Music for the Millions

In Music for the Millions, author Van Allen Bradley tells the story of a firm which, at the time of this book's original publication in 1962, had endured for 100 years.

But the Kimball Piano and Organ Company accomplished more than simply surviving a century-it played a dominant role in the development of the industry of which it was a part.

The company started as a piano dealership in Chicago in 1857 as W.W. Kimball and Company by William Wallace Kimball (1828-1904). In 1864, Kimball moved from its earliest location in the corner of a jewelry store to sales rooms in the Crosby Opera House. The Great Chicago Fire destroyed all of Kimball's commercial assets in 1871, but he continued selling from his home, and rebuilt his dealership business.

In 1877, W.W. Kimball began assembling its own reed organs, and after three years the company began offering organs made entirely in-house. In 1882, the Kimball company was incorporated, and an expansive factory was built to produce reed organs; soon, the factory was producing 15,000 organs a year-the world's largest organ maker.

In 1887, Kimball began building a five-story factory for making its own pianos, and the next year produced 500 instruments of indifferent quality. By 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition, at which Kimball received the "Worlds Columbian Exposition Award," Kimball was known for high quality, efficiency in manufacture, and aggressive sales practices, using 35-40 traveling salesmen to cover cities and remote areas.

In 1959, the W.W. Kimball Company was purchased from the last remaining Kimball family heir by Mr. Arnold F. Habig and became a wholly owned subsidiary of The Jasper Corporation. Piano production was relocated to the small, southern Indiana town of West Baden, Indiana, where the company was rejuvenated and once again began to grow-10 years after the purchase, Kimball was once again the world's largest piano company.