A Brief History of the Conn Company (1874-present)*

by Margaret Downie Banks, Ph.D.
Senior Curator of Musical Instruments
National Music Museum
Vermillion, South Dakota

© Copyright 1997-2009 by The National Music Museum.
All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this site, including this page and any of the separate pages, may be copied, retransmitted, reposted, duplicated or otherwise used without the express written permission of The National Music Museum.

*Excerpted and updated from Elkhart's Brass Roots: An Exhibition to Commemorate the 150th Anniversary of C. G. Conn's Birth and the 120th Anniversary of the Conn Company by Margaret Downie Banks (Vermillion, South Dakota: The Shrine to Music Museum, 1994).

Late 'Twenties Diversification

Although Gus Buescher strongly believed that the industry could never make enough saxophones, Carl Greenleaf steered the Conn company toward expanding and developing its other band instruments, which, until the late 1920s, had taken a back seat to saxophone production. Although the stock market crash had seriously weakened a number of other instrument manufacturers, the Conn company was in the enviable position of being able to save them through purchase. As a result, C. G. Conn Ltd. greatly expanded its product lines. In 1929/30, Greenleaf purchased the assets of Ludwig & Ludwig (percussion), Carl Fischer's musical instrument department, and the Soprani Company (accordions). This was in addition to the company's previous ownership of the Elkhart Band Instrument Company (1923-1927), the Leedy Company (acquired in 1927; percussion), and 49.9% of H. & A. Selmer's stock, acquired during the consolidation of Conn's New York Company with H. & A. Selmer (1923-January 1927). Subsidiaries of the Conn company in 1930 also included the Continental Music Company (begun in 1923 as a wholesale division of Conn's Chicago retail store) and the Pan American Band Instrument Company, which Carl Greenleaf established in 1917 to produce student line instruments. An early Pan American Band Instrument Company logo from an original engraving pattern in the Conn Archive at the National Music Museum. Gift of Lynn Osborne, Elkhart, Indiana, 1992.   © 1997-2009 by The National Music Museum.

During his first two decades with the company, Carl Greenleaf completely eliminated the practice of subsidizing musicians for their endorsements, as well as eliminating the company's old mail order business. He opened branch stores in more than thirty major cities in the U.S. and Canada, which, although somewhat profitable, were eventually discontinued. Under Greenleaf's direction, an efficient system of coded letters and numbers, assigned to all the company's products, was introduced in 1922, a practice which remains in use to this day. Like Col. Conn, "C. D." Greenleaf, as he was often called, continued to offer many instrument models in both high and low pitch through the 1930s, although low pitch was accepted as the industry standard after 1920.

Aerial view of the Conn factory during the late 1920s and 1930s. From the Postcard Collection of Margaret Downie Banks.   © 1997-2009 by Margaret Downie Banks.

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