William Lindeman

Who was William Lindeman?

Lindeman was a name used by a series of piano manufacturers in New York in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The concern was originally founded by William Lindeman on a small scale in Dresden in about 1822, and reestablished by him in New York City in 1835 or 1836, where it grew to a medium size within twenty years. American piano historian Daniel Spillane credited him as one of the first successful immigrant German piano makers in the United States.

William's sons eventually became partners in the firm, reorganizing first as Lindeman & Son and then Lindeman & Sons and each of them worked in the industry following their father's death. Henry founded several independent piano manufacturing companies, the longest lived of which were Henry & S. G. Lindeman and the Melodigrand Corporation, both of New York; Herman is best known for patenting the firm's unusually shaped "Cycloid" square piano, and with his brother Ferdinand, and son George, he headed the short-lived Lindeman Piano Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.