research papers on american musical wind-instrument makers and dealers, 1761 to 1980s

These papers (described more fully below), compiled for use in William Waterhouse’s book, The New Langwill Index: A Dictionary of Musical Wind-Instrument Makers and Inventors (London: T. Bingham, 1993), provide a rich source of information on approximately 398 makers and dealers of woodwind and brasswind musical instruments who were active in the United States (and in the pre-revolutionary colonies) from 1761 to about 1950, with some information as late as the 1980s. Because many of these individuals also dealt in (or manufactured) pianos, violins, drums, and other instruments, the papers may be of interest to researchers in peripheral categories. These 478 typescript pages, compiled in the late 1980s, list data including, when available:

• the maker’s full name given at birth

• birth place

• place/date of death

• place of burial

• street addresses of shops and factories and dates

• master’s name

• business partners

• parents and brother(s) or sister(s), if known as instrument makers

• successors and their relationships

• inventions

• patents

• writings

• catalogs

• exhibitions

• locations of instruments

• data sources

• maker’s mark(s)

• remarks by the compilers