User:Dumelow/Victory Vertical
Steinway & Sons were ordered by the US Government to cease manufacturing pianos in April 1942.[1]
Was played by servicemen in camps in all theaters from the Western Front to the Pacific.[2]
Could be transported in the bomb bay of a Flying Fortress bomber.[3]
Some were sold to civilian users.[4]
THe factory in QUeens, New York, was repurposed to manufacture gliders for the US Army, though it was restarted to manufacture 2,436 Victory Verticals (AKA GI Pianos). They were designed to be lightweight and could be dropped from aircraft. THe company's Hamburg plant was suffered from confiscation of timber and made only around 100 pianos a yar. It was nearly destroyed in bombing raid near the end of the war; despite Marshal Plan aid in 1947 the two factories combined made fewer than 2,000 pianos.[5]
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/piano/steinways-parachuted-world-war-two/
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/06/1116135429/her-fathers-wartime-piano-accompanied-joyful-moments
https://www.steinway.com/news/features/steinway-sons-victory-vertical
- ^ Ratcliffe, Ronald V. (1989). Steinway & Sons. Chronicle Books. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-87701-592-5.
- ^ Piano and Radio Magazine. 1944. p. 39.
- ^ Hadden, Briton; Luce, Henry Robinson (1944). Time. Time Incorporated. p. 10.
- ^ Hildebrand, David K.; Schaaf, Elizabeth M. (24 July 2017). Musical Maryland: A History of Song and Performance from the Colonial Period to the Age of Radio. JHU Press. p. 164. ISBN 978-1-4214-2239-8.
- ^ Siek, Stephen (10 November 2016). A Dictionary for the Modern Pianist. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 208. ISBN 978-0-8108-8880-7.