thumb|right|Elias Howe, Jr., published 1892 in "Boston of Today".

The Elias Howe Company was a 19th and early 20th century musical firm located in Boston, USA and founded by Elias Howe, Jr. (1820–1895). His company was successful, selling more than a million copies of his music instruction books by 1892. Howe was cousin to the inventor of the sewing machine and related to Julia Ward Howe, composer of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

By 1850, Howe had published several other volumes of tune collections and musical instruction. In about that year, he sold his rights to those works to the Oliver Ditson Company of Boston and agreed to desist from publishing music for a period of 10 years, buying land in South Framingham and managing the South Reading Ice Company. and many of the volumes of sheet music and instrumental instruction that the company produced bear that address. Archival photos of the Scollay Square area of Boston dating from the 1880s often show the "Howe's Music" sign silhouetted against the sky above the buildings at the end of Court Street.

thumb|19th Century Trade Card - Boston, MA, Musical Instruments, Sheet Music, Instrument Parts

The Company after Howe's death

<!-- Unsourced image removed: frame|right|Cover of Elias Howe Company Catalogue. -->Although company letterhead states that the firm was founded in 1840 (when Elias Howe, Jr. first published his fiddle tune collection), it was not formally incorporated until 1898, three years after the death of its founder. Whether they made the instruments or not, they did handle tonewood and were described as a large importer of the wood.

The company later relocated to 8 Bosworth Street in Boston, a few blocks from its earlier Court Street address.

G. L. Orme was the younger partner in J. L. Orme & Son, a company founded by his father, James L. Orme. J. L. Orme & Son was a retailer of musical instruments, primarily pianos and organs, and a publisher of sheet music. They also had a musical instrument factory for their violins and guitars over their piano "wareroom". The critical feature described in the patent is a "raised longitudinal belly ridge" extending along the top of the instrument, under the strings, from the end of the fingerboard to the tailpiece. The innovation is depicted on a guitar in the patent application but the patent text makes mention of its applicability to other stringed instruments. Howe-Orme instruments were among the first to be produced in the United States in multiple sizes analogous to the members of the violin family. These mandolin-family instruments are unique not only because of the "raised longitudinal belly ridge" but because they are shaped like guitars and have absolutely flat backs. Although guitar-shaped mandolins were subsequently manufactured by other firms, an Elias Howe Company catalog from approximately 1910 notes that the Howe-Orme mandolins were the first such instruments. The catalog also points out the ease of holding a guitar-shaped instrument in contrast to the awkwardness of the bowl-back mandolins of that era.

The guitars had another unique feature in addition to the longitudinal ridge: their necks were easily detachable and their angle could be adjusted without any disassembly. The neck design, like the longitudinal ridge, originated with J. S. Back and is described most fully in U. S. Patent No. 538205, issued to Back, with half-ownership to G. L. Orme, in April, 1895. Although the J.L. Orme Company made the guitar-shaped mandolin in Canada, advertisements from the company focus on their guitars and their lute-banjos. The J. L. Orme & Son "Lute-Banjo" had a rounded, fat, oval body, with a neck held on by three screws (making the angle adjustable).

The (U.S. based) Elias Howe Company's "Howe-Orme" instruments had bodies shaped like guitars, with (at least for the mandolins) necks that were glued to the bodies with a dove-tail joint.

The patents covered a wide variety of instruments, being used to create guitars, mandolins and lute-banjos. What the two companies' instruments shared was the patented arched soundboard. Opinions by collectors have indicated that the Elias Howe instruments had a pressed soundboard, which kept its shape with internal braces. The Howe-Orme guitar also shared the adjustable neck system.

  • Drum (c. 1861) from Boston Drum Factory, Elias Howe, agent.
  • Howe-Orme: Forgotten Voices Remembered - an exhibit curated by the Museum of Making Music, National Association of Music Merchants, Carlsbad, CA – detailing the early history of the Howe-Orme instruments.
  • History of Elias Howe, Howe and Orme, with links to patents.
  • Site with large pictures of Howe-Orme mandolin
  • Biography of Elias Howe with portrait.
  • Site that talks about mandolinettos and has a picture of a Howe-Orme mandolinetto.

References

Ayars, C. M. (1937). Contribution to the art of music in America by the music industries of Boston 1640-1936. New York: H. W. Wilson.

Sky, P. (1995). "Elias Howe and William Bradbury Ryan." in Ryan's Mammoth Collection. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publications. (pp. 10–15)