There's a whole angle to the story of Elkhart that nobody seems to have covered. Before the RV manufacturers decided to move in, Elkhart was the center of the manufacture of a product which is made almost entirely in Asia. It took about twenty years from the first glimmering of offshore manufacture, but now almost all the musical instruments, the musical instruments that are dependent on the human breath, have left.
When I was on the road in the early seventies, living on a band bus and doing one-nighters with bandleaders who were famous in the 1940's, we used to get our itineraries and scan them for interesting destinations for our travels. One of the most interesting was Elkhart, Indiana. Headquarters for Selmer U.S.A. and the Conn empire, there were places you could tour, friendly executives you could talk to about endorsement deals, but most of all folks who could fix your horn and get rid of your leaks and road dust.
Charles Gerard Conn was like the character of Harold Hill writ large across the flatlands of Indiana. A veteran of the civil war who served in the Indiana legislature and the US House of Representatives, he created an industrial powerhouse in the small town of Elkhart. When Conn decided not to run for re-election to Congress in 1897, he threw himself into Elkhart in a big way.
The sousaphone was invented in Elkhart. Conn built his empire by manufacturing in Elkhart and retail operations in New York. Many of Conn's employees were Swiss, signed to employment contracts in Switzerland by Conn or one of his agents who recruited journeymen watchmakers. Conn products soon developed a reputation for durable, well-made brass and woodwind instruments. Conn was the first American manufacturer to build a production model saxophone. And Conn was a union shop from 1901, the founding of the Metal Polishers, Brass Workers and Platers Union, and from the date of the company's incorporation in 1904, it was the first industry to use union labor exclusively.
In time other factories were opened in Elkhart. Gus Buescher went off on his own, the U.S.A. operations of French H&A Selmer, as well as many small flute manufacturing operations meant that, if you wanted to be in the band instrument business, your path led you to Elkhart.
Carl Greenleaf, Conn's successor, was largely responsible for what became the school band movement and continued support of town bands in this country, thereby creating demand for Elkhart products.
And what kind of product did Conn produce? As a saxophone player doubling on other woodwinds, I can vouch for the fact that the most bullet proof, incredibly durable saxophones I've owned were all Conn altos, tenors and baritones. Most of these instruments were made in the late 1920's, when the parlor saxophone craze was at its peak and school bands were becoming almost universal. The world was Elkhart's oyster. Conn could hardly be called hidebound. For example their StroboTuners--first made in 1938--are still sought in the used market. I remember in junior high band, gathering around the StroboTuner to get our tuning notes.
Conn built altimeters and bombsights in World War 2, and never regained its traction after the war was over. The conglomerates moved in to Elkhart. Conn was swallowed by United Musical Instruments and moved production to Abilene, Texas, and finally to Mexico in 1985. Union labor costs were cited, yet no saxophone made in Mexico is nearly as well built as those made in Elkhart in the twenties. Selmer's U.S.A operations were owned for 9 years by Magnavox. Eventually UMI owned everything.
Finally, and most interesting, the manufacture of these instruments was consigned to vendors in Asia, primarily Japan, Taiwan, China and, most recently, Vietnam. Yes, when you see a ship in your local harbor with containers aboard, in among the socks headed for WalMart are saxophones, clarinets, and flutes bearing the brands of companies which used to be located in Elkhart. Even more interesting, the vendors who crowd the floor of the annual music trade show in China and Anaheim to brag about their abilities have set up companies here in the States to sell their products. They no longer need the layer of executives between their manufacturing and the hands of the consumer.
So think about how Elkhart used to be virtually a company town, one with a very high standard of living because of unionization of the workers. We've been down this path before, back in the 1970's and 80's, back when the manufacturers started looking around for a way to pump up their bottom lines.