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.
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*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).

The Union Label (1906-1916)

Two of the several types of Union labels commonly found on Conn instruments manufactured between 1906 and 1916. Details from Conn instruments in the collections of the National Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota. Photographs by Simon R. H. Spicer.   © 1997-2009 by The National Music Museum.

The Metal Polishers, BrassWorkers and Platers Union of Elkhart was organized in 1901. Five years later, in 1906, a little more than a year after the company's incorporation (December 13, 1904), the C. G. Conn Company, as it was now called, became the first industry of its kind to open its doors exclusively to the use of union labor. A new union was established: Local No. 335 of the Metal Polishers, Buffers, Platers, Brass Moulders, Brass and Silver Workers International Union of North America. Instruments manufactured between 1906 and 1916 bear a union label.

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