Talk:William Steinway

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It is easy to confuse the Steinway lineage. From the time of company founder Heinrich (Henry) E. Steinway just through just the first few generations there were multiple individuals in the family named Henry, William and Theodore, just to name a few of the duplications. I corrected the error on the main page that listed William as the son of Theodore. William was instead the son of founder Heinrich. Theodore was William's brother.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Maleake (talk • contribs) 05:34, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The sheer extent of the blatant advertising puffery in this section, the business must have been a very minor interest for Steinway, is offensive in his biography. Eddaido (talk) 10:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not 1889, for sure not. I don't know the company papers but William led the company "semi officially" yet 1860 in relations of sales and administration as his father the boss didn't speak english, his elder brothers Henry jr. and Charles were technicians, his elder brother Theodore was still in Germany at that time (he came to the USA in 1865), and his younger bro Albert also was technician and too young. The opening speeches of the 4th ave. plant 1860 were held by William. William was CEO for Steinway & Sons the latest when Henry sr. died in 1871. CEO cooperatively with his elder bro Theodore who was responsible for technical development. The date 1889 corresponds to the date of death of Theodore; since then William was the sole survivor of the founders.

One could say that William early came into offical functions being speaker of the Steinway & Sons directors starting 1860. Father Henry sr. had sligthly drawn back from daily business when two sons, Henry jr. and Charles died in 1865 and Theodore had to come to the US. Father Henry did the last official things when he agreed to the plans and all the land buying activities of young William in Astoria, Queens in 1870. Then he retracted fully from business.

I am far from being perfect in english. Anybody who can transfer these facts in some polished words? References for these facts are the books of Lieberman, and the Steinway publication to the 100th anniversary in 1953, "People and Pianos".-- AxelKing (talk) 20:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]