American firm of instrument makers, predominantly of pianos and organs. It was founded in Cincinnati in 1862 by Dwight Hamilton Baldwin (182199). He attended the preparatory department of Oberlin College (184042) and was then a minister and school singing teacher in Kentucky and Ohio. Moving to Cincinnati in 1857 to teach music in schools, he also became in 1862 or 1863 a retailer of pianos and organs. D.H. Baldwin & Co. was formed in June 1873 when Lucien Wulsin (18451912), a clerk in Baldwin's firm since 1866, became partner. Robert A. Johnson (183884) opened a Louisville branch in 1877 and became a partner in 1880. Three more partners joined in 1884: Albert A. van Buren, George W. Armstrong jr (18571932), and Clarence Wulsin (185597), who ran an Indianapolis branch. Until the late 1880s the firm was one of the largest dealers in keyboard instruments in the Midwest as agent for such makers as Decker, Estey, J. & C. Fischer and Steinway.
In 1889, a subsidiary, the Hamilton Organ Co., Chicago, began to manufacture reed organs, and by 1891 the Baldwin Piano Co., a subsidiary in Cincinnati, was making upright pianos. The company acquired the Ellington Piano Co. (1893) and the Valley Gem (originally the Ohio Valley) Piano Co., founded in 1871 in Ripley, Ohio. John Warren Macy led in the early manufacture, developing a piano that won the Grand Prix at the Paris Exhibition in 1900. Baldwin's death caused some upheaval, ultimately solved when Lucien Wulsin and George Armstrong bought control in July 1903. Wulsin was president until 1912, Armstrong from 1912 to 1926, and Lucien Wulsin jr (18891964) from 1926 to 1964.
In the late 1920s, in collaboration with the physics department of the University of Cincinnati, the company began a research programme in electronics that resulted in the introduction of an electronic organ in 1947 (see Baldwin organ). Baldwin's director of electronic research, Dr Winston E. Kock, designed the original models, some of which were intended for use in churches. Most Baldwin organs are smaller instruments for the home, many of them spinet organs with two staggered manuals.
In 1965 the firm introduced the model SD-10, a concert grand piano newly designed by Harold Conklin. By the 1970s the parent company, by then under the chairmanship of the founding partner's grandson, Lucien Wulsin (b 1916), had expanded into Baldwin United, a large corporation. The music subsidiary, Baldwin Piano & Organ Co., continued to manufacture pianos and electronic organs at factories in Mississippi and Arkansas. In 1963 Baldwin bought Bechstein of Berlin, which retained its own identity and continued to make pianos in its own style.
An experimental concert grand piano with electronically enhanced sound served as a prototype for later, more successful electronic and computerized instruments. After 1960 the company extended its range of electronic instruments to harpsichords, guitars and pianos. Several manufacturing operations, including Gretsch (guitars, drums and amplifiers) and Ode (banjos), were sold in 1980 to Charles Roy of Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1983 Baldwin United filed for bankruptcy after sustaining heavy losses in its insurance business. Baldwin Piano & Organ Co. was bought the following year by some of the company's executives, including Harold Smith, who became president, and R.S. Harrison, who became chairman. Baldwin sold Bechstein in 1987 and in the following year purchased the Wurlitzer Company, which owned the Chickering name. Baldwin's mid-range grands are now named Chickering, and the lower-priced instruments are named Wurlitzer. Most recently, the company has produced a digital reproducing player system, the ConcertMaster, housed in a grand piano, which has multimedia capacities and can download from the Internet. Baldwin is now the largest producer of pianos in the USA, producing 20,000 instruments annually.
CYNTHIA ADAMS HOOVER/EDWIN M. GOOD