In addition to covering the standard piano, this volume is also one of the few sources to cover in some detail automatic instruments, including player pianos, reproducing pianos, transposers, and cabinet piano players. There are also profiles of important personalities. More than 100 pages are devoted to American advances alone, all highly specific.
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The heart of this book, however is a close history of the development of the nineteenth-century piano, with full credit to the great designers and manufacturers. After this, he explains the development of individual components: the full iron frame, the keyboard, various types of action, hammer, soundboard, as well as woods, felts, and wires. To prepare the reader for more technical exposition, Dolge first gives a brief history of stringed keyboard instruments, from the early pianoforte up through the square piano, the development of the upright, and the modern grand. All this culminated in the 1911 publication of Pianos and Their Makers. In addition to being one of the top technicians in the world, he had a unique circle of business and personal acquaintance with everyone of importance in the piano world of both Europe and America, on a level that no outsider could ever attain.
He went into business for himself, manufacturing hammers and other components (eventually founding the piano town of Dolgeville, New York), and achieved an international reputation as a manufacturer, designer, and inventor of piano-making machinery. First trained in the German piano industry of the 1860s, he continued to work and study under the great Mathushek upon coming to the United States.
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