Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Will Women Solve Labor Problem in Piano Trade?
Other Industries Have Found That They Can Handle Satisfactorily Much of the Work
Usually Confined to Men — Employed in British Piano Factories — Their Status Here
A serious problem of the trade that may be
accepted as a direct result of war conditions and
demands, and which will undoubtedly become
more acute with the calling out of those ac-
cepted by draft for the national army, is the
shortage of labor that is making itself felt in
factories throughout the country, and which is
also apparent to a greater or less degree in some
piano warerooms. At the present time there
are large sections of various piano manufactur-
ing plants not being used for productive pur-
poses as a result of this scarcity of labor.
A suggestion that is receiving more than
passing comment is that the inevitable gaps
be filled with female labor, for the economic
welfare of the industry.
From the factory standpoint, there is great
opportunity for manufacturers to avail them-
selves of female labor.
For years, certain
plants in the trade, including particularly the
player action and music roll divisions, have
found female labor thoroughly desirable. This
is evidence right within our own industrial
sphere, and we venture to say the principal rea-
son women have not already invaded the other
branches is because these other branches have
been governed more by time-aged custom,
whereas the player action and music roll divi-
sions represent comparatively recent evolutions
in the music industry.
For some years past women have been em-
ployed to a greater or less extent in British
piano factories, some of them holding quite
important positions, and since the war has
taken the men, women have played an even
more prominent part in making pianos in Eng-
land.
Women Employed in Broadwood Factory
In the factory of John Broadwood & Sons,
Ltd., London, one of the most prominent in Eng-
land, women are not only employed in making
and assembling player parts and in operating
special machinery, but have proven very suc-
cessful in the finishing and tuning departments.
They set up and run their own machines for
the production of action parts, and find places
in practically every department, even in that
devoted to the making of backs. A most inter-
esting fact is that women and girl employes are
under the direct care and supervision of a
woman superintendent and forewoman, a Miss
Hall, who is herself an expert piano worker.
The experience of the Allies, moreover, par-
ticularly England and France, has opened our
eyes to the fact that there are comparatively
few kinds of work, even in the metal working
industries, that woman cannot do.
Indeed, not only has woman demonstrated her
ability to perform all manner of work always
thought to be the special prerogative of the
male, but has beat the best records hung up by
men both as to quality and quantity. In Eng-
land, for instance, women in munition factories,
operating machine tools, are turning out two
to four times as many pieces as the average men,
and they are earning correspondingly higher
wages. Detroit has given many examples of
the efficiency of women operatives. And as for
lighter work, which requires not strength so
much as deftness, dexterity and diligence, this
is where women decidedly excel, for they are
proverbially defter with fingers and quicker with
the eye than men, as a class.
Another reason which is advanced by some
for the superior work of women is because they
enter factory work almost totally free from the
centuries-old tradition of the male laboring class
which communicates to each new generation the
theory of restriction of effort. "Soldiering" has
been deliberately practiced since time iramera-
orable, with the result that it has become
more or less a male characteristic. If a young
man just starting work displays energy and zeal
he is ofttimes brought "to earth" by his older
mates.
In Detroit manufacturers who have never
employed women before, except in the office,
are planning to utilize them as shop clerks,
inspectors on bench assembling, rubbing, polish-
ing and grinding, on welding and soldering,
on turning and milling, on automatic screw ma-
chines and on punch presses. One factory is
already using women on all punch presses up
to five tons.
Some New Problems Brought Up
The larger advent of women into industry, of
course, brings with it a multitude of problems.
Many factories are not now arranged to handle
both men and women; the working conditions
indeed are such in some instances as to make the
employment of women there inadvisable if not
intolerable. The owners of such places, how-
ever, apparently realize their shortcomings and
are preparing to make such changes and im-
provements as are necessary.
The Review cordially invites correspondence
on the desirability of women in the piano fac-
tories, as every thoughtful opinion on this sub-
ject deserves immediate consideration. If the
thing is worth doing, it must be done before
other great industries corner female labor. That
piano trade interest is already aroused on this
matter is indicated by the recent news from
Minneapolis to the effect that the Hollahd Piano
Mfg. Co., of that city, are conducting a drive in
the daily papers to secure female labor for
their plant.
So much for the factory end of the woman
question: now for the piano merchants' end.
The idea of employing women on the sales
staff of piano merchants is certainly not new,
and there are scattered throughout the country
not only women, as active members of pro-
gressive sales staffs, but also as piano dealers
on their own account. Some of them have been
in business for a number of years.
It has been found that the piano saleswoman,
conceding that she has a proper education and
the requisite talent for the job, is not only
quick to absorb the usual sales arguments of her
male conferees regarding the necessity of music
in the home, in keeping the young people in
their home and interested in it, the desirability
of musical education for children, etc., but has
also the advantage that she can gain entree into
the average home much more rapidly than the
average man and thereby has a greater op-
portunity to put her arguments to the test.
Even in cases where women have not been em-
ployed as saleswomen, they have proven in-
valuable as canvassers in working up leads for
the salesmen to close.
Those dealers who, as a result of war condi-
tions, are forced to contemplate the hiring of
women to fill gaps in their sales forces, might do
well to communicate with some of their fellows
who have experimented with female help and
thereby get facts at first hand to work upon.
It is not likely in times such as these that such
facts will be withheld.
As proof of what women can do in developing
the sale of musical instruments we have but
to call attention to the success of the educa-
tional department of the Victor Talking Ma-
chine Co. in introducing music into the schools,
through the medium of Victrolas and records.
This work has been under the direct supervision
of Mrs. Frances E. Clark, with other capable
women in her corps of assistants, and the thou-
sands of talking machines in the schools of
hundreds of cities to-day afford emphatic tes-
timony of their ability.
The subject is a "live" one and well in order
for consideration now.
E. R. JONES OPENS OFFICES
NOW MANAGER IN WILKES=BARRE
Resigns From Hallet & Davis Co. in Boston
After Long Connection and Enters the Trade
on Own Account—Future Plans Not Complete
W. B. Shaul, Experienced Piano Man, in Charge
of Ludwig & Co. Branch in That City
BOSTON, MASS., August 13.—E. R. Jones, who
has been connected with the Hallet & Davis
Piano Co. for fourteen years, has resigned and
has taken offices in suite 302, 142 Berkeley
street, this city, where also is located W. W.
Radcliffe, who is widely known in the trade.
Mr. Jones, who will be glad to greet his many
friends at this new address, has not definitely
completed his plans, but he has associated with
the Kurtzmann line as well as several other
attractive makes of pianos for which he will
be general distributor for New England. Mr.
Jones has many friends in this territory, as dur-
ing much of the time he was with the Hallet
& Davis Co. he was the New England and New
York State wholesale representative.
SUFFER LOSS FROM FIRE
Fire in the store of the W. G. Dunn Co., piano
dealer of 104 North Stanton street, El Paso,
Texas, caused serious damage to the stock of
thirty pianos and players, practically every in-
strument being blistered by the heat and several
of them soaked by the water. The loss, running
into several hundred dollars, was covered by
insurance.
WINTER & CO.
220 SOUTHERN BOULEVARD, NEW YORK
Manufacturers of
W. B. Shaul, who is now manager of the store
of Ludwig & Co., Wilkes-Barre, Pa., has been
successfully connected with piano business for
about ten years, having started with the Knight-
Campbell Music Co., Denver, Colo. He also
spent five years in Cincinnati with the Rudolph
Wurlitzer Co., three years as inside salesman
and two years as outside salesman. He is get-
ting excellent results for the Ludwig pianos and
player-pianos in Wilkes-Barre.
CHAMBERS MUSICO). INCORPORATED
The Chambers Music Co., Inc., New York, has
been chartered with a capital stock of $3,000 to
deal in musical instruments. The incorporators
are Harry Duckman, Julius Goldberg and Harry
Goldberg.
INCREASES CAPITAL STOCK
The charter of the Petersburg Piano Corp.,
Petersburg, Va., has been amended, increasing
the capital stock of the corporation from $15,000
to $25,000.
The W. T. Worth Music Co. has opened a new
store in Sioux City, la.
Superior Pianos
and Player Pianos