Background
He was born on March 5, 183 in Seesen, Germany, the sixth child and fourth son of Henry Engelhard Steinway and Juliane (Thiemer) Steinway. The family name was originally Steinweg.
He was born on March 5, 183 in Seesen, Germany, the sixth child and fourth son of Henry Engelhard Steinway and Juliane (Thiemer) Steinway. The family name was originally Steinweg.
Like his eldest brother, Christian Friedrich Theodore, he studied at Jacobsohn College in Seesen, where his father was engaged in manufacturing pianos. He lacked the scientific mind of his brother, and his interest lay in the study of languages and music rather than in acoustics from the standpoint of the physicist.
When the family moved to New York in 1851 he was offered the choice of studying music or of learning the piano-making craft. He chose the latter and was apprenticed to the firm of William Nunns & Company, one of the leading piano manufacturers of the time.
In 1853 he joined his father in business. After several years at a workman's bench he turned his attention to the commercial side of the business, and at the death of two of his brothers in 1865 he was equipped to take full charge of the financial and commercial departments of the firm. With his brother Theodore in full charge of the scientific and manufacturing departments, he was able to devote his attention to selling the pianos his father and brother made.
Realizing that the more interested Americans became in music, the more likely they would be to buy pianos, he urged his father to build and open Steinway Hall on Fourteenth Street, inaugurated in 1867 with a concert given by Theodore Thomas and his orchestra; he became one of the financial backers of the Thomas orchestra, and interested himself in the opera at the Academy of Music; he encouraged distinguished foreign pianists and musicians to visit America, and often provided the funds to guarantee the success of their tours. He also started an aggressive advertising campaign that was revolutionary in the piano industry and shocking to some of his conservative competitors.
He died in New York City.
William Steinway opened a Steinway hall in London in 1876, and established a factory at Hamburg, Germany, to supply the European demand for the product of his firm. When Steinway & Sons was incorporated, May 17, 1876, he was elected president, and continued in that office until his death twenty years later. Although he was primarily interested in the affairs of his business and in music, he was active also in public affairs. He was the first chairman of the Rapid Transit Commission of New York City, which planned the construction of New York's first subway. It was he who planned and started the subway under the East River from Forty-second Street to Long Island City, and when this project was later purchased and completed by August Belmont it was named the Steinway tunnel in his memory. In 1880 he purchased four hundred acres of land on Long Island Sound and established the town of Steinway, where the present factories of Steinway & Sons are. Main Street in Astoria has been renamed Steinway Street in his honor, and today a station on the IND Queens Boulevard Line (E, M, and R trains) is named Steinway Street.
He was married on April 23, 1861, in Buffalo, New York, to Johanna Roos, by whom he had a son and a daughter; and on August 16, 1880, in Hamburg to Elizabeth Raupt, by whom he had a daughter and two sons.
