S. Brainard Sons (also known as S. Brainard's Sons and S. Brainard & Sons) was a music publisher, music periodical publisher, and musical instrument retailer based in Cleveland, Ohio and then Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in 1836 by Silas Brainard with Henry J. Mould. The business published music and songbooks including political and patriotic music. Brainard also published the periodical ''Western Musical World'' which was eventually renamed ''Brainard's Musical World''. The

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

has a collection of their sheet music. The

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

has copies of their periodical in its collection.

History

Brainard sold

Chickering & Sons Chickering & Sons was an American piano manufacturer located in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1823 by Jonas Chickering and James Stewart, but the partnership dissolved four years later. By 1830 Jonas Chickering became partners ...

pianos. It acquired Chicago publisher Root & Cady's plates in 1871 after the

Great Chicago Fire The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago, Illinois during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left mor ...

and eventually relocated to Chicago. After Brainard's death in 1871, the business passed to his two eldest sons, Charles Silas Brainard (1841-1897) and Henry Mould Brainard (1844-1918). His third, and youngest son, Arthur W Brainard (1861-1942), aged 10, was considered too young to partake in the family business. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, Charles and Henry continued their father's work; publishing vocal and instrumental music, songbooks, and political and patriotic songs. During this time, Henry Mould Brainard opened his own shop in Cleveland as an outfit for

Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in New York City by German piano builder Henry E. Steinway, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth le ...

pianos. In the mid-to-late 1880's the Brainard family began to expand their businesses outside of Cleveland. In 1886, Arthur W Brainard, now a developer and businessman, moved to California, where he contributed in founding and building the city of Sierra Madre. In 1889 Charles Silas Brainard and Henry Mould Brainard moved the company out of Cleveland, OH and into Chicago, IL, where it would remain until the 1930s. From 1899 until his death, Thomas Sidwell (1860–1909) was President of S. Brainard Sons. Upon his death, management was carried on by his widow, Katie ( Kate H. Sim; 1851–1936), who, on January 24, 1910, remarried – in Highland, New York – to Edward Albert Stege ( Albert Eduard Gustav Stege; 1861–1933) of Eldred, New York. Katie Stege (under the name K. Sidwell), Edward A. Stege, and C.C. Beekman, in early 1910, formed a corporation, "The Edward A. Stege Co.," printers, engravers, bookbinders, ''etc.''

Music periodical

The music journal was published from 1864 until 1895 when it was merged with '' Etude''. The content of each issue included a musician's biography. The publication competed with Root and Cady's ''Song Messenger of the Northwest''. Karl Merz became an editor of ''Brainard's Musical World''.

Selected publications

*''School Chimes, A New School Music Book'' (1874) written by the hymn composer James Ramsey Murray *''Six Songs'' (1863) composed by Emily Bruce Roelofson *"Weston's March to Chicago" (1867), composed by Edward Mack; publisher: ( List of songs about Chicago) *"Keep the Horse Shoe Over the Door" * Fanny Crosby's ''Six Songs by Wurzel'' (1855): "O How Glad to Get Home", "Honeysuckle Glen", "The Church in the Wood," "All Together Now", and "Proud World, Good-by". The most popular of these songs was "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower", about the death of a young girl. It was popularized in the 1850s by the Christy Minstrels;"Rosalie, The Prairie Flower"
''Best Loved Songs of The American People'', Denes Agay (ed.), Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1975. it sold more than 125,000 copies of

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed Book, books or Pamphlet, pamphlets ...

and earned nearly $3,000 in

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or ...

for RootCarder (2008), n.82, p. 215. —and almost nothing for Crosby. *

Francis Boott Francis Boott (26 September 1792 – 25 December 1863) was an American physician and botanist who was resident in Great Britain from 1820. Biography Boott was born in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, the brother of Kirk Boott, ...

's "The Convict's Lullaby" (Henry Kirke White); revised 1874 *

William Krell William Henry Krell (1868–1933) composed one of the early mature rag or ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its Syncopation, syncopated or ...

's "Mississippi Rag" January 27, 1897 and "Shake Yo' Dusters of Piccaninny Rag" * Eben Eugene Rexford's "Rosa Lee" (1890), music by H. C. Verner *''Lucia di Lamermoor'' (1868), arranged by Justin Holland

Gallery

File:CollegeLife1874Cover.jpg File:S. Brainards published works arranged by Justin Holland.jpg, Guitar music published after the firm moved to Chicago File:Our national war songs by Henry Clay Work.jpg File:Justin Holland list of classical arrangements from Lucia di Lamermoor.jpg, List of works from the 1868 cover of ''Lucia di Lamermoor'', arranged by Justin Holland and published in Chicago by S. Brainard Sons Piccaninny Rag 1898.jpg,

's "Piccaninny Rag", 1898

History

Music periodical

Selected publications

Gallery

References

Further reading