William Lindeman

The concern was founded by William Lindeman (1794–1875) on a small scale in Dresden in about 1822, and reestablished by him in New York City in 1835 or 1836, where it grew to a medium size within twenty years.

William Lindeman was born Wilhelm Lindemann on March 28, 1794 in Jöhstadt, in eastern Saxony on the Bohemian border.

He worked in Munich as a pianomaker for about a year, and subsequently in for piano manufacturers Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, and Rosenkranz in Dresden before establishing his own shop, which much later advertisements date at 1822.

According to a short biography published in Der Deutsche Pionier of Cincinnati in 1875, Lindeman's output was small and was sold principally through dealers in these cities, and he was unable to profit from what the article described as well regarded and innovative instruments.

The 1875 article recounted that with the help of a translator he applied to work at the piano manufactory of Dubois & Stodart, who operated a music store at 167 Broadway, but that Lindeman became indignant over the delay caused by the approval required by the pianomakers' union, and instead took a non-union position tuning and regulating at Geib & Walker's music store at 23 Maiden Lane.

[5] They were awarded a diploma at the 1857 American Institute fair, placing after Schuetze & Ludolff, Gross & Hulskamp, Boardman & Gray and Henry Hansen.

These roughly semi-circular squares were manufactured with the sides and interior portions of the wooden frame laminated from long, thick veneers bent and glued up into a single, continuous piece with the required shape and thickness, in order to make the pianos "lighter, smaller and circular at the back and sides.

[13] The firm declared $63,000 in sales in 1869 (which would represent about the same scale as they had reported three years earlier based on an average value, according to census data, of about $300 per piano) but ranked them only twentieth, placed between J.

& C. Fischer and Raven, Bacon & Co. of New York[14] Lindeman & Sons' pianos placed well at many agricultural fairs but they did not earn top honors at major industrial exhibitions.

A sympathetic article in the American Eclectic Medical Review reported that the cycloid shown at Paris had "fully the power of the best semi-grand but with about two thirds the size,"[17] but a New York Times review of the Exposition described the tone of the example at Paris as "pleasant, but thin" and reported that there were "better instruments of the same construction in the Norwegian department.".

[18] The firm established new headquarters at 92 Bleecker Street by 1870, and according to the 1875 biography, their production doubled to eight pianos a week about the same time.

They received a second premium for a cycloid at the 1870 American Institute Fair, however the top manufacturers of the country were not represented: F. C. Lighte & Co. took first place, and Taylor & Dupuy, took third.

[28] A notice was published in November, 1889 that all stock of musical instruments, merchandise as well as office and store furniture of Lindeman Brothers, then at 181 West Fourth street, Cincinnati, would be auctioned, benefits of the sale to go to their creditors,[29] but in 1890 Lindeman Brothers is listed at 157 West Fifth street[30] Lindeman & Sons' New York warerooms removed to 146 Fifth Avenue, and 409 Eighth street, but the firm encountered financial difficulties and lost their Bradstreet rating in 1888.

They attempted to raise cash by incorporating and issuing $150,000 public stock but by early 1890 their assets were as low as $15,000 with approximately $100,000 in liabilities.

Lindeman & Sons was sold at auction in January, as was the property of Adam Brautigam, a well-known piano dealer of the same city, who had supported the company with up to $50,000 of his own money.

[43] The court overruled a demurrer by the defendants and found in favor of the plaintiffs, and although The Music Trade Review reported that in its opinion the stencilled words "The Lindeman Piano Co. Cincinnati" could not deceive a prospective purchaser, but that it was deceptive to represent that the two firms were the same, and H. Lindeman & Son was enjoined from selling pianos as previously labelled.

[51] Henry Lindeman filed a petition for bankruptcy the same year, declaring his liabilities as $104,345 with no assets, but by that November he formed the Victoria Piano Company, with a factory on 157-159 East 128th street.

[63] The Music Trade Review described it as "one of the finest factories to be found in the uptown manufacturing district" and projected that it would increase their output by 50 percent.

[68] Also in about 1911[69] Henry & S. G. Lindeman obtained an interest in the soundboard calibration device patented in 1909 by piano dealer and inventor Frank B.

Marketed as the "Melodigrand", this was a method for maintaining or restoring the slight crowning of a soundboard through a series of screws pressed against blocks applied directly to the panel, like Steinway & Sons' lapsed and disused system[70] and similar to the Mason & Hamlin "tension resonator", then in force and which is still manufactured and promoted by that firm.

"[66] Lindeman & Sons had come under the control of Wanamaker's department store, which also owned controlling interests in piano manufacturers Schomacker of Philadelphia and Emerson of Boston,[72] and held agencies for American Piano Company brands including Chickering & Sons and Wm.

Knabe & Co.[73] Lindeman & Sons was located at 461 West 40th street and its directors were James B. Woodford, Everard F. Tibbot, and Paul V.

[75] The Piano Magazine reported it was "said that their failure was due to investments in the retail business preceding the continued tightness in the money market.

[78] An auction was announced for late November to sell the stock in trade and goodwill and use of the name Henry & S. G. Lindeman[79] and all of the firm's assets were sold for $27,000 to George W. Gittens, president of piano manufacturer Kohler & Cambell, Inc., of New York.

Chase of Chicago, and J. H. Williams, of the Knabe Warerooms, Inc, of Baltimore, who formed a holding company known as United Piano Corporation, of Norwalk Ohio, which was capitalized for $1,000,000 and which operated A.

[86] J. H. Shale retired from the board in 1926, and sold his stock to father and son J. H. and E. S. Williams, giving them control of the firm.

[88] Shale purchased the firm's assets and good will for $110,000 in 1927,[89] and formed the Celco Corporation in New York., with headquarters in Norwalk and with himself as president, Earle D. Button treas, Walter A.

The final owners of the Lindeman & Sons trademark, Burgett Brothers, Inc., of Haverhill, Massachusetts successfully filed to use the name several months later.