Hinners Organ Company
Its focus on standard models, mass production, and direct marketing meant that even small churches in Midwestern towns could afford a respectable pipe organ.
By being among the first to make his products widely affordable to ordinary people across rural America, John Hinners has been compared to both Henry Ford and Aaron Montgomery Ward.
In 1879, Hinners set up shop as the Perfection Organ Manufactury at the back of Schæfer's music merchandising store in Pekin, Illinois.
[4] Because Hinners didn't consistently date and number his nameplates, the first pipe organ for which there are company records was installed in 1892 at the German Evangelical Church in Huntingburg, Indiana.
Unlike competitors who made each pipe organ by hand as a custom job, Hinners began building stock models and offering them by catalog without a sales force.
His simplified manufacturing and distribution methods were specifically tailored so that small rural churches who wanted the grand sound of a pipe organ could afford one.
[b] The majority of pipe organs Hinners manufactured had two manuals with mechanical action, although many divided one-manual instruments were also made.
To further increase efficiency, he established the subsidiary Illinois Organ Supply Company in 1920, which mass-produced component parts for Hinners and other firms.
In a typical arrangement, a completed pipe organ would be shipped to the customer by rail or steamboat, and then a company employee followed to perform onsite installation.
[6] Just as Aaron Montgomery Ward first reached isolated rural customers with his mail order business in 1872, John Hinners was also among the first to realize these communities wanted better access high quality products.
[9] His early experiences as a church musician in small towns, and the inadequacies of the instruments then available, no doubt influenced this business philosophy.
Prominent examples that still survive include Hinners opus 1024 (1909), the oldest pipe organ original to the state of Oklahoma.
