Since 2001[update], it has been a subsidiary of Gibson Brands, Inc.[2] Baldwin ceased domestic production in December 2008, moving its piano manufacturing to China.

[3] The company traces its origins to 1857, when Dwight Hamilton Baldwin began teaching piano, organ, and violin in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In 1862, Baldwin started a Decker Brothers piano dealership and, in 1866, hired Lucien Wulsin as a clerk.

Wulsin ultimately purchased Baldwin's estate and continued the company's shift from retail to manufacturing.

Player piano models became unpopular by the end of the 1920s, which, coupled with the beginning of the Great Depression, could have spelled disaster for Baldwin.

Lessons from constructing plywood aircraft wings helped Baldwin develop a 21-ply maple pinblock design used in its postwar piano models.After the war ended, Baldwin resumed selling pianos, and by 1953 the company had doubled production figures from prewar levels.

The company responded by acquiring Wurlitzer to increase market share and by moving manufacturing overseas to reduce production costs.

[9] As a subsidiary of Gibson Guitar Corporation, the company has manufactured instruments under the Baldwin, Chickering, Wurlitzer, Hamilton, and Howard names.

[17] Baldwin stopped manufacturing new pianos in the United States in 2008, briefly retaining staff at its Trumann, Arkansas, factory for specialist work before closure and disposal of remaining inventory.

[19] Grand piano models (as of 2020[update]):[20] Upright piano models (as of 2020[update]):[21] Many distinguished musicians have chosen to compose, perform and record using Baldwin pianos, including the pianists Walter Gieseking, Claudio Arrau, Mike Shinoda, Jorge Bolet, Morton Estrin, Margaret Baxtresser (née Barthel), Earl Wild and José Iturbi and the composers Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, André Previn, and John Williams.

Popular entertainers who use Baldwin pianos include Ray Charles, Liberace, Richard Carpenter, Michael Feinstein, Ben Folds, Billy Joel, Cat Stevens, and Carly Simon, and jazz pianists Dave Brubeck, George Shearing and Dick Hyman.

Amy Lee, the lead vocalist, pianist and keyboardist of Evanescence also uses this brand in most of her compositions, recordings and live performances.

A Baldwin piano was played nightly by Paul Shaffer on the Late Show with David Letterman.