David H. Schmidt

Biography

David H. Schmidt was trained to eventually head the piano-hammer business founded by his father in Poughkeepsie, New York. He was apprenticed to a cabinet maker in New York for three years, then to the well-known piano maker William Manner for two years to learn the higher branches of piano making. At nineteen he went to Germany to gain further experience in larger establishments for two years, then joined his father's firm by request in 1878. Ten years later he was admitted to partnership, and upon his father's retirement he assumed full control of the business. As a competent piano maker with practical knowledge of manufacturing piano hammers, he enhanced the reputation his father had built for the "Schmidt" piano hammer. Under his management the business grew enough that it was incorporated in 1908 as the David H. Schmidt Company, with David H. Schmidt as president and treasurer, Christian W. Schmidt as vice-president, and A. F. Stern as secretary. A sketched portrait of him, with his signature, accompanies the text. Schmidt, son of John Frederick Schmidt, took over the family hammer-making business, carrying it on as a corporation with marked ability and success following his father's 1886 retirement and 1906 death.

Highlights

• Son of John Frederick Schmidt; carried on the hammer-making business as a corporation after his father's retirement/death.
• Apprenticed to a cabinet maker and then to piano maker William Manner before studying two years in Germany
• Joined his father's business in 1878, was admitted to partnership ten years later, and took full charge upon his father's retirement
• Incorporated the business as the David H. Schmidt Company in 1908, becoming its president and treasurer

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911); Vol. II (1913).

Public domain.