Collection #

P0063

 

 

Butler music company
photographs, ca. 1880–ca. 1920

 

Collection Information

Biographical Sketch

Scope and Content Note

Contents

Cataloging Information

 

 

 

Processed by
Laurie Randall, Robert W. Smith,
Dorothy A. Nicholson
28 April 2008

 

Manuscript and Visual Collections Department
William Henry Smith Memorial Library
Indiana Historical Society
450 West Ohio Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202-3269

www.indianahistory.org

 

COLLECTION INFORMATION

VOLUME OF
COLLECTION:

1 folder of contact prints

COLLECTION
DATES:

Ca. 1880–ca. 1920

PROVENANCE:

Unknown

RESTRICTIONS:

None

COPYRIGHT:

 

REPRODUCTION
RIGHTS:

Permission to reproduce or publish material in this collection must be obtained from the Indiana Historical Society.

ALTERNATE
FORMATS:

 

RELATED
HOLDINGS:

 

ACCESSION
NUMBER:

0000.0940

NOTES:

 

BIOGRAPHiCAL SKETCH

In 1878 Thad W. Butler, born 1858 in Laketon, Indiana, age 20, drove into Marion, to work in a carriage factory. So began Thad W Butler’s long and successful relationship with Marion, Indiana. When the plant was moved to Logansport in 1879, he moved with it.  A year later it burned, and Butler relocated to Marion opening his own carriage factory, which became Indiana’s largest.

After the discovery of gas in Grant County, Marion grew rapidly and Butler sold his carriage business to pursue real estate. He and two friends bought 500 acres of land on the west side of Marion, financed and planned an industrial park, and erected the York Inn. Once a landmark, the economic recession of 1893 brought its demise. .

Meanwhile Thad opened The Butler Cycle and Music Company in 1897. It handled musical instruments, sheet music and recording machines, pianos with accompanying benches/stools, and cameras. Within a few years, he was selling pianos at the rate of more than one a day. The models, among them Kimball, Emerson and Chute-Butler, commanded substantial prices. Over time, Butler opened music stores not only in Marion but in Kokomo, Wabash and Peru, and brought several factories to Marion, including Sweet and Clark Malleable Rolling Mills from Troy, NY.

Sources:

Bunish, Steve, Golden Age of Marion (no city, publisher or date noted);

Esarey, Logan, History of Indiana, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Hoosier Heritage Press, Inc., 1970);

Grant County and Who’s Who (Marion, IN: Special Company, 1909?); no editor/author noted;

Simons, Richard, ed. Century of Development: Grant County, Indiana (Marion, IN: Grant Country Junior Historical Society, 1937)

Whitson, Rolland L., Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana; 2 vols. (Chicago, IL: Lewis Publishing Company, 1914).

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

The collection contains approximately 100 copy photographs printed on 24 contact sheets.  The photographs mostly document the business activities of the Thad W. Butler family of Marion, Indiana between ca. 1880 and ca. 1920.  Views of the Butler music Company storefront and interior photographs of pianos, gramophones, and other merchandise on display dominate the collection. Each image is numbered with a copy negative number.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

CONTAINER

Contact Sheet 1:
“Indicator AD Trophy” (C217);
Showroom Floor (C218);
Player Piano and piano rolls (C219);
Victrola talking machine (C220).

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 2:
“Flood Piano” circa 1920 (C221);
“Dardanella Fox Trot” talking machine display (C222);
Player piano demonstration using the telephone, 1921 (C223);
Window display of early radios (C224).

Photographs:
Folder 1,

Contact Sheet 3:
Receiving shipment of Edison talking machines (C225);
 Delivery truck (1910?) (C226);
 Delivery truck (ca 1915?) (C227);
 Store Interior ca 1916 (C228)

Photographs:
Folder1

Contact Sheet 4:
Display window–“ Some Daisy Hits”, Columbia Records (C229);
 Display window—Jascha Heifetz in 1919, (C230);
 Display window—Easter organ scene (C231);
 Display window—“Professor Westlake” grand piano (C232)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 5:
Gulbransen player pianos (C233);
Conn band musical instruments (C234);
Conn saxophones used by the Marion Girl’s Saxophone Band (C235);
Window display showing portable talking machines (C236).

Photographs:
Folder1

Contact Sheet 6:
Atwater-Kent radios (C237);
Jazz Band” instruments (C238);
Couterior instruments (C239);
“Learn to play the guitar”/Gibson guitars (C240)

Photographs:
Folder 1.

Contact Sheet 7:
Banjo and instruments (C241);
“Easy to Play” Gulbransen player piano (C242);
New Edison January recreations (C243);
Inspirational Band Music (C244).

Photographs:
Folder1

Contact Sheet 8:
WWI window display of patriotic music and talking machine (C245);
Player piano (C246);
Edison talking machine (C247);
Conn saxophone (C248).

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 9:
“Learn to play some kind of instrument” (C249);
Atwater Kent radio (C250);
Victrola & cretonne (C251);
[pianos on display] Neg #C1652-

Photographs:
Folder 1,

Contact Sheet 10:
Interior, ca. 1916 (C252);
Delivery truck—“Cremo piano polish” (C253);
Montage (C254);
“Be in tune with the times” (C255).

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 11:
Piano delivery truck ca 1900 (C256);
The store front (C257);
Piano repairman at work (C258);
Piano repairman at work (C259)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 12:
Chute & Butler piano Style Six (1906) from chute & Butler brochure (C260);
Chute & Butler Co. factory, Peru, Ind (1906) from Chute & Butler brochure (C261);
Music Trade Indicator Ad trophy, 1916 (won by Butler 1916-1918) (C262);
Interior, ca 1940 (C263)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 13:
Store Interior (C264);
Promotional truck carrying a large mockup of the new Edison talking machine (C265);
Butler delivery truck (C266);
City of Marion street scene ca 1900 (C267)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 14:
York Inn, Marion Ind. Built by Thad W. Butler to accommodate Eastern manufacturers during Marion “gas boom” ca. 1890 (C268)
Duplicate;
Duplicate;
Duplicate

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 15:
Thad W. Butler Carriage Co., ca. 1880 Marion, Ind. (C269);
Place card, Thad Butler, drawn by “Watty” (C270);
Store Interior, ca. 1916 (C271)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 16:
Player Piano window display using a telephone (C272);
Player piano via telephone window display (C273);
Marion Girls Saxophone Band in parade (C274);
The Joy Jazz Band promotion at the Butler Music Company store (C275)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 17:
W.W.I Armistice show window (C276);
Edison talking machine promotion using telephones for tone tests (C277);
Grand piano damaged in a tornado on display in Butler’s store “still in playable condition.” (C278);
Piano dealers of Indiana Convention at the Claypool Hotel May 23, 1916 (C279)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact Sheet 18:
Promotional event in front of the Butler Music Company Store (C280;
Grand pianos on display at the Butler Music Company (C281);
Patriotic display during World War I (C282);
Player piano rolls on display (C283)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact sheet 19:
The Westerman Bolling Mill (C1648);
“Excursion Program (C1649);
Ad showing George Mason offering “Free Fuel, Free Land and Free Switching Facilities” to businesses within 300 miles of Marion (C1650)
The Diamond Cracker Factory (C1651)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact sheet 20:
Hub and Block Factory (C1653);
Montage showing “Marvelous Marion, Queen City of the Great Indiana Natural Gas Belt”(C1654);
The Klein Furnace Co. (C1655);
Stringing Trolley Wire on Queen City Street (C1656)
Duplicate, large copy of (C1654)

Photographs:
Folder 1

Contact sheet 21:
Platte map showing New York addition to the City of Marion Ind. (C1657);
Marion Real Estate Company’s 1st Addition to the city of Marion (C1658)

Photographs:
Folder 1

York Inn, Western Park (Marion, Ind.) Photograph by Larrimer

Photographs:
Folder 1

CATALOGING INFORMATION

For additional information on this collection, including a list of subject headings that may lead you to related materials:

1.      Go to the Indiana Historical Society's online catalog:  http://opac.indianahistory.org/

2.      Click on the "Basic Search" icon.

3.      Select  "Call Number" from the "Search In:" box.

4.      Search for the collection by its basic call number (in this case, P0063).

5.      When you find the collection, go to the "Full Record" screen for a list of headings that can be searched for related materials.