FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010 EXHIBITION Steinway’s finely tuned sense of 19th-century America
Pianomaker’s diaries, with Smithsonian
annotations, offer look at CivilWar, immigrant life
BY JACQUELINE TRESCOTT William Steinway, the son of
the founder of the piano manu- facturer, emigrated from Germa- ny to New York City at 15, joining the family business a few years later. Life around him was chang- ing so quickly, he began a diary eight days after the Civil War started. He wrote faithfully for 36
years, documenting the racial, ethnic and social struggles of the 19th century. His diary grewto nine volumes
and was kept by the family after his death. When Smithsonian curator
Cynthia Adams Hoover went to the Steinway factory in Astoria, Queens, on June 13, 1966, to find material for an exhibition, she was struck by the historic value of the diary and the diligence of the writer. Now, 44 years later, the Smith-
sonian’s National Museum of AmericanHistory is showing part of the diary. An exhibition on the volumes and the Steinway family opens Friday in the museum’s Albert H. Small Documents Gal- lery, along with complete online display. The Steinway Diary Project
was coordinated by Hoover and Edwin M. Good, a retired Stan- ford University professor, with 100 volunteers, who read every page, researched 19th-century colloquialisms in English and German, and annotated events that Steinway witnessed or com- mented on. That’s 2,500 pages. Entries in-
clude the 1863 draft riots and the building of the New York City subway, Steinway’s friendship with Grover Cleveland, financial panics of the time, labor issues and the piano wars of the 1870s. Hoover, sitting in a conference
room of the museum with a dra- matic view of the Washington Monument, said she never gave up on the project. “On that first visit, I was shown the diary on the file cabinets. I thought—whew— all this firsthand material,” said Hoover, curator emerita of musi- cal instruments. When Hoover first become in-
terested in the diary, the Ameri- can History building was new, and she had other curatorial goals. But the diary was an irresist-
ible artifact, and the records of Steinway family a logical place to start any collection. “The diary itself—William’s entries are suc- cinct, terse and the writing in English is very good,” she said. Anna Karvellas, the managing
editor of the Steinway project, said one value of the entries is their uniqueness. “We don’tknow of anyone else who kept a diary to this extent,” Karvellas said. “Wil- liam Steinway was an immigrant,
dent. As Steinway built the neigh- borhood around the factory in Queens, he had a hands-on role constructing the houses, planting the trees and even planning an amusement park. A civic activist, he was the head of the New York Subway
Commission.Andhe pro- moted the piano as a sign of respectability, with a Steinway standing as a badge of culture. “He sponsored tours with the
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY
SNAPSHOTFROM1863: William Steinway recorded nine volumes of observations from 1861 to 1896. Portions of the diary will be on display at theNationalMuseum of AmericanHistory until April 8.
trying to prove himself.Onething was he went out almost every night. Whatever the rage was at the time, he was there.” With all the historic detail,
Hoover wanted the volumes to be accessible to the publicandschol- ars, but the idea of transcribing the diaries was formidable. Some of the binding was frayed and taped.Microfilming was urgent and was finished in 1981. Nearly 25 years later, the diary was scanned. In a strange way, she said, the
team was lucky it took so long. The idea of having a printed collection of the diary was aban- doned, and the idea of putting it online flourished. “It is fortunate we didn’t finish earlier because the technology has changed,” Hoover said. The transcription team started
in earnest in the early 1980s with Good joining in 1987 with a grant from the Steinway family. In 1988 Hoover enlisted more volunteers, gathering scholars in German, music and immigrant life and finance. In 2007, the administration of the project ex- panded through a $600,000 gift from the Target Corp. They ended with more than 30,000 annota-
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farhip@washpost.com
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tions, the result, Hoover said, of 25,000 hours of researching and writing. Andthe diary team is not done.
Nowthe text has tohavecomplete annotation, the next phase, said Hoover, who retired in 2004 from her curatorial role but has stayed with the Steinway Project. “This is a gateway to the 19th
century,” Karvellas said. The theme of immigration is
central. Henry E. Steinway, Wil- liam’s father, was a piano maker in Germany and they continued the business inNewYork. In 1853 they began production under Steinway & Sons and, after a formal incorporation in 1876, William became the first presi-
top composers and players, and they played on Steinways,” Karvellas said. Steinway himself was a tenor. The family started an artists’ management company, which still exists, and opened Steinway Hall, a concert place on 14th Street, then the center of NewYork music life. WhenSteinway was young, the conscription ordered by Presi- dent Abraham Lincoln sparked three days of rioting by mostly Irish immigrants. On July 13, 1863, Steinway
wrote: “About 5 P.M. they appear before our factory Charles speaks to them and with the aid of Rev. FatherMahon they drawoff. . . . It was a terrible scene and we were of course all much exercised at the prospect of having the factory destroyed.” He defended the factory with
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY
FROMTHEPRINTED PAGETOTHEINTERNET:Ateam transcribed the diaries into a searchable online database.
his elderly father and brother, Karvellas said. The next day, they suspended work at the factory and Steinway wrote, “terrible fighting between the soldiers and the mob . . . factory stopped work yesterday and today. . . . Negroes chased everywhere&killed when caught.” In other passages, Steinway recorded the New York nightlife coaxing former president Grover Cleveland and Carl Schurz, a for- mer U.S. senator, to a Piano and Organ Manufacturers Associa- tion event in 1890. Steinway also wrote about his wife and her lover, and the scandal that caused him to divorce her on grounds of adultery in 1876. “It’s all very gripping, ”Hoover
said. “We should do a movie.” On Friday, the museum will introduce the entire searchable online diary — americanhistory.
si.edu/steinwaydiary — to coin- cide with “A Gateway to the 19th Century: The William Steinway Diary, 1861-1896” in the public gallery. The show will display two vol-
umes opened to four pages, along with photographs and advertise- ments from the Steinway compa- ny. The display will be on view until April 8.
trescottj@washpost.com
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