The mandolin has seen few innovations since its development in the eighteenth century. Societal and artistic contexts surrounding the instrument have varied widely, however, and few are more colorful than Boston at the turn of the twentieth century. The mandolin pictured below resides in the DUMIC collection and was constructed by a Boston-based instrument maker. Thanks to avid forum contributors and historians like Christine Ayars, it is possible to date the construction of this particular mandolin: ca. 1900.
While the metal nameplate on the headstock provides the most information (pictured above), there are other tell-tale signs on the instrument. A.C. Fairbanks Co., the name inscribed on the plate, was originally named Fairbanks & Cole Co. when it was founded in 1880 Boston. Albert Fairbanks and William Cole quickly became known for the exceptional quality of their banjos, and at the time it was the only instrument they made. After David Day joined the company in 1883 and once Cole left in 1890, its name was changed to A.C. Fairbanks Co. and remained unchanged until 1904. For the next five years they developed seven banjo models that included the newly patented “electric tone ring.” The first mandolins were produced around 1900, over a decade after the instrument became popularized in America by a group of Spanish musicians touring New England in 1880. The number “90” is carved into the back of the headstock, just under the plate, signifying that it was indeed the 90th mandolin manufactured by A.C. Fairbanks and therefore created within the first year of production (if banjo sales are any indication of the company’s output, approximately 1,000 would have been sold each year).
The mandolin’s bowlback and “Regent” label provide further context. David Day is thought to be the maker who brought the bowlback patent to the company. Day had ties to Vega, another instrument maker company that would later acquire A.C. Fairbanks in 1904 and keep Day on as manager of operations. While Vega was better known for their cylinder backs, their bowls were shallower than that of the Fairbanks mandolin. Once Vega took over, they replaced the inner label that once bore the Fairbanks “Regent” logo with “The Vega Co.,” even though the nameplate still listed A.C. Fairbanks Co. These details show that DUMIC’s mandolin was constructed before Fairbanks’s selling to Vega in 1904, but somewhat close to that date since Day was able to contract a bowlback patent similar to the Vega style.
What might an instrument’s production date tell us about its history? Who would have played mandolin at the turn of the century, and what is the significance of A.C. Fairbanks producing mandolins in Boston? It turns out that a great amount of information regarding its use can be observed 120 years later, even if the identification of its original owner is not known. 1900 Boston was home to a unique co-mixture of musical genres, primarily German Romanticism, Irish and African-American folk songs, and traditional American dance tunes. Bostonians were not merely representing musical trends popular in the broader American context, they were also cultivating their own unique style. Composers like Amy Beach and Edward MacDowell combined the above genres in singular works. Music originally performed in homes in the 1890s suddenly spilled onto the streets and into dance halls, and vice-versa. The mandolin thus became sonically and symbolically enwrapped in every aspect of Boston’s musical landscape at the turn of the century.
The A.P. Schmidt Company, founded in 1876 Boston, surged to the top of the market as a music publishing and foreign import establishment. Its owner, Arthur Paul Schmidt, is largely viewed as responsible for popularizing German and German-influenced concert music across New England, most especially in Boston. The Company became the main publisher for the group of composers now known as the Second New England School or the “Boston Six,” which included Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, and Horatio Parker among others. Signs of German influence in classical music also took architectural form with the opening of Boston’s Symphony Hall in 1900. According to Tony Long, the shape and acoustics of the hall were constructed by the firm McKim, Mead & White with the intention to mimic the Neues Gewandhaus in Leipzig, which itself had opened in 1884. To this day, the only face carved into the plaques above the Symphony Hall stage is that of Beethoven’s.
While the Boston Six composed grand works for orchestras and opera houses, some also wrote for domestic spaces. Edward MacDowell is perhaps most famous for his parlor song “To a Wild Rose,” which became the opening movement in his 1896 piano suite, Woodland Sketches. Its tranquil character is largely due to the simple, modally-tinged melody and harmonic structure of the “A” section. It contrasts from the following “B” section, which includes a more dramatic and Romantic-influenced chordal progression. Parlor songs, such as the one described, are highly versatile and allow for a myriad of instruments to play them. Cadenza, a New York-based musical journal, reported in 1899 that “in the parlor the mandolin and guitar … produce a soft and desirable music, which makes a pretty effect, and it is for this reason that they are being used to such an extent in private residencies.” Historian Paul Sparks notes that in 1890s Boston “shop-girls started to carry mandolin cases in public, to give the impression that they were really Society ladies.” The mandolin found its way into urban high society, becoming as fashionable as it was accessible.
The mandolin was by no means exclusive to middle-class culture at this time in Boston. As a direct result of Ireland’s Great Famine in the 1840s, Boston became home to a great many Irish-American immigrants. One of the most influential events that cemented the tradition of Irish folk music in the city was the founding of the Intercolonial Club in 1907, one of the dance halls on Dudley Street. Celtic bands comprised of fiddlers, flautists, and players of mandolin and other stringed instruments lit dance floors aflame with Irish and American dance tunes. Amy Beach united her compositional background (influenced by Dvořák, who was in America from 1892–95) and musical surroundings with her 1896 Gaelic Symphony, which features folk tunes from the British Isles. That the symphony premiered in Boston reflects an interest for Irish tunes to be represented in the city’s German-dominated classical tradition.
What does this mean, then, for contextualizing the mandolin in the DUMIC collection? While original ownership cannot be traced with any certainty, it is entirely possible to imagine what music would have been played by mandolin owners in Boston, ca. 1890–1910. Despite its being created by an instrument maker who originally specialized in banjos, an instrument that is more directly linked to folk tune performance in nineteenth-century America, this mandolin was a symbol in high society and a versatile instrument to be used in parlors as often as dance halls. It pervaded numerous aspects of musical life in Boston and inspired prominent American composers to write around its own diverse history. To contextualize this instrument is to appreciate its presence in 1900 Boston, in a time before it became synonymous with the blue grass and jazz genres, ca. 1920–50.
By Nick Smolenski, Ph.D. Candidate in Musicology, Duke University
