Re: [Harp-L] Theory, etc. - history of positions

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

INteresting, that 22,000 figure. Higher than I would have thought, but
note also that it is postwar, the same year that Hohner started
commercial exportation to the U.S.

Again, *if* all 22,000 harps had come to the U.S. between 1860 and
1864, and *if* they had all ended up in the hands of Civil War
soldiers, that would have brought the ratio down to one for every 160
or so soldiers.

WInslow

--- Frank Evers <frank@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Am Freitag, 23. Februar 2007 15:52 schrieb David Coulson:
> > In Winslow's  response to Iceman's posting he states that the
> > popular image of harmonica playing in the Civil War was the
> > creation of Hollywood screen writers, and that harmonica production
> > was too low until the 1870s or 1880s for the instrument to have
> > been widespread. However, in the Alan Bates collection site he
> > links to in the same response, it says this: "First imported in
> > quantity in the early 1860s, they (harmonicas) became popular with
> > soldiers from both north and south.  Many harmonica remains have
> > been found around Civil War camp sites."
> > So which is correct?
> 
> Hohner (which was afaik the first company to export harmonicas to 
> America) started regular exports in 1865. According to Klaus Rohwer´s
> 
> website (http://www.klausrohwer.de/privat/hobbies/muha/geschi.htm) 
> Hohners whole production in 1867 was 22000 harmonicas.
> Even if most of them were shipped overseas that´d probably not enough
> 
> to to equip whole armies.
> Actually they had their market in europe too, so think it was in fact
> 
> only a smaller fraction of their production that was exported.
> 
> However i have no idea if any harmonicas were produced within America
> 
> at that time.
> 
> -- 
> Gruß,Frank
> 
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