The
Martin guitar company was founded in 1833 in New York
City by Christian Frederick Martin Sr. and has been
under the continuous leadership of six family
generations. Born in 1796 in Markneukirchen,
Germany, Christian Frederick took up the families
cabinet making craft until the age of 15, when he left
his hometown and traveled to Vienna to apprentice with
Johann Stauffer, a renowned guitar maker. After
marrying and bearing a son, he returned to his homeland
to set up his own shop. However Martin found himself in
dispute with the Violin Makers Guild who protested that
a cabinet maker should not be allowed to craft musical
instruments. Concluding that the guild system
severely limited opportunities in Germany, he made the
decision to emigrate to the United States, and on
September 9, 1833, he left his homeland for New York
City.
On arriving in New York, he set up shop at 196 Hudson
Street on the Lower West Side. Martin’s first
establishment on these shores was a far cry from the
company’s current 84,000-square-foot factory staffed
by nearly 500 employees. His modest storefront housed a
limited guitar production set-up in the back room, as
well as a retail store selling everything from cornets
to sheet music. To augment the sales of his retail
store, C. F. Martin entered into distribution agreements
with a variety of teachers, importers, and wholesalers,
including C. Bruno & Company (operating today as a
subsidiary of Kaman Music Corporation), Henry Schatz,
and John Coupa. Consequently, a number of Martin guitars
manufactured prior to 1840 are labeled "Martin
& Schatz" and "Martin & Coupa."
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C.F. Martin and his young family longed for the pastoral
rolling hills of their homeland and in 1936 left New
York City and purchased a tract of land on the outskirts
of Nazareth where he spent the remainder of his life and
where the this day the Martin Guitar Company calls
home. In the subsequent years Martin hired on a
dozen craftsman and expanded sales into Boston, Albany,
Philadelphia, Richmond, Petersburg, Nashville,
Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and New Orleans. In 1850 he
embarked on an expansion to the factory capacity in
Nazareth. The early Martin guitars were totally
hand-crafted products, with little standardization.
However, there were a few features that commonly
incorporated in most of C. F. Martin’s instruments.
Until the mid-1840s, Martin guitars were characterized
by a headstock that had all the tuning keys on one side.
Martin acquired this design from his teacher in Vienna,
Johann Stauffer. The headstock design with all the
tuning keys on one side was discontinued by Martin and
went unused until Leo Fender resurrected the design in
1948 with his Telecaster guitar. The 1850s also
witnessed one of C. F. Martin’s major design
innovations, the "X" bracing system for the
guitar top. Still in use today on all steel-string
Martin guitars, the bracing system is largely
responsible for the distinctive Martin tone,
characterized by brilliant treble and powerful bass
response.
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C. F. Martin, Sr., died in 1873, leaving to his family
and the musical world a fine tradition of guitar making.
Succeeding him at the helm of the young company was his
son, 48-year-old Christian Frederick, Jr. In
1859, an expanded plant was constructed on the corner of
Main and North Streets in Nazareth. Having undergone
numerous expansions, the North Street plant is still
used today as a warehouse and shipping location for
strings and accessories. In
1888, C. F. Martin, Jr., died unexpectedly, leaving the
business in the hands of his 22-year-old son, Frank
Henry. During the 1890s, with the massive
immigration of Italians into the United States, the
mandolin (an instrument of Italian origin) became
increasingly popular. Frank Martin enjoyed a tremendous
boom in the sale of mandolins. In 1898, Frank Martin’s
personal records indicated that the firm produced 113
mandolins of various styles. Production in the previous
year had totaled a mere three units. Given that the
company’s guitar production for the previous three
years had been approximately 220 units per year, the
addition of mandolins to the product line represented
significant growth for the company.
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The 1920s were booming years for the Martin Company, as
the ukulele captured the fancy of the American public.
The first Martin ukuleles were not well received. They
were made much like a guitar, with too much bracing in
the body, particularly in the top, which was of spruce.
The excessive bracing and the spruce top gave the
instruments a dead and lackluster tone that failed to
appeal to the buying public.
Recognizing the shortcomings of its initial ukulele
design, Martin went to work at producing an acceptable
uke. By reducing the amount of bracing and substituting
mahogany for spruce, Martin quickly garnered a large
share of the ukulele market. The demand for the products
was such that Martin was forced to double the capacity
of the North Street plant with an additional wing and
increase in the work force. Guitar production in 1920
totaled 1,361 units; records of ukulele production were
not kept, but Christian Frederick Martin III estimates
that the company turned out nearly twice as many
ukuleles as guitars during the ’20s.
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During the decade of the ’20s, sales of C. F. Martin
instruments increased every year, and by 1928 annual
guitar production stood at 5,215 units, over four times
the output of 1920. With the advent of the Great
Depression in 1929, national economic hardship forced
the Martin family to discard aspirations for increased
sales and concentrate on plain survival. With millions
out of work and thousands of businesses on the brink of
bankruptcy, selling guitars proved increasingly
challenging.
Striving to stimulate depressed sales, Martin launched
an active product development campaign during the
Depression. During this period, the company added new
designs to the product line, altered existing products,
and explored numerous features in hopes of finding a
product that would bolster lagging sales. While many of
the products conceived during this period had a short
life span, two major developments emerged that had a
lasting effect on the company: the creation of the now
famous "Dreadnought" guitar and the invention
of the 14-fret neck.
According
to C. F. Martin III, the 14-fret neck was developed in
late 1929. Prior to the period, guitars were generally
equipped with a 12-fret neck. As the story goes, a
renowned plectrum banjoist of the day, Perry Bechtel,
suggested to Frank Henry Martin that he make a guitar
with a 14-fret neck. Bechtel reasoned that the longer
neck would increase the guitar’s range and make it a
more versatile instrument. Following Bechtel’s advice,
Martin introduced a guitar with the longer neck and
dubbed it an "Orchestra Model."
The 14-fret neck was so well
received that Martin eventually extended the feature to
all models in its line. In short order, it became the
standard design for the American guitar industry.
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The Dreadnought guitar, named after a large class of
World War I British battleships, has become something of
a trademark of the Martin Company. The original Martin
Dreadnought models were designed by Frank Martin and
Harry Hunt, manager of Chas. H. Ditson Co., a leading
music retailer with stores in New York, Boston and
Philadelphia. A shrewd judge of the market, Hunt
reasoned that a Dreadnought guitar, with its large body
and booming bass, would be ideal for accompanying
vocals. The first Dreadnoughts, introduced in 1916, were
sold under the brand name of "Oliver Ditson &
Co., Boston, New York." At first the instruments
were not very well received simply because there were
not many singers using guitars, and solo players felt
that the bass on the Dreadnought was overbearing.
However, as folk singing became increasingly popular,
sales of the Dreadnought picked up. The Ditson Company
went out of business in the late 1920s, and in 1931
Martin incorporated the Dreadnought into its line of
guitars. Today, the model is a dominant factor in the
Martin line, and virtually every maker of acoustic
guitars, both domestic and foreign, has introduced a
version of this original Martin design.
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Frank Henry Martin died at the age of 81 in 1948, and C.
F. Martin III assumed the presidency of the company,
which continued to enjoy worldwide recognition for its
guitars of uncompromising quality. Post-war prosperity,
coupled with a growing interest in guitars and folk
music, made the years 1948-1970 an unprecedented era of
growth for C. F. Martin. Demand for Martin guitars
increased at a far greater pace than did production
capacity, and thus by the early ’60s the company was
back-ordered as much as three years. While some might
have felt that Martin’s back-order situation was
enviable, C. F. Martin III recounted that it was a
frustrating time. "When someone walks into a music
store with several hundred dollars and asks for a Martin
guitar, he wants it then, not three years later. Our
lack of production capacity at the time cost us sales
and strained our relationships with our dealer
family."
Thus, C. F. Martin III, with the aid of his son, Frank
Herbert Martin, who joined the company in 1955, made the
major decision to build a new larger plant. In 1964 the
North Street plant, with its multi-story construction
and numerous additions, was no longer adequate to
service the demand for the company’s product.
"The North Street plant was not the best production
facility, but running up and down four flights of stairs
constantly every day probably contributed to the
longevity of Martin family members," quipped C. F.
Martin III.
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Production methods at the new Sycamore Street Martin
plant have evolved slightly from methods used at North
Street. Hand craftsmanship was and remains the trademark
of the Martin guitar. However, with the building’s
efficient one-story layout, Martin has been able to
improve the flow of materials and work in progress and
thus gradually increase output without sacrificing
quality. Under the direction of Frank Herbert
Martin, who succeeded his father, C. F. Martin III, as
president in 1970, Martin began a period of acquisition.
In 1970, the company purchased the renowned Vega Banjo
Works of Boston. Months later, it acquired the Fibes
Drum Company, makers of a unique fiberglass drum. The
year 1970 brought still another acquisition, that of the
Darco String Company, owned by John D’Addario, Sr.,
John D’Addario, Jr., and James D’Addario. Another
addition in the early ’70s was the A. B. Herman
Carlson Levin Company of Sweden. Levin made a variety of
classic guitars as well as the steel string type. In
subsequent years, Vega, Levin and Fibes were spun off;
however, the manufacture of Martin and Darco strings
remains an integral part of the company.
Christian
Frederick Martin IV was born in 1955. He attended UCLA,
majoring in Economics and in his free time, he helped in
the guitar repair shop of Westwood Music in West Los
Angeles, and this also gave him a valuable insight into
the retail end of the music business. After the
death of his grandfather, C. F. Martin III, on June 15,
1986, C. F. Martin IV was appointed Chairman of the
Board and Chief Executive Officer, indicating his
responsibility for leading Martin into the next century.
Under Chris’ management, the Sycamore Street facility
was expanded, the successful Backpacker travel guitar
was introduced, and the limited edition guitar program
was expanded to include signature models of significant
artists like Gene Autry, Eric Clapton, and Marty Stuart
as well as unique collaborations like the 1996 "MTV
Unplugged" MTV-1 guitar. Perhaps the boldest new
direction that Chris took was the development and
introduction of the patented "1 Series"
guitars, which thoroughly re-examined the way guitars
are designed and constructed. Through the use of
innovative processes combined with computer aided
manufacturing, the "1 Series" models offer an
affordable acoustic guitar without compromise of tone or
craftsmanship.
(extracted from the C.F.
Martin official site) |
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