During World War II, the Steinway & Sons company switched from producing pianos to glider parts for the military. But then the US government asked the company to design a piano that could be used by the troops serving overseas. It would have to be tough enough to drop from an airplane and still play. And there were other restrictions, according to Jonathan Piper of the Museum of Making Music. The company came up with a model called the Victory Vertical.
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The company was famous for its pianos, but those finely tuned models weren’t well-suited to where soldiers were stationed, including in the tropics. “While preserving a high level of craftsmanship, Steinway designed a piano that was rugged and durable,” says Piper, and they had to be economical in their use of materials. That started from the ground up: The Victory Verticals didn’t have legs like most upright pianos, Piper says, because they wouldn’t have withstood an airdrop. Other special features included water-resistant glue and anti-insect treatments, keys covered with celluloid instead of ivory, and bass strings wound in soft iron instead of the traditional copper. They were designed to contain only a tenth as much metal as a normal piano. There were also handles placed under the keybed and the back, so that four soldiers could carry the 455-pound instruments. “And beyond all that, the instrument is visually interesting,” Piper says. “Because of its purpose-built design, the Victory Vertical has an elegant simplicity. Then there’s the colors: Unlike the vast majority of pianos that come in a black or dark wood finish, the Victory Vertical was painted in olive green [like the example at the museum], blue, and gray.”
Read the story of the Victory Verticals, which were shipped all over the world, and see plenty of pictures at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Steinway & Sons Photo Collection/San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive)
Source: neatorama