enterprise soc 2013 carnevali 37 70
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
1/34
37
Pianos for the People: From Producerto Consumer in Britain, 18511914
FRANCESCA CARNEVALI
LUCY NEWTON
During the second half of the nineteenth century, British society
experienced a rise in real incomes and a change in its composition,
with the expansion of the middle classes. These two factors led to a
consumer revolution, with a growing, but still segmented, demand
for household goods that could express status and aspiration. At the
same time technological changes and new ways of marketing andselling goods made these goods more affordable. This paper analyzes
these themes and the process of mediation that took place between
producers, retailers, and consumers, by looking at the most cultur-
ally symbolic of nineteenth century consumer goods, the piano.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, British consum-
ers were able to turn their homes into Aladdins caves filled with a
remarkable range of goods: carpets, rugs, linoleum, furniture made
The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the
Business History Conference. All rights reserved. For permissions, please
e-mail: [email protected]
doi:10.1093/es/khs042
Advance Access publication December 19, 2012
FRANCESCA CARNEVALI is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at
the University of Birmingham. Contact information: School of History and
Culture, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, West Midlands
B13 9UH, UK. E-mail: [email protected].
LUCY NEWTON is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Economic History atthe University of Reading. Contact information: Henley Business School,
University of Reading, Whiteknighhts, Reading, Berkshire RG6 6AA, UK.
E-mail: [email protected].
We would like to thank the staff of the Surrey History Centre, Woking; theGuildhall Library, London; the British Newspaper Library, Colindale; HarrodsArchive, London; University of Glasgow Archive, Glasgow; Westminster CityArchives, London; Hackney Archives, London; Victoria & Albert MuseumArchives, London; the Victoria & Albert National Art Library, London; and DrLeigh-Shaw Taylor and the Cambridge Group for the Study of Population andSocial Structure, Cambridge, for their help during the research for this paper. We
also wish to thank the three anonymous referees for putting us right on a numberof points. All remaining mistakes remain ours.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected] -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
2/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON38
of wood and papier-mch, drapes, beds and pianos, toys, toilets
and baths, tiles, brass ornaments in all shapes and sizes, cutlery,
glasses for drinking and stained glass for windows, china and pot-
tery, wallpaper, oilcloth, light fittings, and stuffed animals.1Even a
cursory glance through the mail order catalogues of the time cannot
fail to convey the wealth of objects that the Victorians, and later the
Edwardians, could purchase,2and despite the changes that fashion
dictated to interior decoration during this period, of the items that
provided the bedrock of drawing room furnishing, none could sur-
pass the piano.3
This new world of materiality has been amply illustrated by a rich
literature on the cultural relationship between consumers and the
objects they purchased, or aspired to own.4Much less, however, is
known about the process of mediation that took place between pro-ducer, retailer, and consumer.5There is a gap in our knowledge of
the link between production and selling during this period, when:
few firms or sectors of industry confronted in a systematic fashion
the troublesome gap between what they produced and what people
wanted. From the late nineteenth century until the Second World
War, the process of mediating the consumption junction6 was still
loose and open ended.7
Although most of these goods were not new,8 what marked the
period that followed the Great Exhibition of 1851 was their growing
1. While it is unlikely that all these goods would find their way into all homes,contemporary photographs are visual testament to the love for ornamentation ofthe late Victorians. A fine selection of these photographs can be found in Cohen,Household Gods: The British and Their Possessions.
2. Army & Navy, Yesterdays Shopping [The Army & Navy Co-Operative Society1907 issue of Rules of the Society and Price List of Articles Sold at the Stores].
3. Jennings, Our Homes and How to Beautify Them, 183.4. See, for example, Benson, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 1880
1980; Cohen, Household Gods; Cohen, A Consumers Republic. The Politicsof Mass Consumption; Hilton, Consumerism in Twentieth Century Britain. TheSearch for a Historical Movement; Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture.
5. An exception is the work of Oldenziel and de la Bruhze, eds, ManufacturingTechnology, Manufacturing Consumers.
6. The consumption junction is defined as the place and time at which theconsumer makes choices between competing technologies, quoted in Oldenzieland de la Bruhze, eds, Manufacturing Technology, 19.
7. The twentieth century saw much more systematic mediation of the consump-tion junction than occurred in the nineteenth century. This took place throughconsumer organizations (e.g., those defending consumer rights), governments (e.g.,legislating to protect consumers), and political organizations. Given the newnessof consumer society in the nineteenth century, mediation through such organiza-tions had yet to develop in the way that they did in the twentieth century. SeeBenson, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain; de Grazia, Irresistible Empire:Americas Advance; Hilton, Consumerism in Twentieth Century Britain; Oldenziel
and de la Bruhze, eds, Manufacturing Technology.8. Berg, Consumption and Consumers; Berg, From Imitation to Invention.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
3/34
Pianos for the People 39
availability. As these goods became more affordable, more people
could purchase them, while at the same time, the producers of house-
hold goods required a strong awareness of the market and of custom-
ers desires, to compete successfully and survive. The combination
of a growing, but still very segmented market, and of increasing com-
petition meant that manufacturers had to innovate in terms of pro-
duction, marketing, and selling. Typically, the technologies used to
make these goods tended to be established by 1850; but neverthe-
less between this date and 1914, these products underwent small but
significant alterations in technology, which modified them to suit
a variety of tastes.9Meanwhile the new department stores, and the
development of hire purchase, meant that consumers and manufac-
turers faced new opportunities and challenges.
In this essay we examine the production, marketing, and sell-ing of the piano, to explore the connection between production and
consumption. Of all the goods found in the Victorians homes, none
equalled the piano as a carrier of multiple meanings. It was an object
that provided entertainment and decoration, being both a musical
instrument and a substantial piece of furniture. Its ownership con-
ferred status, symbolic as it was of gentility, family life, taste, and
wealth.10As such it was rich in cultural meaning, in the same way
as the grandfather clock of the eighteenth century and the table radio
of the twentieth were. For the business historian, the production
and consumption of the piano is a perfect opportunity to explore theways that manufacturers found to interpret and shape the complex-
ity of consumers desires and how this understanding translated in
the combination of skills, technologies, and sales devices needed to
expand production.
Firstly we analyze the context in which pianos were soldthe ris-
ing real incomes of the lower and middle classes in Victorian Britain
and how these meant that more and more families could afford to buy
ready-made clothes, furniture and ornaments, newspapers and books,
pianos, and sheet music.11We then detail the changes in technology
9. The production of household goods, moreover, made up a sizeable pro-portion of Britains total manufacturing output. Data from the 1907 Census ofProduction reveal that the production of these goods accounted for 8 percent ofnet output of total manufacturing. If finished manufactured goods alone are con-sidered, the share of household goods goes up to 12 percent. The numbers aresimilar for employment. These figures are likely to be an underestimate as the1907 Census did not include small establishments, those employing fewer than 10people, and where many of these goods would have been made.
10. Testimony of this can be found in the books that provided advice on how todecorate the home, a genre that became popular after the 1880s. For examples, seeEdis, Decoration and Furniture of Town Houses; Haweis, The Art of Decoration;
Elder-Duncan, The House Beautiful and Useful.11. Briggs, Victorian Things.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
4/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON40
in piano production during the period and examine the size of piano
manufacturing output in the UK. Finally we consider the cultural
significance of pianos and how these were sold and marketed. The
sources used for this article range from individual company archives,
including those of department stores, to trade journals, trade directo-
ries, exhibition reports, and contemporary magazines.
18501914: Rising Incomes, Domestic Consumption, andHomemaking
The sixty-year period following 1850 saw higher incomes per capita
(per year), lower prices and growth in the British economy, resulting
in more employment and more disposable income for the middle andworking classes. The economy grew faster in the second half of the
nineteenth century, compared to the first half, with a higher propor-
tion of GDP devoted to capital accumulation, and higher levels of
investment in human capital through the provision of education.12
For much of this period, prices fell and per capital real income grew
annually by about 2.1 percent from 1860 to 1895 and 0.5 percent from
1895 to 1913. Although these numbers look small, they were high by
historical standards and represent the cumulative trend of over fifty
years.13Real wages also increased significantly, although not at the
same rate for middle- and working-class families, thanks to the com-bined effect of rising money wages and falling prices.
By the end of the century, the increase in wages was the result of a
combination of two factors: a structural shift towards higher earning
occupations and wage bargaining for those workers who remained in
the same occupation.14Food prices declined faster than the overall
cost of living and, following the building boom at the turn of the cen-
tury, house prices and rents also dropped.15Overcrowding diminished
as workers moved from city centres to suburbs. As wages increased,
so did salaries, together with the growth of a lower middle class of
clerks, schoolteachers, shopkeepers, and technicians, and the propor-
tion of white collar workers in the labor force increased from about
3 percent in 1861 to almost 7 percent in 1911.16At the same time,
12. Crafts, Long-run Growth, 6.13. Supple, Income and Demand, 18601914, 123.14. Feinstein, What Really Happened to Real Wages? Trends in Wages, Prices
and Productivity in the United Kingdom, 18801913; Feinstein, New Estimatesof Average Earnings in the United Kingdom, 18801913.
15. Boyer, Living Standards, 18601939, 312, quoting Feinstein, Variety
and Volatility: Some Aspects of the Labour Market in Britain, 18801913, 17071.16. Crossick, The Lower Middle Class in Britain18701914, 19.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
5/34
Pianos for the People 41
salaries grew as a proportion of total incomes from 6.5 percent in
1860 to almost 11 percent on the eve of the First World War. One
measure of the number and incomes of those who did not earn wages,
but rather salaries, and were of modest means is provided by data on
those with intermediate incomes of around 160 (the lower limit
for income tax liability). Those in this earning bracket rose from 11.5
percent of total incomes in 1880 to 17 percent in 1913.17It was this
group who looked to emulate the established wealthy in society,
as they benefited from greater disposable incomes and more leisure
time.18It is to these years that we can date the rise of a new literary
genre, the decorators manual, written to help middle-class house-
wives of modest means (those with incomes of about 200 a year,
according to the writers of these manuals) navigate the murky waters
of tasteful interior decoration.19
Living standards did not improve for all, and regional and occupa-
tional variations persisted, with unemployment fluctuating over the
period. What is significant in terms of consumption is that average
and total incomes increased over this period for the families of wage
and salary earners, as noted by a contemporary observer, Sir Charles
Wentworth Dilke, in 1885:
Unstinted food, clothes of the same pattern as the middle class,
when house rents permits, a tidy parlour, with stiff, cheap furniture
which, if not itself luxurious or beautiful, is a symptom of the luxuryof self-respect, and an earnest of better things to come, a newspaper,
a club, an occasional holiday, perhaps a musical instrument.20
Nevertheless, expenditure on manufactured goods as a pro-
portion of income remained stable and there was no shift towards
new commodities: as late as 1910, over 50 percent of purchases
of goods and services was on perishable commodities, 9.5 percent
on semi-durables, and only 4.9 percent of durables, including furni-
ture and furnishings.21However, the growth of working- and middle-
class incomes was great enough to establish a market for goods thathad previously been so limited as to make them rare luxuries. Supple
gives examples of standardized production based on a small propor-
tion of a large aggregate income: bicycles, sewing machines, news-
papers, clocks and watches, wallpaper, pianos, and window glass.
17. Supple, Income and Demand, 124.18. Daunton, Wealth and Welfare: An Economic and Social History of Britain
18511951, 384.19. See, for example, Gardiner, Furnishing and Fittings for Every Home.20. Quoted in Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire. From 1750 to the Present
Day, 161.21. Supple, Income and Demand, 137.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
6/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON42
Even the poorer households, though they continued to allocate the
same proportion of income to non-food expenditure, channelled their
increased purchasing power towards better quality or more modern
versions of traditional purchases, such as improved types of linoleum
floor-covering, arm chairs instead of kitchen chairs, and so on. This is
what Supple calls an enhancement of traditional living standards,
which in turn brought an enlargement of traditional ways of making
things, through the accumulation of marginal changes.22
Urban growth in the second half of the nineteenth century was
the necessary backdrop to the development of both production and
consumption. Towns and cities developed as the loci of industry
and attracted workers who themselves became the customers at new
kinds of retail outlets. The spread of corner shops, the new depart-
ment stores, the penny bazaars, the new shopping arcades, and theco-operative emporia gave the skilled working classes and middle
classes places to spend their money.23 Working-class and middle-
class suburbs developed in the 1880s and 1890s, thanks also to the
passage of the Cheap Trains Act in 1883.24Given this process of sub-
urbanisation, middle-class aspirations increasingly found an outlet in
the growing range of housing on offer from the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury.25The middle classes ceased to live over the shop and moved
to the new suburbs like Edgbaston in Birmingham and Victoria Park
in Manchester.26Middle-class suburban areas, like the eight miles of
houses between London Bridge and Hampton Court, were populatedby households that needed the paraphernalia of gentility, and this
included cultural capital in the shape of libraries, pictures, solid fur-
niture, and musical instruments, such as the piano.27
Far from being a homogeneous group, the middle class was made of
many constituent parts, ranging from the small masters and retailers that
made up thepetite bourgeoisie28to white-collar employees, industrial-
ists, and professionals, fragmented into layer upon layer of subclasses,
keenly aware of their subtle grades of distinction.29Housing, as well
as work, reflected the stratification of the middle class, with a variety of
urban dwellings on offer. Lower-middle-class families would typically
reside in a terraced house, with one reception room, while middle-mid-
dle-class ones would occupy a semi-detached house, with a drawing
22. Ibid; 13743.23. Walton, Towns and Consumerism, 71544.24. Boyer, Living Standards, 18601939, 313; Trainor, The Middle Class, 694.25. Thompson, The Rise of Suburbia.26. Simpson, Michael, and Taylor, eds, Middle Class Housing in Britain.27. Banks, Prosperity and Parenthood, chapter 6.28. Crossick, Haupt, The Petite Bourgeoisie in Europe 17801914.
29. Thompson, The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of VictorianBritain 18301900, 173.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
7/34
Pianos for the People 43
room and a dining room, and upper-middle-class families would favor
detached houses that might include a music room or library. Apart from
housing, among the markers of social status, nothing compared with the
ownership of durable consumer goods, especially as at this time home
ownership was still restricted to few, and renting was more common.
From the 1870s onwards, more and more families were able to afford
ready-made furniture and ornaments, or pianos and sheet music30; and
by the early part of the twentieth century, pianos could be found in the
parlours of those workers in stable employment.31As the Piano, Organ
and Music Trades Journalobserved in 1900: People who buy pianos
in this age of enlightenment embrace all well-ordered households. It is
no longer a sign of wealth that a handsome piano adorns the home.32
The drawing room and, for the less well off, the parlor were the
public rooms of the Victorian home where household goods weredisplayed as symbols of achievement and worldly success.33Of these
goods, none was more symbolic of social mobility than the piano, con-
sidered by those two contemporary arbiters of elegance, Mrs Panton
and Mrs Haweis, as a drawing room essential.34As a symbol of gentil-
ity, the piano could not be bettered; even the Pooters, characters in
the comic novel Diary of a Nobodypublished in 1892, owned a never-
played piano, an upright cottage model, bought on hire purchase.35As
a symbol of salvation, both social and personal, the piano is imagined
by Flory, in George Orwells Burmese Days, in a future marital home:
He saw his home as she would remake it. He saw his drawing-
room, sluttish and bachelor-like no longer, with new furniture from
Rangoon, and a bowl of pink balsams like rosebuds on the table,
and books and watercolours and a black piano. Above all the piano!
His mind lingered on the piano - symbol, perhaps because he was
unmusical, of civilized and settled life. He was delivered for ever
from the sub-life of the past decade - the debaucheries, the lies, the
30. Briggs, Victorian Things.31. See Clementina Blacks recording of the lives of Liverpool vestmakers, in
Married Womens Work, quoted in Walton, Towns and Consumerism, 18401850.32. Piano, Organ and Music Trades Journal, no. 219, Nov. 1900, vol. XVII (new
series no. 186), 854.33. Flanders, The Victorian House, xxix.34. Mrs Haweis was a regular contributor to the The Ladys Realm, and her
books included The Art of Beauty (1878), The Art of Dress (1879), The Art ofDecoration(1881), Beautiful Houses: Being a Description of Certain Well-knownArtistic Houses (1882), Rus in Urbe: or Flowers that Thrive in London Gardensand Smoky Towns(1886), and The Art of Housekeeping: A Bridal Garland(1889),while Mrs Pantons advice manuals intended for those with modest incomes(about 200 a year) included Homes of Taste: Economical Hints(1890).
35. Grossmith, Diary of a Nobody, 14, quoted in Flanders, The VictorianHouse, 139.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
8/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON44
pain of exile and solitude, the dealings with whores and money
lenders and pukka sahibs.36
Pianos also became family heirlooms, as this symbol of social sta-
tus was passed down to different generations of families, but often to
daughters. The bestowing of pianos to daughters reflected the social
benefits that a piano could bring to a woman, clearly perceived to be
greater than those it could bring to a man.37For example, in 1872,
Samuel Banks, a farmer from Cromwell in Nottinghamshire, set out in
his will which possessions were to be left to his childrenTo daugh-
ter Ann Margaret Banks, the pianoforte, while the sons received
cash.38In 1891 the innkeeper Mary Wilson of Walsall left her daugh-
ter Clara her pianoforte,39while ten years later, Benjamin Bibby, a
gentleman from Muncaster, Cumberland, left his five children gener-ous trusts for life but to his only daughter he left her fathers piano-
forte and music books.40Pianos as musical instruments and essential
items of furniture were important possessions for a woman, both as a
symbol of (real or assumed) accomplishment and of homemaking, as
the presence of the piano in the drawing room turned it into a fam-
ily sitting room, where all the members of the family would come
together to share in the musical entertainment.41The bequeathing of a
piano to a daughter also provided her with a material good that could
be pawned if necessary.42
The importance of middle-class women as consumers in the nine-teenth century has been emphasized in work by Rappaport,43while
working-class female consumers have also been considered by a
number of other authors. This work clearly demonstrates that sec-
tions of the British working class could not afford pianos, even after
a decline in their prices. For the working classes, second-hand goods,
36. Orwell, Burmese Days.37. The ability to play the piano was seen to be advantageous to a young woman
who was in search of a husband. Burgan, Heroines at the Piano: Women andMusic in Nineteenth-Century Fiction; Loesser, Men, Women, and Pianos: A SocialHistory; Lustig, The Pianos Progress: The Piano in Play in the Victorian Novel.
38. Will and probate of Samuel Banks of Cromwell, farmer, DD/T/118/4, 1872,1873, Nottinghamshire Archives, Nottingham.
39. Will of Mary Wilson, 48/12/14, 18801881, Walsall Local History Centre.40. Copy of probate of will, BD TB 42/2/1, 1892, Cumbria Record Office,
Barrow.41. Gardiner, Furnishing and Fittings for Every Home, 85; Elder-Duncan, The
House Beautiful, 149.42. This point is made in the context of American working-class families in
Porter-Benson, What Goes Round Comes Round: Secondhand Clothing, Furniture,and Tools in Working-class Lives in the Interwar United States.
43. Rappaport, Shopping for Pleasure. Women in the Making of Londons West
End. For US, see Porter-Benson, Counter Cultures. Saleswomen, Managers andCustomers in American Department Stores, 18901940.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
9/34
Pianos for the People 45
as well as sharing, were important factors in their consumption pat-
terns and behavior.44
Over time, the multiple meanings of the piano as an object may not
have changed, as it remained a symbol of respectability, homemaking,
taste, and accomplishment. Yet the means by which it was purchased,
and the types of people that it was purchased by, did change between
1851 and 1914. The piano could not have become an affordable sta-
tus object for middle- and upper-working-class families without the
changes that took place in its production, marketing, and retail after
the 1860s. To meet this rising demand for pianos, it is necessary to
consider first the manufacture of these symbolic consumer goods.
The Production of Pianos: The Size and Structure of the UK
Piano Manufacturing Industry
The period from 1850 to 1914 was a golden era for piano produc-
tion. The global production of pianos rose from 43,000 in 1850 to
600,000 in 1910, with UK production increasing from 23,000 in 1850
to 75,000 in 1910. The main producers of pianos during this period
were Britain, France, Germany, and the US.45 Output growth was
stimulated by increased demand over the period and facilitated by
changes in production and technology.46
Broadwood & Sons (established in 1808 and one of Londons larg-
est employers) produced between 7 and 10 percent of UK pianos.47In this respect, they represented the exception in piano production,
which was dominated by numerous small firms.48A survey of Kellys
trade directories for London reveals 178 entries under pianoforte
44. See the work of Ross including Survival Networks: WomensNeighbourhood Sharing in London before World War I, in which she consid-ers the working poor. For the US, see Porter-Benson, Working-class FamilyEconomies in the Inter-war United States.
45. Piano production in France increased from 10,000 in 1850 to 25,000 in
1910; in the US, production increased from 10,000 to 370,000 between the samedates; and in Germany, production increased from approximately 15,000 in 1870to approximately 120,000 in 1910. Ehrlich, The Piano: A History, 222.
46. There are no entirely reliable output data on piano production. The figuresquoted in the paper are from Ehrlichs but they are contradicted by other sources,such as in 1900 the Evening Standard estimated that 170 factories in Londonalone were making pianos and that they turned out 90,000 pianos every year. SeePiano, Organ and Music Trades Journal, Feb. 1900, no. 210, vol. xvii (new seriesno. 178), 647.
47. Wainwright, Broadwood, Henry Fowler (18111893), Piano Manufacturer,45859.
48. It may be expected that large firms tend to be mass producers of lower-quality goods. Yet in the case of pianos, large firms were also the high-end, qual-
ity producers. The same was true in the pottery industry; see Popp, BusinessStructure, Business Culture and the Industrial District.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
10/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON46
makers in 1851. The number of piano makers in London thereafter
remained stable until 1914 at around 200, mostly small-scale enter-
prises.49Indeed the structure of the UK piano industry remained sim-
ilar throughout the period and comprised of three groups: established
firms (often large) making high-quality pianos (such as Broadwood,
Collard, Kirkham), medium-sized and medium-class producers (such
as Allison, Brinsmead, Challen, Chappell, Cramer, and Daneman), and
200 or so small producers, making pianos on their own or employ-
ing just a few people. There was a high entry and exit rate amongst
small piano makers. They were badly hit by any recession, but new
entrants, often headed by workers once employed in existing facto-
ries, were ready to risk establishing a piano-making enterprise on
their own due to the potential profits that could be made. Moreover,
from the 1870s, the larger producers would contract out their work tosuch smaller makers.50
Although entry and exit rates were high, survival rates were
good and worth the risk given the chances of survival and poten-
tial profits that could be made. From a survey of over 327 piano
firms by Ehrlich taken from 1850 onwards, 17 percent lasted from
1 to 10 years, 26 percent lasted from 11 to 20 years, 18 percent
from 21 to 30 years, 12 percent from 31 to 40 years, and 10 percent
from 41 to 50 years. There would have been some very small scale
producers that went in and out of business very quickly, which
may have been omitted from this survey as its starting point isthose firms that lasted at least a year, but the survival rates from
this sample look relatively healthy, given the poor survival rates
of modern small firms. There were also some very healthy excep-
tionsBroadwoods lasted over 200 and Brinsmeads survived over
100 yearsbut most firms did not live for so long.51
From the 1850s, Broadwood manufactured pianos under one roof
in its Horseferry Road factory, but this was unusual. Most workers
were not employed directly by a small- or medium-sized piano-mak-
ing firm but operated in the many stages of piano manufacture on
a casual basis, paid by the piece.52Only a few core workers were
on the payroll of larger firms. Many factory hands were laid off in
49. Kellys Post Office Directory of London. Directories were surveyed between1851 and 1914. The directory only clearly differentiates which firms were operat-ing as dealers only in the 1914 directory, when 44 dealers are included in the listof entries. This still left 212 enterprises that were solely makers of pianofortes.
50. Ehrlich, The Piano, 14345.51. Figures generated from the list in Appendix 1, Ehrlich, The Piano,
20321.
52. An order book from Kemble & Co. demonstrates the variety of processesin piano production. See Piano Book, Kemble & Co., Hackney Archives, London.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
11/34
Pianos for the People 47
summer and autumn when trade was slack.53Piano making served
a seasonal market, with low sales in summer and higher sales in
winter (for Christmas) and spring (for weddings).54Thus some work-
shops made cabinets, desks, or even coffins when pianos were not in
demand.55Small- and medium-sized firms could construct the piano
partly from materials and partly from components that had alreadybeen processed, such as keys and backs. The plethora of piano com-
ponent makers, testifying to the existence of a production system of
flexible specialisation, can be seen from the listings in trade direc-
tories advertising, for example, for piano pedal makers, piano key
makers, piano cabinet makers and inlayers, and piano string mak-
ers. Table 1shows the numbers of people working in piano making
and the making of piano parts in 18814,130 in totaland the 297
individuals who were described as piano sellers or dealers. These
are national figures, though the majority was located in London. This
demonstrates the considerable number of people working in piano
production in late nineteenth century, although the number would
fluctuate with both the seasons and economic cycles.
Table 1 Occupation in 1881 Census
Piano and Piano Part Makers
Piano makers 2725
Piano makingparts 553Piano making processes 466Piano makersmanagers 7Piano makersforeman 9Piano makersworkers 198Piano makersapprentices 105Piano makersassistants 23Piano tuner + makers 28Piano makers + other wooden furniture 16
4130Piano Sellers and DealersSelling 39
Dealers 258297
Source: 1881 Population Census. Figures provided by the Cambridge Group for the Study ofPopulation and Social Structure.
53. The annual summer exodus of piano makers to hop gardens of Kent contin-ued into 1930s. Laurence, The Evolution of the Grand Piano, 17851998, 6774,80, 93.
54. Radio production and sales in the twentieth century was also seasonal.Scott, The Determinants of Competitive Success in the Interwar British RadioIndustry.
55. This is made clear from the occupations provided in the 1881 PopulationCensus; for example, pianoforte and cabinet maker.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
12/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON48
The centre for UK piano producers in the nineteenth century was
London. There were some small piano makers outside the capital,
but Pohlmann & Sons in Halifax was the only firm of significant
size, employing only 40 people by 1890.56Piano production formed
clusters in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, notably
in Soho, central London. This had the advantage of access, via the
Thames River, to coastal shippingan important means by which
domestic freight was moved during the nineteenth century. In time,
makers moved further north into Camden Town and Kentish Town,
where rents were cheaper and more space was available. Camden
Town also offered easy access to the Regents Canal, which could be
used for transportation of heavy goods like pianos, either to the west
and therefore onto the whole canal system for domestic markets, or
east to the docks and from there to global markets. Camden Townand Kentish Town also lay near the railheads of Kings Cross, Euston,
and St Pancras.57Such clustering allowed access to a pool of skilled
labor, and a London location gave easier access to materials but, most
importantly, was originated due to the dominance of demand from
the countrys capital.
Once such a cluster formed, it was perpetuated by the clustering
of makers of piano parts: key makers; pin makers; sellers of key leads;
hammer coverers; piano hammer and damper cloth makers; incisors,
who cut the fretted wooden fronts; truss carvers; gilders; marquetry
workers; French polishers, veneer, timber, and ivory suppliers; mak-ers of castors; and candle-sconces and piano-backs. All were essential
suppliers to the main piano fabricators. Many also supplied elements
that differentiated pianos, both in terms of prices and in terms of
appearance, catering for different tastes in ornamentation. Given the
emblematic nature of this product, many consumers desired a piano
that was not standardized but differentiated from the instrument of
a neighbour in terms of fretwork, wood, and candle-holders. Such
demand for changes in style stimulated consumption as the more
wealthy were able to exchange an existing piano for an improved
or more fashionable, newer model. Distinctive types of piano also
catered for different demands. The grand piano was the largest and
most expensive, usually used by concert pianists and/or the wealthy.
The boudoir grand was smaller (and more affordable). Yet smaller
and less expensive was the baby grand, under 5 feet in length and a
foot shorter than the boudoir grand. Square pianos were shaped like a
clavichord (they were rectangular) and proved popular in the first half
56. Pohlmann and Sons, Halifax, piano manufacturers, West Yorkshire Archive
Service.57. Howkins, Made in St Pancras: British Pianos and Their Story.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
13/34
Pianos for the People 49
of the nineteenth century in the UK, offering a cheaper alternative to
the various grands. Upright pianos contained the mechanisms of the
instrument in a vertical cabinet, as opposed to the grand, which was
laid out horizontally, and therefore took up less space. Those instru-
ments described as cottage were necessarily smaller and meant for
more modest homes.58
All the main technological changes to the piano had taken place
before 1860. Yet after 1860, many small, incremental changes were
made to this instrument. Individual details of the piano continued
to receive attention, as evidenced by trade journals listing the latest
patents taken out relating to piano manufacturing technology.59Other
innovations were tailored to suit the changing tastes of consumers
and to their requirements in terms of cost differentiation (cheaper
pianos meant more people could afford to buy one) and space con-straints (smaller pianos meant that the instrument could fit in the
parlor of an ordinary house).
There were also technological changes in piano production. In
1860, piano manufacture was still a craft-based industry, which
did not enjoy economies of scale and employed little machinery.60
A Broadwood grand could pass through the hands of 40 different
workmen.61Costs tended to be high and productivity low. As a result,
turnover was modest, but large profit margins could be achieved as
retail prices were relatively high.62In addition to its lack of machin-
ery, the industry was also characterized by a lack of standardisationin production. A large firm would produce a range of different types
of piano and even smaller firms could differentiate their finished
products in terms of ornamentation or type of wood. A contemporary
estimated that Broadwood could only produce about seven pianos
per workman per annum, little different from the productivity of a
small rival.63
However, between 1860 and 1914, the number of pianos being
assembled increased substantially, and this was achieved by the
application of technological innovation to the production process.
Germany and the US led the way in producing greater numbers
58. Ehrlich, The Piano, 910, 188.59. For example, The Piano, Organ and Music Trades Journal, Jan. 1891,
no. 102, vol. VIII, 19.60. For a description of these technological developments, see Ehrlich, The
Piano; Good, Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos: A Technological Historyfrom Cristofori to the Modern Concert Grand; Parakilas, Piano Roles: ThreeHundred Years of Life with the Piano; Loesser, Men, Women, and Pianos.
61. Lardner, The Great Exhibition and London in 1851.62. Ehrlich, The Piano, 34.
63. Also, before construction could begin, wood had to be left to season beforeit could be utilized. Ehrlich, The Piano, 3638.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
14/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON50
of pianos more cheaply but of decent quality; and after the 1880s,
imports from these countries into the UK forced British manufactur-
ers to do the same. It was the fragmented structure of the trade that
allowed innovation to take place in UK production. Manufacturers
assembled pre-shaped parts, rather than buying and seasoning wood,
then assembling the piano from scratch. The number of companies
supplying these parts (and supplying them on credit) increased. In
addition, mass production of cast iron frames and mass-produced,
standardized, good-quality actions simplified the production process.
Thus, the system of buying out parts of the piano allowed manu-
facturers to purchase inexpensive components that were also better
than those that could have been produced in their own workshops.
Suppliers could also add the advantage of economies of scale to pro-
duction and price upon sale to purchasers. Mechanisation of produc-tion increased, with the US leading the way as a result of its shortage of
skilled labor and abundance of wood. Machines were introduced, for
example, in wood-working, hammer covering, and winding strings.64
This pattern of production in piano making in the second half of the
nineteenth century in the UKbatch production and production in
clusters resourced by specialist laboris similar to that of the flex-
ible specialisation found in industrial districts of northern Italy by
Piore and Sable and across US by Scranton. It gave Londons piano
makers the ability to adapt quickly to changes in volume and type
of demand.65Such improvements made in manufacturing processesallowed greater numbers of pianos to be produced more cheaply and
for more consumers to buy a piano. This leads us to consider how the
piano was taken to market.
Marketing and Advertising Pianos
As well as the production of the piano, it is crucial to examine the
way in which this emblematic musical instrument was marketed,
including the use of advertising. Manufacturers and retailers used the
symbolic meaning of a piano in the home in marketing and advertis-
ing this product. Consumption did not occur in a vacuum: products
[are] integral threads in the fabric of social life.66The piano helped
to communicate an image and thus was often purchased for its social
64. Ehrlich, The Piano, 81; Good, Giraffes,199, 21113, 230.65. Flexible specialization; see Piore and Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide;
Scranton, Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization,18651925.
66. Solomon, The Role of Products as Social Stimuli: A Symbolic InteractionismPerspective, 319.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
15/34
Pianos for the People 51
meaning. This corresponds with the idea that people are evalu-
ated and placed in their social nexus to a significant degree by the
products which surround them.67Piano marketing tended to reflect
the many meanings of this productthose buying one, while they
might have wished to know its technical qualities, also wanted to be
reminded that it inferred social standing and respectability, that it
conferred status to its household. In this way, it was not so much the
purchase of the product that was important but what the consumer
gained from the product once it had been purchased. Moreover, it
was especially important to communicate social placement through
possessions when movement up the social scale occurred. Such
social mobility was a common experience in the late Victorian and
early Edwardian era.68This projection of image is clearly evident in
Laurences Women in Love, set before the First World War:
Dont you think the colliers pianoforteis a symbol for something
very real, a real desire for something higher, in the colliers life?.
Yes. Amazing heights of upright grandeur. It makes him so much
higher in his neighbouring colliers eyes. He sees himself reflected
in the neighbouring opinionseveral feet taller on the strength of
the pianoforte, and he is satisfied.69
The importance of the social meanings of the piano was under-
stood by those who made and marketed them. Manufacturers andsellers used brand and reputation to tap into the importance of
social status and aspiration for many nineteenth-century consumers.
Although manufacturers in general did rely on brand building, the
importance of brand recognition was particularly high for high-cost,
durable good such as a piano.70Clearly, the more expensive pianos
were those high-quality brands, such as Broadwood, and customers
67. Ibid; 326.68. This not only applied to the UK market. In US, a thriving market for pianos
was stimulated by prosperity and a desire for home music and social emulationwhich was at least as powerful as in Victorian England. In France, the market,and consequently production, was smaller with the piano remaining a bourgeoisinstrument purchased to show wealth. In Germany, the home and export marketwas helped via the prestige of German music which attached itself to the coun-trys pianos. Ehrlich, The Piano, 128, 125, 71.
69. Lawrence, Women in Love, 59, quoted in Ehrlich, The Piano, 107.70. For the historical development of branding and marketing consumer goods,
see Church, New Perspectives on the History of Products, Firms, Marketing, andConsumers in Britain and the United States since the Mid-nineteenth Century;Church, The Origins of Competitive Advantage in the Marketing of BrandedPackaged Goods: Colmans and Reckitts in Victorian Britain; Church and Clark,Product Development of Branded, Packaged Household Goods in Britain, 1870
1914: Colmans, Reckitts, and Lever Brothers; Church, Advertising ConsumerGoods in Nineteenth-century Britain: Reinterpretations.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
16/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON52
often used price as a proxy for quality.71But price was not the only
indicator of quality. Exhibitions were widely used in the marketing
of pianosthey informed dealers about which brands and models
were new and of interest to customers, as well as reaching the paying
public directly.72Medals won at such events were used in develop-
ing brand reputations. The headed letter paper of Barratt & Robinson,
London pianoforte manufacturers established in 1877, listed the med-
als the firm had won at eight exhibitions between 1878 and 1920.73
Broadwood referred in its promotional material to its gold medals
from the Paris Exhibition in 1867 and the International Inventors
Exhibition in London in 1885.74These firms also emphasized their
longevity as a means to enhance their reputations.
At the Great Exhibition of 1851, manufacturers were not permitted
to sell goods from the stands at which they displayed their instru-ments; therefore, prices were not usually printed in the exhibition
catalogues. Thus exhibitions were valuable for promoting and devel-
oping brand reputation rather than for direct selling.75 Huge audi-
ences viewed pianos at the major nineteenth-century exhibitions,
generating public interest in these instruments and their manufac-
ture. Reviewers extended this publicity by writing about the instru-
ments exhibited. For example, a review of Collard & Collards pianos
commented upon them as very superior instruments of their particu-
lar class, at prices so low as to be in reach of very numerous class of
purchasers who might otherwise be driven to alternative buying ofinferior instruments.76
Exhibitions continued into the twentieth century. Lord Northcliffe
founded The Daily MailIdeal Home exhibition in 1908; it was held
at Londons Olympia centre. The public were entertained and edu-
cated for an entrance fee of 1 shilling, but the founder also intended
to stimulate contemporary debate about better housing conditions.77
Prices were not included in the catalogues as there was no direct sell-
ing. The exhibitions catalogues provided a visual, spatial context
71. Herrmann, Huber, Shao, and Bao, Building Brand Equity via ProductQuality, 5323, and Brucks, Zeithaml, and Naylor, Price and Brand Name asIndicators of Quality Dimensions for Consumer Durables, 363.
72. For a discussion of exhibitions in general, see Walton, France at the CrystalPalace: Bourgeois Taste and Artisan Manufacture in the Nineteenth Century.
73. Headed letter paper of Barratt & Robinson, pianoforte manufacturers,2622/3/8. Westminster City Archives, London.
74. Exhibitions, 18511952, 2185/JB/84/122. Archive of John Broadwood andSons, Surrey History Centre.
75. Mactaggart, Musical Instruments in the 1851 Exhibition, 11.76. Ibid; 23.
77. Contents of the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition archive. The Victoria &Albert Archive Art and Design, London.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
17/34
Pianos for the People 53
for pianosthe home and how it was furnished.78Unlike the trade
press adverts, these catalogues showed pianos in their social setting.
Homes were also constructed in the exhibition village. Pianos
represented in middle-class drawing rooms were also displayed in
mail order catalogues and department store brochures. Displaying the
piano within a home (at an exhibition or on the page) took the market-
ing of pianos a step further. No longer were these instruments seen
in isolation and sold as objects; now the public could envision them
in idealized domestic spaces, a setting which buyers could imagine
reproducing. This enhanced the desirability of this product, not just
as a musical object but also as part of a lifestyle package.
Prestige and quality were concepts that manufacturers sought
to convey, and established brand names became shorthand for
such attributes. This was especially important for a product withwhich the consumer was relatively unfamiliar, for a brand name
could simplify the consumers judgement task when purchasing
a piano.79 In 1911 Alfred Dolge wrote that One of the remark-
able peculiarities of the piano industry is the great value of an
established name. He noted that the reputation of the instrument
which a piano maker produces follows him beyond his grave, often
for generations.80
Endorsements from specific buyers and users of the pianos rein-
forced prestige and brand reputation. Members of royal clans pur-
chased pianos made by British manufacturers. At the 1910 IdealHome Exhibition, Challen & Sons advertized that they had recently
supplied the King of Portugal.81Meanwhile John Broadwood & Sons
current website proudly lists the members of the British royal family
(seven kings and three queens) for whom the firm has manufactured
pianos, demonstrating the continued value that Royal endorsements
can bring.82Association with famous figures also added an element of
prestige to a brand. In the late nineteenth century, Broadwood commis-
sioned heralded artists, such as William Morris and Edwin Lutyens,
to decorate or design some of their pianos. John Broadwood & Sons
in 1873 made an upright piano to the design and specification of the
Dutch painter, Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, for use in his family house
overlooking Regents Park (see figure 1). Other decorative pianos were
78. AAD/1990/9/1, 2, 3. The Victoria & Albert Archive of Art and Design,London.
79. Brucks, Zeithaml, and Naylor, Price and Brand Name as Indicators ofQuality Dimensions, 36465.
80. Dolge, Pianos and their Makers, 213, 214.81. AAD/1990/9/1, p. 97 and p. 50. The Victoria & Albert Archive of Art and
Design, London.82. http://www.piano-tuners.org/broadwood/.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://www.piano-tuners.org/broadwood/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://www.piano-tuners.org/broadwood/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
18/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON54
sold to celebrated individuals such as Arthur Conan Doyle and SirHenry Irving.83
Endorsements by musicians and composers were frequently used
to enhance a brand. Broadwood gave a piano to Beethoven in 1817,84
and the firm also supplied pianos to Chopin and Mendelssohn.85
The company repeatedly used Beethovens endorsement through
his playing of this instrument, for example, in the House of Music
sponsored by Broadwoods in the Tudor Village at the 1910 Ideal
Home Exhibition. Connection with such famous names extended the
reputation of Broadwood and the desirability of its pianos.
Contemporary branding research recognizes word-of-mouth andcustomer experience as being of value86and so it was in the nineteenth
century. In 1872 the professional pianist Arabella Goddard wrote to
8 3 . h t t p : / / w w w . s u r r e y c c . g o v . u k / s c c w e b s i t e / s c c w s p a g e s . n s f /LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/John+Broadwood+and+Sons+Piano+Manufacturers?opendocument.
84. Ibid.85. Wainwright, Broadwood, Henry Fowler (18111893), Piano Manufacturer,
45859.
86. Herrmann, Huber, Shao, and Bao, Building Brand Equity via ProductQuality, 533.
Figure 1 John Broadwood & Sons, designed by Lawrence Alma Tadema, 1873.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/John+Broadwood+and+Sons+Piano+Manufacturers?opendocumenthttp://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/John+Broadwood+and+Sons+Piano+Manufacturers?opendocumenthttp://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/John+Broadwood+and+Sons+Piano+Manufacturers?opendocumenthttp://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/John+Broadwood+and+Sons+Piano+Manufacturers?opendocumenthttp://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/John+Broadwood+and+Sons+Piano+Manufacturers?opendocumenthttp://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/John+Broadwood+and+Sons+Piano+Manufacturers?opendocument -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
19/34
Pianos for the People 55
Charlotte Owles, recommending the purchase of a Broadwood piano,
as they last longer than any other, & even Broadwoods later Pianos
are much better than the other makers.87Dolge includes a chapter on
testimonials from pianists, stressing their importance.88Testimonials
from the ordinary happy customers were useful, as a popular trade
journal opined:
The Englishman, maker and buyer, believes in testimonials; rightly
to, I think, FOR THE ENGLISH PUBLIC IS NOT FICKLE, and
once a favourite here, always a favourite, even though the favour-
ite is past his time. The value of a favourites testimonial is worth
considering.89
Marketing also depended on the target consumer. In the 1850s at
Broadwood, Henry Fowler dropped the name cottage grand as he
viewed it as too down-market. The firm was targeting those who
lived in Chelsea, Bayswater, and Paddington, not occupying cottages
but rather homes in central, urban London. Instead names such as
Royal Boudoir Grand, Drawing Room Grand, the Superior Drawing
Room Grand, and the Concert Iron Grand were employed.90 Such
titles clearly attempted to indicate that the product was far less hum-
ble than an instrument intended for a cottage. These were still com-
pact pianos, intended for those small houses where the drawing room
was the only space set apart for receptions and family life; yet inchoosing new names for them, Broadwood attributed to its custom-
ers a rather robust self-image. This also demonstrates that the firm
targeted the middle-class market.
Indeed, different types of promotional strategies were available
to market pianos than were available to manufacturers of other con-
sumer durables. Pianos had an artistic function in that they could
be animated by musicians, both professional and amateur; they
also offered a form of entertainment to be used at social functions.
Moreover, it must be remembered that while the musical properties
87. Letter from Arabella Goddard, 5 March 1872, 0988/118. Westminster CityArchives, London.
88. Dolge, Pianos and their Makers, part 4, chapter 2.89. Piano, Organ and Music Trades Journal, no. 216, Aug. 1900, vol. XVII (new
series no. 183), 791. [Caps in original] No evidence of testimonials from custom-ers has been found in the advertising of pianos in the trade press, in departmentstore catalogues, or in advertisements in other publications. In contrast, the prac-tice was used in selling pianos in the US. See the 1905 Sears catalogue in Cohn,Good Old Days: History of American Morals and Manner Sears Roebuck Catalog,89. See also Moskowitz and Schweitzer, Testimonial Advertising in the American
Marketplace: Emulation, Identity, Community.90. Laurence, The Evolution of the Grand Piano, 89.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
20/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON56
of the instrument are of primary importance, the piano fills the dual
position of musical instrument and house ornament.91The catalogue
of the 1851 Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace stated that the piano
was almost an orchestra in itself but also due to its adaptation to
all purposes of musical representation, its universal use in every fam-
ily as an indispensable requisite for amusement and instruction.92
Given its artistic nature, piano marketing through recitals and
concerts made sense. An article in the Piano, Organ and Music Trades
Journalstated that manufacturers were firmly convinced of the value
of concert work as a means of pushing pianos, and most of the leading
houses have salons, where recitals and concerts of greater or less[er]
pretensions are constantly given.93Harrods held concerts in its piano
department, providing weekly recitals by famous musicians.94These
performances also received reviews in newspapers, which usuallyreferred to the make of piano being played. Broadwood collected
them95and Cramer listed reviews from the music press in its trade cat-
alogue.96Such performances also fuelled the public awareness of and
appetite for the piano, and there were an increasing number of venues
where music played on the piano could be heard by all classes of peo-
ple. Working mens concerts began in Manchester in the 1870s; public
concerts catering to large audiences were held at the Crystal Palace
from 1855; and Bechstein Hall (later Wigmore Hall) opened in 1901.97
All this evidence shows that the piano could be promoted in a vari-
ety of waysthrough testimonials, recommendation of professionals,endorsements by Royalty, exhibition prizes, and concertsbut also
through the development of recognized brands, which communicated
quality and prestige, a process greatly enhanced by advertising.
Contemporary marketers recognized high advertising spending as crit-
ical to brand-building.98More advertising also allowed manufacturers
to shape the development of their brands image, frequently referring
to the quality of the product, history, and repute of the manufac-
turer, including prizes won and royal patrons.
91. Piano, Organ and Music Trades Journal, no. 159, Nov. 1895, vol. XIII (newseries no. 127), 157.
92. 1851 Exhibition, 42. Westminster City Archives, London.93. Piano, Organ and Music Trades Journal, no. 216, Aug. 1900, vol. XVII (new
series no. 183), 771.94. The Harodian Gazette, 3 October 1938.95. Scrapbook, Archive of John Broadwood & Sons, 2185/JB/77/1a, 120.
Surrey History Centre, Woking.96. Cramer & Co trade catalogue, 607, AD 0223, Victoria & Albert Art Library,
London.97. Ehrlich, The Piano, 95.98. The Pianoforte Dealers Guide, no. 2, April 1882, vol. 1, front cover. For the
spending on advertising for other goods in the nineteenth century, see Richards, TheCommodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 18511914.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
21/34
-
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
22/34
CARNEVALI AND NEWTON58
communicated with the public to a far greater extent than manufac-
turers. Hence, they could tailor marketing campaigns to exploit suc-
cessfully their knowledge of consumer trends.
Not all manufacturers were forward-thinking about advertising, how-
ever. Henry Fowler, who joined the Broadwoods partnership in 1863,
did not agree that the firm should pay for advertising and believed it to
be unnecessary and vulgar.102Nonetheless, Broadwoods did advertise
its pianos in the trade press and produced its first advertising brochure
in 1895.103By 1900 the firm bought space in a range of newspapers and
periodicals: The Morning Post, Music Trades Review, Musical Courier,
Musical Opinion, Musical Times, Music, Queen, Kellys Directory, The
Philharmonic Society Paper, Society of Musicians Journal, Forsyths
Halle, and Trinity College. They also advertised in The Times.104Such
placements allowed them to reach a broader audience, including mostof the plausible buying public. Both trade and press advertising cost
them 200 per annum in 1900.105Fowlers views were clearly super-
seded by the necessity of maintaining the Broadwood brand in the pub-
lic eye and generating sales via advertising.
Yet the Piano, Organ and Music Trades Journalrealized that adver-
tising by itself was not sufficient to generate business:
If you buy a few inches of advertising space and then sit back in
your chair, and expect trade to flow into your door as a result of your
ad, without following it up with personal work and up-to-datemethods of catalogue announcements, you will be entirely foiled.
Advertising must be given attention all the time. Advertising is
like a plant. With proper care and attention it will grow to mam-
moth proportions, and increase the business of the advertiser.106
This statement acknowledged the need to communicate with the
customer, but also that this should be achieved in an imaginative
manner: It is of no use merely to tell the public that you are to be
found at a certain address, and that you sell pianos and organs.
The thing is to arrest their attention, to interests them by a cleverly-devised and articulately-worded circular.107
102. Catalogue, Archive of John Broadwood & Sons, Surrey History Centre,Woking.
103. John Broadwood & Sons, 2185/JB/78/2, Surrey History Centre, Woking.104. See, for example, Broadwoods advertisement in The Times, Friday, Oct.
23, 1914, p. 10, issue 40674.105. Minutes of John Broadwood & Sons, Board of Directors Minute Books,
2185/JB/4/1. Archive of John Broadwood & Sons, Surrey History Centre, Woking.106. Piano, Organ and Music Trades Journal, no. 211, Mar. 1900, vol. XVII
(new series no. 179), 632.
107. Piano, Organ and Music Trades Journal, no. 151, Mar. 1895, vol. XIII (newseries no. 119), 36.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/ -
8/10/2019 Enterprise Soc 2013 Carnevali 37 70
23/34
Pianos for the People 59
The other, more usual type of advertisement that appeared in news-
papers was the classified ad for pianos, which reached an even broader
audiencethose who earned lower incomes. For example, a look at the
classified section of The Morning Postin 1899 reveals several columns
of adverts for pianos.108 Two adverts for pianos appeared a genera-
tion earlier, in The Penny Illustrated Paperin February 1862, between
notices for harmoniums and sewing machines.109These adverts indi-
cated models of instruments and included their full pricesusually
12 or lessor the cost of hire per monthoften 10 shillings. Both new
and second-hand pianos were advertised. Pianos sold via the classified
advertisements were much cheaper than those offered in department
stores, manufacturers showrooms and the outlets of specialist dealers.
The classifieds catered for those who were concerned with achieving
ownership at a low price rather than seeking quality. They reflectedthisno images, just a few plain lines indicating the type and price of
the instrument. This contrasts markedly with the prestige advertis-
ing by companies, such as Broadwoods, but demonstrates that adver-
tising and selling pianos reached toward a variety of end markets.
Marketing, as well as lower prices, thus fuelled the demand for
pianos. The next section considers where people bought pianos, how
much they cost, and what the variations in price were over the period
under consideration.
Retailing the Piano
In 1850, pianos were still expensive, and purchasing one was
beyond the financial means of the majority of the British population.
In 1849, a modest piano from Broadwood & Sons cost from 45 for
a mahogany cottage upright, but one would spend 160 for a rose-
wood grand.110 Instruments produced by less-famous makers were
appreciably cheaper, some selling for as little as about 20.111 Yet
this lower price was still beyond most ordinary consumers reach.
Even by 1881, a full-time cotton worker was only earning 38 per
annum and the average annual wage for all sectors was about 48 per
annum.112A lack of competition maintained high prices during the
108. The Morning Post, 30 Nov. 30, 1899, 1.109. For example, see The Penny Illustrated Paper, 1 Feb. 1862, 80.110. John Broadwood & Sons Archive, wholesale and retail price list, 1849,
2185/JB/76/14, Surrey History Centre. In current prices, 45 would be approxi-mately 2,500 and 160 would be just over 9,000. National Archives currencyconverter, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/. No comparable pricesare available from department stores until later in the century.
111. Ehrlich, The Piano, 40.112. Boyer, Living Standards, 18601939, 286.
byguestonOctober30,2014
http://es.oxfordjournals
.org/
Do
wnloadedfrom
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.org/http://es.oxfordjournals.or