Lucien Wulsin

Biography

Lucien Wulsin, together with his partner Armstrong, built the Baldwin piano business into a major American manufacturer. Described as the man of ideas and business foresight who believed in the growth of the American nation, he planned the firm's expansion while Armstrong worked out the exacting financial details. Once the business was established, Wulsin turned to developing the artistic quality of the Baldwin piano, earning it the Grand Prix at the 1900 Paris Exposition and praise from virtuosi Pugno and de Pachmann. His love of the beautiful extended to the factories themselves: he hired an architect to combine beauty with practicality, decorated the offices with pictures of classical architecture to train workmen's eyes, and surrounded the buildings with flowers, producing workrooms that impressed visitors as artists' studios rather than piano shops. He was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor at the 1900 Paris Exposition, and the text quotes a letter from him describing his belief that the company's welfare depends on fair treatment of employees and awakening their latent ideals and enthusiasm. Lucien Wulsin, sometimes styled F. Lucien Wulsin, was born in Louisiana in 1845 and came with his family to Cincinnati in early childhood, attending Cincinnati public school and part of high school. At 19 he enlisted in the Union army, serving first in a Kentucky infantry battalion and then, from January 1864 to the war's end, in the Fourth Ohio Cavalry. In March 1866 he entered the employ of D. H. Baldwin, a music teacher selling Decker Brothers' pianos in Cincinnati, starting as clerk, bookkeeper, and general factotum; his usefulness earned him a partnership in 1873, when the firm became D. Baldwin & Company. He helped drive the firm's expansion, including branches at Indianapolis and Louisville and the founding of subsidiary organ and piano companies. When Baldwin died in 1899 leaving his estate for missionary purposes, Wulsin, unwilling to see his life's work dissolved, joined George W. Armstrong, Jr. to buy out the Baldwin estate's and the last remaining partner's stock. A portrait of Wulsin, inscribed to Alfred Dolge in January 1911, accompanies the text.

Highlights

• Served in the Union Army from age 19 in a Kentucky infantry battalion and later the Fourth Ohio Cavalry
• Joined music teacher D. H. Baldwin's piano-selling business in 1866 as clerk and bookkeeper and rose to full partner by 1873
• After Baldwin's 1899 death, joined George W. Armstrong, Jr. to buy out the Baldwin estate's stock and preserve the firm
• Decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor at the Paris Exposition of 1900
• Engaged an architect to design humane, beautiful Baldwin factories opposite Eden Park in Cincinnati
• Wrote to the author describing his management philosophy of fair treatment awakening ideals in workers

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), pp. 345, 347, 348.

Public domain.