Some of you may remember that last year I chanced upon the current
Seeburg web site, http://www.seeburg.com/ and noticed that they sort of
short-sheeted the complete history of Seeburg, leaving the piano portion
of the company entirely out.
I dashed-off a pleasant email regarding their historical omission to the
Seeburg public relations maven, and to my surprise, I received a cordial
response. Something to the effect that "Yes, we realize there are cer-
tain aspects to the company's history that, for brevity's sake, have
to be left out ... etc.". I figured that the company was relegating
nearly 25% of its history to the ash can, because who really cares about
those old pianos anyway?
It turns out I was wrong. I happened across the site just the other
day, and what did I discover: A whole article devoted to a 1938 reprint
of an article by J. P. Seeburg himself, describing in loving detail how
he formed and carried-out his piano business, up to and through the
jukebox era. I'm sure many of you familiar with Seeburg have probably
read this article before, but I had never seen it. It sheds some new
light on how the old man ran the business.
Sometimes a friendly email-to-the-editor of a large corporation really
pays off.
Mark Forer
[ See http://www.seeburg.com/Division16.htm -- Robbie
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