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).
Although Gus Buescher strongly believed that the industry could never
make enough saxophones, Carl Greenleaf steered the Conn company toward
expanding
and developing its other band instruments, which, until the late 1920s, had
taken a back seat to saxophone production. Although the stock market crash
had seriously weakened a number of other instrument manufacturers, the Conn
company was in the enviable position of being able to save them through
purchase. As a result, C. G. Conn Ltd. greatly expanded its product lines.
In 1929/30, Greenleaf purchased the assets of Ludwig & Ludwig (percussion),
Carl Fischer's musical instrument department, and the Soprani Company
(accordions). This was in addition to the company's previous ownership of the
Elkhart Band Instrument Company (1923-1927), the Leedy Company (acquired in
1927; percussion), and 49.9% of H. & A. Selmer's stock, acquired
during the consolidation of Conn's New York Company with H. & A. Selmer
(1923-January 1927). Subsidiaries of the Conn company in 1930 also included
the Continental Music Company (begun in 1923 as a wholesale division of
Conn's Chicago retail store) and the Pan American Band Instrument Company,
which Carl Greenleaf established in 1917 to produce student line instruments.
An early Pan American Band Instrument Company logo from an original
engraving
pattern in the Conn
Archives
at the National Music Museum. Gift of Lynn Osborne, Elkhart, Indiana,
1992.
© Copyright 1997 by The National Music Museum.
During his first two decades with the company, Carl Greenleaf
completely eliminated the practice of subsidizing musicians for their
endorsements, as well as eliminating the company's old mail order business.
He opened branch stores in more than thirty major cities in the U.S. and
Canada, which, although somewhat profitable, were eventually discontinued.
Under Greenleaf's direction, an efficient system of coded letters and numbers,
assigned to all the company's products, was introduced in 1922, a practice
which remains in use to this day. Like Col. Conn, "C. D." Greenleaf, as he
was often called, continued to offer many instrument models in both high and
low pitch through the 1930s, although low pitch was accepted as the industry
standard after 1920.
Aerial view of the Conn factory during the late 1920s and 1930s. From
the Postcard Collection
of Margaret Downie Banks.
© Copyright 1997 by Margaret Downie Banks.
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For further information, please contact:
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
This page updated April 5, 2000.
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