A Brief History of the Conn Company (1874-present)*
by Margaret Downie Banks, Ph.D.
Curator of Musical Instruments
National Music Museum
Vermillion, South Dakota
© Copyright 1997 by The National Music Museum.
All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, including this page and any of the separate
pages, may be copied, retransmitted, reposted, duplicated or otherwise
used without the express written permission of The National Music Museum.
*Excerpted and updated from Elkhart's Brass Roots: An Exhibition
to
Commemorate the 150th Anniversary of C. G. Conn's Birth and the 120th
Anniversary of the Conn Company by Margaret Downie Banks (Vermillion,
South Dakota: The Shrine to Music Museum, 1994).
Carl D. Greenleaf (1876-1959), an Ohio flour miller by profession,
claimed that he
knew essentially nothing about musical instruments, when he invested in the
company, although he admitted that he was a poor, self-taught alto horn player.
Nevertheless, one of the first improvements made by the straitlaced, but
efficient businessman, was the expansion, upgrading, and retooling of the
Elkhart plant. By 1917, the work force had increased to 550 and the new
assembly-line factory was turning out close to 2,500 instruments per month
using a new hydraulic expansion process to produce a more consistent
product.
Carl Dimond Greenleaf, owner of C. G. Conn Ltd., 1915-1959. From the
Conn Archives at National Music Museum.
© Copyright 1997 by The National Music Museum.
Hydraulic expansion machine introduced by Carl
Greenleaf
for
creating brass instrument taper
branches, ca. 1920. From the Conn Archives at National Music Museum.
© Copyright 1997 by The National Music Museum.
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Dr. Margaret Downie Banks, Curator of Musical Instruments
National Music Museum
The University of South Dakota
414 East Clark Street
Vermillion, SD 57069-2390
E-mail: mbanks@usd.edu
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