George Payne Bent

Biography

George Payne Bent was born at Dundee, Illinois, on June 16, 1854. Intending a professional career, he attended Wheaton College and later enrolled at Grinnell College, Iowa, but had to earn his living and came to Chicago in 1870, working as a general utility man for sewing-machine dealer David C. Cook. In 1878 he bought out Cook's business. Bent moved into selling organs, developed the "Crown" organ, and in 1889 began manufacturing the "Crown" piano, applying scientific and systematic methods to piano construction and materials testing. His pianos, including a chromatic-keyboard upright, were exhibited in thirty-two state buildings at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, earning a jury diploma. He erected a mammoth factory in 1894 and built a large export trade. The George P. Bent Company held twenty-seven patents, including an adjustable string frame/iron-plate bearing system for uprights, and later produced the "Crown" Combinola player piano. Bent was elected treasurer of the National Association of Piano Manufacturers in 1897 and its president in 1904.

Highlights

• Built the "Crown" organ and piano lines and grew the George P. Bent Company into a Chicago factory doing over a million dollars of business a year
• Won a diploma from the jury of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago
• Elected treasurer (1897) then president (1904) of the National Association of Piano Manufacturers

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. II (1913), pp. 43, 44, 45.

Public domain.