Rose Howard makes reference to the police forbidding coin-op music
machines in the San Francisco bordellos around 1911.  I'd like to
flesh-out the reference by quoting from the excellent (and sordid)
history of the Barbary Coast in Herbert Asbury's book, "The
Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Fransisco Underworld",
Garden City [Knopf] Publishing Co., Inc., Copyright 1933, Garden
City, New York, Chapter X, "Company, Girls!", page 245:


 -- begin quote --

The parlor houses also derived a considerable income from the sale
of beer in bottles and hard liquor by the half-pint and from music.
Practically every resort was equipped with some sort of automatic --
and in later years electrical -- musical instrument, which played only
when fed nickels and quarters.

A great deal of the revenue from the music and sale of liquor went
to the police and politicians as graft, in addition to the regular
payments, which were usually based on the number of girls in a house.
Sometimes besides taking most of the coins which had been dropped into
the machine, the greedy grafters levied a special unofficial tax upon
each musical instrument; or ordered all music stopped and then permit-
ted its resumption upon payment of another so-called tax or license
fee...

In the late spring of that year [1911] the police forbade all music
in the houses of prostitution and ordered the removal and destruction
of every musical instrument in the red light district.  A month later,
in July, the proprietors of the houses were told that they might pro-
vide music for the entertainment of their guests, but that it must be
the music of the automatic harp.

There wasn't such an instrument in the Barbary Coast, but the lack was
soon remedied.  A few days after the bagnio-keepers had been notified,
a salesman for a Cincinnati piano house appeared in the district and
offered automatic harps for sale for $750 each, about four times what
they could have been bought for in the open market...

Practically all of the parlor houses were in two-or-three-story
buildings which had once been private residences.  When they were
transformed into bagnios, the interior arrangements were usually
altered to provide additional bedrooms, and, if possible, the living
room or parlor was enlarged...

The parlor was a potpourri of gaudy rugs, erotic paintings or photo-
graphs, garish couches and divans, and heavily gilded chairs and
tables.  In one corner was the omnipresent automatic or electrical
musical instrument, and in some places a small section of the floor
was cleared for dancing...

Whether or not the visitor made his selection immediately, he was
importuned to purchase liquor or provide coins for the music... In
a few resorts the girls wore no clothing whatever, except slippers
and stockings...

Besides the automatic instrument which required nickels and quarters
to burst forth into melody, Madame Bertha's house boasted an organ,
upon which the mistress of the bagnio performed with rare skill.  On
Sunday afternoons she closed the resort for an hour or two, except for
specially invited guests, and during that time, becomingly attired in
black silk, she played sentimental airs on the organ, while the harlots
and the guests sang."

 -- end of quote --

I might add that on page 24 is displayed a photo captioned
"Gay Dogs of the Barbary Coast"; it is of two harlots, and three
patrons gathered around a parlor piano, the very same photo which may
be glimpsed briefly in the opening montage of the TV show "Cheers."

Obviously, the salesman from the "Cincinnati piano house" was a rep
from Wurlitzer, cashing-in big-time along with the politicos.  Barrel
orchestrions had been around in the very late 1800's, and the electric
automatic piano had been invented soon after the turn-of-the-century.

Seeburg perfected and simplified the coin-op automatic around 1908;
all apparently went to the scrap heap to make way for the Wurlitzer
harp as described above.  The goings-on quoted above may seem quaint
and amusing now, but what went on in San Francisco, as chronicled by
Asbury at the time, was shameful beyond belief, and makes the "sins"
of today almost tepid by comparison!

Happy New Year!

Mark Forer