Explore the Everist Gallery

The Everist Gallery introduces The American Music Industry, as it grew from humble, 19th-century beginnings to the large factories of the 20th century.  NMM visitors will enjoy seeing more than 150 examples of American ingenuity on display. A theremin, along with its original speaker, can be seen in the electronic instrument display on the center island. Instruments manufactured by the C. G. Conn Company of Elkhart, Indiana, are represented in seven display cases located throughout the gallery.

Musical instruments from the workshop of Samuel Graves and his contemporaries include American-made clarinets, a flute, an ophicleide, a trombacello, a keyed bugle, cornets, and a trombone—all dating from the 19th century.

Stan Fritts (1910-1969) led the Korn Kobblers, a nationally-known dance and novelty band, from 1938 to 1954. A trunk filled with a sampling of their noisemakers and zany props is on display in the Everist Gallery, along with one of their musical washboards and related memorabilia.

The Everist Gallery's central island features a wide variety of early electric and electronic instruments (find details about individual instruments below).

Among the early electric instruments on display are Lloyd Loar's 1930s Vivi-Tone violin, mandola, mandocello, and electric guitar, as well as a Rickenbacher fryin' pan (1935-1939), a Les Paul model electric guitar by Gibson (1952), Barbara Mandrell's unique, crutch-shaped, electric lap-steel guitar (1984), and, an electric upright bass guitar by Gibson (ca. 1938).

Arranged in front of a Vivi-Tone clavier by Vivi-Tone Company, Kalamazoo or Detroit, Michigan, ca. 1934-1937, are a Gibson electric lap steel guitar and amplifier (1949), a Chet Atkins model electric guitar by Gibson (1990) (featuring a custom painting of Nashville's Ryman Auditorium), Barbara Mandrell's double-neck electric guitar by Semie Moseley (1981), Danny Chauncey's Gibson Firebird VIII (1964), and Billy Grammer's blue Gibson electric guitar (1968).

Three experimental violins and a viola made by the pioneering, 20th-century stringed- instrument acoustician, donated to the NMM in 1999. All of Hutchins' research pertaining to the development of the Violin Octet, as well as related correspondence and other materials, is preserved in the NMM Archives.

A case of American-made stringed instruments in the Everist Gallery includes concert zithers by Franz Schwarzer of Washington, Missouri, a Triola player-zither, a Clark Irish harp, an Alexander violin, a harp guitar, a violin by James Reynold Carlisle of Cincinnati, a miniature violin by George Gemunder of New York, and a miniature violin from the estate of Tom Thumb.

For information about more of the instruments in this gallery, visit the NMM's Virtual Tour.

National Music Museum
The University of South Dakota
414 East Clark Street
Vermillion, SD   57069

©National Music Museum, 2009
Most recent update:   September 21, 2009

The University of South Dakota
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