement in the November 1907 issue of The Musical Truth, Conn wrote: "Debt is to be deplored when liabilities exceed assets. Under other circumstances, it may be justified. Men have laid the foundation of their fortunes through their ability to accumulate debts. None doubt the wisdom of the laborer, who goes into debt to buy his home, which when paid for, represents a valuable asset. Such debts are prudent and profitable." Four years later C.G. Conn himself went into debt in an attempt to save his company following the devastating fire of 1910. The fire involved a loss estimated at $500,000. In April of 1911, Conn and his first wife, Kate, executed a trust deed for $200,000 covering all their possessions for the purpose of bonding the Conn indebtedness and securing working capital. The deed included, in addition to the instrument factory, a scale factory, Conn's ownership of the City newspaper, some 60 descriptions of real estate in Elkhart and vicinity, various real estate mortgages, 125 shares of stock in a motor company, a seagoing yacht, two smaller yachts, and much valuable personal property. In 1915, Carl Greenleaf bought all of Conn's assets with the single exception of his first wife's home in Elkhart. In 1931, C.G. Conn died penniless, with no money available for a proper burial. Funds were raised by the Elkhart Masonic Lodge to bring his body back home to Indiana. Six years would pass before the Elkhart Chamber of Commerce would raise enough money, through a memorial fund, to mount a headstone on Conn's grave.
C.G. Conn's own words might make an appropriate epitaph: "Fame is but a fitful flame, which must be coddled or 'twill flicker and fade. Hard to ignite, it is yet harder to maintain with that fervid brilliancy, which illuminates the life and era of the genius who kindles the spark."
Read at the CIMCIM Meeting, Berlin, 11-17 April 1988.
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