The collection documents the history and development of the Wurlitzer Company and consists of company publications, business records, employee files, manufacturing records, sales and marketing records, product information, publicity, advertising, photographs, audiovisual materials, and organ installation drawings.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the history and the development of the Wurlitzer Company. Materials include company publications, business records, employee files, manufacturing records, sales and marketing records, product information, publicity, advertising, photographs, audiovisual materials, and organ installation drawings. The material in the collection spans from 1856-1986, although information prior to 1899 is sparse.
Arrangement:
The Collection is arranged into fourteen series.
Series 1: Wurlitzer Company Histories, Company Events, and General Business Materials, circa 1880-1987; undated
Series 2: Publications, 1910-1989; undated
Series 3: Advertising and Promotional Materials, 1911-1978
Series 4: Product Information, 1860-1984; undated
Series 5: Photographs of Wurlitzer Manufacturing Plants, Employees, Stores, and Dealerships, 1869-1970; undated
Series 6: Photographs of Wurlitzer Products and Product Sales Promotions, 1900-1978; undated
Series 7, Photographs Used in Wurlitzer Advertising and Public Relations, 1904-1970; undated
Series 8: Wurlitzer Employee Records and Related Materials, 1909-1961; undated
Series 9: Production and Shipping Records, 1905-1987
Series 10: Shipping and Sales Records for Wurlitzer Dealerships, Wurlitzer Retail Stores, and Rembert Wurlitzer, Incorporated, 1917-1952
Series 11, Records of Stock Certificates, Meeting Minutes, and Related Financial and Legal Documents, 1907-1972
Series 12, Rudolph Wurlitzer Company Financial Records, 1893-1986
Series 13, Maps and Charts, 1931-1976
Series 14, Organ Installation Drawings, 1920-1931; undated
Historical Note:
The Wurlitzer Company began in 1856 when Rudolph Wurlitzer, a Cincinnati bank clerk, sold seven hundred dollars worth of musical instruments he had bought from family and friends in Germany. The busi¬ness was incorporated in Ohio in 1890 under the name the Ru¬dolph Wurlitzer Company." For the first fifty years, Wurlitzer was primarily a retail instrument business operating out of its Cincinnati Store headquarters. Although fire destroyed the com¬pany's headquarters in 1904, a new building was completed in time to celebrate Wurlitzer's fiftieth anniversary in 1906.
In 1908, the Wurlitzer Company bought the DeKleist Musical In¬strument Manufacturing Company in North Tonawanda, New York. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Manufacturing Company continued produc¬tion of automatic musical instruments including player pianos, military bands and pianorchestras. In 1910, the Wurlitzer Company bought the Hope-Jones Organ Company and began to manufacture unit-or¬chestra pipe organs at their North Tonawanda plant. These were pipe organs equipped with bells, gongs, horns and sirens. They became known as Mighty Wurlitzers and provided the musical back¬ground in silent movie houses all over the world and were also built for churches and private homes. In 1919, Wurlitzer bought the Melville-Clark Piano Company of DeKalb, Illinois. Wurlitzer pianos were then manufactured at the DeKalb facilities under a variety of names: the Apollo Piano Company, the DeKalb Piano Company and the Wurlitzer Grand Piano Company. Each name des¬ignated a different quality, price range and style.
With the decline of sales during the 1920s and 1930s, pro¬duction of automatic musical instruments ceased until the manu¬facture of the first jukebox in 1934. In 1930, the Julius Bauer Piano Company was purchased and continued to build pianos in that name until shortly before World War II. For a brief time, radios and refrigerators were made by the Wurlitzer controlled Air-Amer¬ican Mohawk Corporation. It was not a successful venture and ended in the mid-1930s. Many of the Wurlitzer retail stores were, at that time, in bad locations and needed repairs. The solutions to these problems came about with a reorganization of the company in 1935. With the reorganization, many retail stores were sold, piano manufacturing was consolidated in DeKalb and many subsidiaries were dissolved or absorbed completely into the Wurlitzer Company.
During World War II, Wurlitzer halted production of musical in¬struments. The company's defense production efforts were rec¬ognized in 1943 and 1944 when it is North Tonawanda and DeKalb plants received the Army-Navy "E" Award. In 1946, peacetime production resumed and the Wurlitzer Company introduced two new instruments: the electric organ in 1947 and the electric piano in 1954. In 1956, the Wurlitzer Company celebrated its centennial. That same year a new plant at Corinth, Mississippi, was completed. Later, plants were opened in Holly Springs, Mississippi (1961), Logan, Utah (1970) and Hullhorst, West Germany, (1960). The new facilities replaced those at North Tonawanda and DeKalb. The North Tonawanda plant ceased production of jukeboxes in 1974, becoming the company's engineering and research center. In 1973, the DeKalb plant ended production of pianos maintaining only mar¬keting and administrative offices. In 1977, the Wurlitzer Com¬pany's corporate headquarters moved to DeKalb, including the en¬gineering and research center from North Tonawanda.
Wurlitzer's three sons had assumed leadership of the company after his death in 1914. Each son acted as president then, chair of the board, successively. The company hired R.C. Rolfing in 1934 as vice-president and general manager. His re¬organization helped the company through the Depression years. Rolfing succeeded the last of the founder's sons in 1941 as pres¬ident of the company and in 1966 as chair of the board. Farny Wurlitzer, Rudolph's youngest son, died in 1972. A.D. Arsem succeeded Rolfing in 1974 as chair of the board. George B. Howell succeeded W. N. Herleman as president of the company.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Steinway & Sons Records and Family Papers, 1857-1919 (AC0178)
Chickering & Sons Piano Company Collection, 1864-1985 (AC0264)
Sohmer & Company Records, 1872-1989 (AC0349)
William J. Lenz Piano Tuning Collection, circa 1903-1955 (AC0511)
Janssen Piano Company Records, 1901-1929 (AC0512)
John R. Anderson Piano Trade Literature and Ephemera Collection, circa 1850-1990 (AC1257)
Warshaw Collection of Business America's Piano and Organ related materials (AC0060)
Provenance:
Collection donated by Northern Illinois University, and Regional History Center, 1994, November 11.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Printed advertisements, scrapbooks, correspondence, marketing research, radio commercial scripts, photographs, proof sheets, reports, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, television commercial storyboards, blueprints, legal documents, and audiovisual materials primarily documenting the history, business practices, and advertising campaigns of the Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated. Collection documents the professional and private lives of the Hills family; insight into the cultivation, production, and selling of coffee; and construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists of printed advertisements, scrapbooks, correspondence, marketing research, radio commercial scripts, photographs, proof sheets, reports, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, television commercial storyboards, blueprints, legal documents, and audiovisual materials. These materials primarily document the history, business practices, and advertising campaigns of Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated. Correspondence, genealogies, and home movies reveal a more domestic and social Hills family while company records document business activities outside of the home. Company records also provide insight into the cultivation, production, and selling of coffee, and the company's technological responses to the changes in the coffee trade, and consumer consumption demands. Of interest is the company's participation in social and cultural events including the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915, and the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. In addition, the collection includes the company's documentation of the construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936. The collection is arranged into thirteen series.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into thirteen series.
Series 1, Hills Family Papers, 1856-1942, undated
Subseries 1.1, Austin Herbert Hills, Sr. Papers, 1856-1875, undated
Subseries 1.2, Austin Herbert Hills, Jr. Papers, 1875-1923
Subseries 1.3, Herbert Gray Hills Correspondence, 1923-1942
Series 2, Background Materials, 1896-1988, undated
Series 3, Coffee Reference Files, 1921-1980, undated
Subseries 3.1, Hills Bros. Coffee Company Literature, 1921-1976, undated
Subseries 3.2, Coffee Industry Literature, 1924-1980, undated
Series 4, Advertising Materials, circa 1890s-1987, undated
Reuben Hills, on one occasion, stated regarding his company's growth; ...success in business is fifty per cent judgment and fifty per cent propitious circumstances." The rise of Hills Bros. Coffee Incorporated from a retail dairy stall in San Francisco's old Bay City Public Market reflects the reality of Reuben's statement. Aided by brother Austin's three years of experience in the retail dairy business the early success of the brothers was in Reuben's own words both circumstance and hard work. When Reuben and Austin began to produce roasted coffee there were at least twenty-five other companies already engaged in some form of coffee production and distribution in San Francisco including, of course, the well-known Folger Company started by William Bovee (which began in San Francisco thirty years earlier). Most of these coffee businesses were started by family groups which contributed to the growth of San Francisco.
San Francisco in the nineteenth century was ripe for the importing and roasting of coffee. The foundation for commercial production of coffee dated back to the 1820s when English planters brought coffee to Costa Rica. By the early 1840s German and Belgian planters followed with coffee plantations in Guatemala and El Salvador, two of the several Central American countries where Hills Bros. would obtain its mild coffee beans. During the Gold Rush (1849) San Francisco rapidly expanded and grew. Coffee was imported and sold, after roasting, to restaurants and hotels. Yankee gold miners and others without equipment to roast and brew their own coffee, populated "coffee houses." In 1873 two brothers, Austin Herbert and Reuben Wilmarth Hills arrived in San Francisco from their home in Rockland, Maine with their father Austin who had come to California some years earlier. Five years later in 1878 A. H. and R. W. Hills established a retail stall to sell dairy products in the Bay City Market under the name of their new partnership "Hills Bros." Their small business expanded in less than four years with the acquisition of a retail coffee store titled Arabian Coffee & Spice Mills on Fourth Street in San Francisco. In two more years (1884) still larger quarters were occupied at Sacramento and Sansome Streets. Soon after this they disposed of their retail dairy business but continued as wholesale distributors of some dairy products including butter. Their coffee was labeled "Arabian Roast"' supported by the now famous trademark design of a man in turban and beard with a flowing yellow gown. This was created by a San Francisco artist named Briggs and since then (1897) has remained as the official trademark of Hills Bros. Coffee - a lasting symbol of coffee quality. Hills Bros. dairy division was eliminated in 1908 after company destruction by the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. By 1924 all miscellaneous products including tea, had been dropped by the company which from then on referred to itself as "coffee only."
Emphasis on the quality of the finished product has long been a major selling point in the history of Hills Bros. advertising and marketing. The company's desire to keep abreast of technological advances in coffee production is a legacy of Austin and Reuben Hills, and is reflected in the company records, in its advertising and its self-perception. It was probably 1898 when Austin Hills and Thomas Hodge, partners who managed the wholesale dairy product operations were looking for a suitable can for exporting butter that could not be manufactured in San Francisco at that time, decided to consult Norton Brothers, a progressive can manufacture company in Chicago. Whether Austin traveled to Chicago or arranged with his brother Reuben to stop off there in route to New York (where he frequently spent time at the New York Green Coffee Exchange) to present the problem to Norton Brothers, which brother made the actual contact with Norton Brothers is not important today, but the results of that visit were real. Norton Brothers had just received patents on a process for packing foods in vacuum and thought it might solve the butter problem. In short order arrangements were made for shipping cans and machinery from Chicago to San Francisco including agreement for exclusive use on the West Coast for a reasonable period. Thus, Hills Bros. butter became the first known food product to ever be packed in vacuum. Once this started Reuben Hills had the idea that what worked well with butter might also be used for coffee. Experimental vacuum-packing of coffee in butter cans supported the theory that taking the air out of coffee would keep the product fresh for indefinite periods. No time was lost in getting new cans and more machinery and in July 1900 Hills Bros. Coffee as "the original vacuum-pack" was placed on the market. With the advent of this technology Hills Bros. changed the product name from "Arabian Roast" to "Hills Bros. Highest Grade Java and Mocha Coffee" and continued with the new trademark that had been started in 1897. Vacuum-packing extended the shelf life and travel ability of the product, thus new markets, national and international, were opened.
A change in the coffee industry of America was on the way. Hills Bros. remained the pioneer of vacuum-packing for thirteen years until a similar process was adopted by M.J.B., another leading coffee company in San Francisco. Other packers on the West Coast soon followed, but it was not until after World War I that East Coast coffee producers turned to vacuum-packaging.
Production and advertising of coffee continued to change with new technology. In the late 1880s San Francisco coffee importers began to "cup test" coffee beans for quality but the majority still depended on sight and smell. Reuben Hills and a few other coffee personalities in San Francisco are credited with the cup test method of appraising coffee quality. In its new home office and plant opened in San Francisco in 1926, Hills Bros. adopted "controlled roasting" in which coffee was roasted a few pounds at a time, but continuously. Developed in 1923 under the direction of Leslie Hills and Lee Maede, company engineer, "controlled roasting" employed the use of instruments to control the temperature and speed of operations, resulting in perfect roasting control that could not be depended on from batch to batch by even the most experienced coffee roasting expert. In 1914 the partnership known as Hills Bros. was incorporated under the same name. In 1928 a sales organization was formed under the name of Hills Bros. Coffee, Incorporated, but within four to five years the parent company absorbed Hills Bros. Coffee, Incorporated and adopted its name. A second plant was built in Edgewater, New Jersey, completed in 1941 to meet the needs of the increasing growth of areas between Chicago and the East Coast.
During World War II Hills Bros. faced conservation rules restricting use of tin for coffee cans. A timely method of high-speed packing in glass jars by Owens Illinois Glass Company made it possible for Hills Bros. as well as other companies in the industry to continue vacuum-packing during this period. Price control and coffee rationing were other war time necessities to which the industry adjusted.
Hills Bros. Coffee, Incorporated passed out of family ownership in 1976 when the company was purchased by a Brazilian corporation named Copersucar. In 1983 a group of local investors in San Francisco brought ownership back to where it had started and sold the business in 1984 to Nestlé Holdings, Incorporated, (effective January 1, 1985) which handled the acquisition of several companies in the United States for Nestlé S. A. Vevey, Switzerland.
Historical note written by T., Carroll Wilson, company historian and archivist, 1993.
Related Materials:
Archives Center, National Museum of American History
AC0059 NW Ayer Advertising Agency Records
AC0060 Warshaw Collection of Buisness Americana
AC0500 Landor Design Collection
AC0411 Charles W. Trigg Papers
Division of Cultural History, National Museum of American History
Artifacts include coffee packaging, Golden Gate International Exposition sampling cups and saucers, a bowling shirt, and coffee cans.
Provenance:
These records were donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History by Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but the negatives and audiovisual materials are stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Wurlitzer Company Records, 1860-1984, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
