No. 3111 James W. Vose
From Men of Progress. Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Leaders in Business and Professional Life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Boston, 1894), 267.
James Whiting Vose, of Boston, founder and president of the Vose & Sons Pianoforte Company, is a native of Milton, suburb of Boston, the birthplace and working-place of Benjamin Crehore, the builder of the first American piano, in 1798. He was born October 21, 18’8, son of Whiting and Mary (Gooch) Vose. His ancestors came from England, and settled originally in Milton. He was educated in the public schools and the Milton Academy, from which he graduated with honors in the spring of 1834. Immediately after leaving school, on the 7th of April, he was apprenticed to learn the cabinet-maker’s trade. He worked at this trade till the autumn of 1839, when on his twenty-first birthday he entered a piano factory as a workman. He soon acquired skill in various departments, and in 1846 began making piano and organ keys on his own account. In this branch of the manufacture he was remarkably successful, and his work was sought by the best manufacturers. But his ambition was to make the finished piano; and in 1 851, he started in a small way, completing his first instrument before the close of that year. In 1855, in order to devote his attention exclusively to his piano interests, he sold out his key business, and since that time has been engaged wholly in the development and manufacture of the Vose piano. From the first he has followed closely every detail of the work, overseeing each process, constantly experimenting, carefully studying each new principle as it has appeared, and, if satisfied of its worth, promptly adopting it. Under his conduct the manufacture has grown from an output of two pianos a week in 1855, from a small factory, to an average of eighty per week in 1892, from one of the largest establishments of its kind in the country, comprising four great buildings, on Waltham and Washington Streets at the South End, Boston, two of five stories each, one of seven, and one of four stories, with a total floorage of 129,000 square feet, and an aggregate area under plant of 138,000 square feet. Mr. Vose is a member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and of the Bostonian Society. In politics he is a Republican, a member of the Republican Club of Massachusetts, of the Brookline Republican Club, and of the Boston Marketmen’s Republican Club; and in religion he is a Baptist, connected with the Brookline Baptist Society, and a member of the Baptist Social Union. He was married September 16, 1847, to Miss Almira Howe. They have had five children: Francis Childs (deceased), Irving Bond, Willard Atherton, Julien Wallenstein, and Frances Howe Vose. His three sons, Irving, Willard, and Julien, are associated with him in his piano business, the former first entering the factory in 1869, and now in charge of the factory warerooms; Willard, after serving his apprenticeship, becoming general superintendent of the factory, and since 1874 the treasurer of the company; and Julien entering the factory in 1882, and becoming superintendent of the works in 1889, the year of the incorporation of the company.