Christian Frederick Martin Sr. (german: Christian Friedrich Martin I.; January 31, 1796 – February 16, 1873) was a German-born American

luthier A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally French and comes from the French word for lute. The term was originally used for makers of ...

who specialized in

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

s and the founder of C. F. Martin & Company. He made the first guitar in the United States in the 1830s.

Early life and career

Born in Markneukirchen in the

Electorate of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charl ...

to a family of cabinet makers, Martin became an apprentice of the guitar maker Johann Georg Stauffer of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. Martin also became a foreman at Stauffer's workshop. Martin was the second of five children and was more commonly known as Friedrich, given the German custom of using the second given name. In Martin's case, four of the children's first given names are a derivation of Christian (Christiane, Christian, Christian and Christiana). As a result of a dispute between the Cabinet Makers Guild, of which Martin was a member, and the Violin Makers Guild, Martin moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

in 1833. The move occurred less than a year after his father Johann Georg Martin died, and, being the last alive of Johann Georg Martin’s progeny, he would have been free of familial obligations to emigrate. On arriving in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, he set up shop at 196 Hudson Street on the Lower West Side. Martin’s first workshop housed a small production setup in the back room, and a retail music store up front. This shop was the forerunner of C. F. Martin & Company, which is still family-owned and operated, whose current CEO is CF Martin's great-great-great grandson, CF Martin IV . At the insistence of his wife, Ottilia Kühle (daughter of the ''Maschinentischler'' achine carpenterand maker of pedal harps Karl Kühle in Vienna), Martin moved the guitar shop in 1838 to Nazareth, Pennsylvania where it is still located. Martin's guitar construction and design innovations produced a model of flattop guitar that is still in use today.

References

External links

BBC: ''How Martin guitars became an 'American Stradivarius'', 21 November 2013
* Michael Lorenz:
"Stauffer Miscellanea"
Vienna 2014 {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Christian Frederick 1796 births 1873 deaths People from Markneukirchen People from the Electorate of Saxony German emigrants to the United States Guitar makers German musical instrument makers American musical instrument makers People from Nazareth, Pennsylvania

Early life and career

See also

References

External links