Babcock Square Piano: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This square piano was made by Alpheus Babcock in Boston, Massachusetts in the late 1820s. Babcock’s invention of a one-piece iron frame allowed piano makers to use higher-quality string, ultimately of steel, which provided the basis for greater depth of sonority and more volume, and the metal, being unaffected by changes in humidity, helped greater stability of tuning. This piano bears a plaque that reads “For R. Mackay, Boston.“ The Mackay family bankrolled Babcock, and their names are often found on his pianos. This piano is serial number 278, and has a compass of FF-c4, English double action, leather, basswood core hammers, double-strings throughout, 2 pedals: damper and harmonic swell, and a mahogany veneer over pine case with rosewood cross banding.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1825-1829
• maker: Babcock, Alpheus
• Object Name: piano
• Measurements: overall: 32 in x 67 in x 26 1/2 in; 81.28 cm x 170.18 cm x 67.31 cm
• place made: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
• ID Number: 1982.0434.01
• catalog number: 1982.0434.01
• accession number: 1982.0434
• Credit Line: Gift of The Julliard School
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.