Journal of the Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association

David Blakely (courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society).

Charles Franklin Blakely was born in Danielsville, Connecticut on July 8, 1845 and was adopted by David and Addie Blakely. The entry also states that David Blakely gave him half of the Rochester Post. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Charles founded the House of C. F. Blakely that same year. In 1874 it became known as Blakely & Brown and then later, Blakely, Brown & Marsh. The company finally incorporated under the name Blakely Printing Co. in 1885.³

Many of David Blakely’s summers were spent at the Low family mansion in Bradford. The house had been in the family for generations.

It was usually handed down to the relative who could handle the cost and maintenance of the estate. From the 1880s until 1915 the property was know as the Blakely home. The third floor was converted into a ballroom while the Blakely family lived in the house and was used for parties and concerts. Although it has never been substantiated, it is believed that the Sousa band performed at the house.⁴ The Blakely home was an important element of the family. Many family members were born in the house and it served as a location for many types of gatherings. It was said to be “a cultural center for the community.”⁵

Blakely’s professional life was rooted in the newspaper business. He was the founder, editor, or publisher of numerous newspapers, between 1857 and about 1880, such as the Bancroft Pioneer in Mower County, Minnesota, Minnesota Mirror in Austin, Minnesota, Rochester City Post in Rochester, Minnesota, Chicago Evening Post, St. Paul Pioneer (that later merged with the Press to become the St. Paul Pioneer Press), and he helped establish the Minneapolis Morning Tribune. He was also president of the Blakely Printing Company of Chicago—“one of the largest and most prosperous book, newspaper and periodical printing and binding establishments in the country.”⁶

Blakely enjoyed many great successes in his life but there were a few challenging episodes as well. “When Blakely retired from the editorship of the Minneapolis end of the St. Paul Pioneer Press he confessed to an interviewer that the two-horse act of riding two cities at the same time by one paper is a failure.”⁷ In the early 1870s he was the Chicago Pension Agent and he owned the Chicago Evening Post. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed the Post’s newspaper plant; this is probably what prompted his return to Minnesota upon purchasing the St. Paul Pioneer.

In 1874 Blakely stepped down as the Chicago Pension Agent due to the move. However, he had secured a loan in the amount of $5,000 that he had to repay. He arranged for Miss Ada Sweet, the daughter of the former pension agent, to take over his position. Sweet needed the salary increase that the job would provide in order to take care of her family; her father had died a poor man. Since Sweet spent time working in the pension office with her father, she was familiar with the work. She had been working in the Internal Revenue office when Blakely approached her about the pension agent position. Before turning over the lucrative job to Sweet, Blakely required her to agree to pay off his debt. This took about half of her salary, but even with these payments, Sweet was still making a few hundred dollars more than at her previous job.

Sweet testified before the House Committee on Civil Service Reform in Washington, D.C. about the matter. As a result of the committee’s examination, four resolutions were recommended:

1) That in the opinion of the House, the demanding or accep- tance by any person of money, or any other valuable thing, for himself or another person, as a consideration for real or pretended influence, to be used in procuring appointment to public office, is disgraceful to the individual, prejudicial to the public interest, and leads to inevitable corruption and dishonor.

2) That such misconduct, when found to exist in the case of a public officer, is in the judgment of the House cause for removal.

3) That the Judiciary Committee of this House be directed to report a bill for the definition and punishment of offenses of this nature.

4) That a copy of this report be forwarded to the President of the United States for his information.⁸

Blakely published an article in his paper the Pioneer-Press denying all allegations.⁹

Having developed friendships with a number of politicians in the Midwest, Blakely began participating in Minnesota politics while continuing to pursue publishing. From 1861 to 1862 he served as the Chief Clerk of the Minnesota House of Representatives. From 1862 until 1865 he was the Secretary of State of Minnesota. He was also ex-offi cio Superintendent of Public Instruction of Minnesota through the terms of three Republican Minnesota governors: Alexander Ramsey (1860-1863), Henry Swift (1863-1864), and Stephen Miller (1864-1866).

Spending summers in Europe with his family gave Blakely a chance to seek out the very best music the continent had to offer. Having been pleased with its performance, in 1890 he arranged for the Eduard Strauss Orchestra of Vienna to tour America. Eduard Strauss (1835-1916) was the younger brother of Josef and Johann and the son of the elder Johann Strauss. “After the death of his brother, Johann, Eduard was generally recognized as the greatest Kapellmeister of Vienna’s café-houses. It was said that no one else could perform Johann’s waltzes with so much spirit.”¹⁰ Blakely’s musical experiences in Europe caused him to wonder why America didn’t have a band equal to, if not greater than, the Garde Rèpublicaine of Paris? This thought led Blakely to discover Sousa.

“Born to sing he has written to live.”¹¹ This is an 1883 quote from gossip columnist Happy John in his “Sunday Budget of Gossip” for the Daily Herald. Although he had a lifelong love of music, he fi rst supported himself as a journalist, editor, and publisher. Blakely had a history of involvement with music. Initially his participation was for pure enjoyment. Like his daughters, he also inherited a passion for music from his father. Blakely taught music during his college vacations from the University of Vermont. While he was living in Minneapolis, he was the Director of the Philharmonic Choral Society and the Mendelssohn Club. Blakely was the music director for the Church of the Redeemer. He was also the man behind very successful concerts and festivals that became prominent around the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Theodore Thomas (1835-1905), a self-taught violinist from Germany and the first conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was the director of a very successful festival organized by Blakely. “The receipts during the three days of its continuance, were $27,000, the largest sum ever resulting from a like enterprise, in a city of its size, in the musical history of the world.”¹² Christine Nilsson, the Swedish-born operatic soprano and Amalie Materna, Hermann Winkelmann and Emil Scaria, the great Wagner singers, were artists whom Blakely hired for the event. “The chorus, numbering 600, was the joint production of St. Paul and Minneapolis; the Minneapolis contingent, which sung the Wagner choruses from Meistersinger, Lohengrin, etc. being drilled by Mr. Blakely, who had it upon his shoulders also the entire business management of these frequently recurring musical events.”¹³ “Thomas was the organizer and conductor of the Cincinnati May Music festival in 1873, director of music for the Philadelphia International Centennial Exhibition in 1876, and director of the Cincinnati College of Music from 1878 to 1880. He was the conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 1879 until 1891. He also toured with the American (later National) Opera Company from 1886 to 1887.”¹⁴

In 1883 Blakely was noted to be in the Southwest coaching choruses for Theodore Thomas concerts. Along with the Mendelssohn Club, he was also rehearsing male choruses in Des Moines, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska, all of which participated in Emma Thursby’s concerts on her 1884 tour to favorable reviews. Thursby (1845-1931) was a celebrated American soprano. “Contemporary accounts mention her fl awless coloratura technique, her avoidance of scooping, and the evenness of her instrument throughout its unusually large range.”¹⁵

The first Patrick Gilmore tour under the management of Blakely was three years prior to Blakely’s move to his New York offi ce. Gilmore (1829-1892) immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1849. He was a very important American bandleader who led a number of different bands in the Boston area. Some of his more notable accomplishments include reorganizing the Massachusetts military bands at the request of the governor, supervising the music for the inauguration of Louisiana’s new governor in 1864, touring with his own band, founding a musical instrument company (Gilmore & Wright), and organizing the National Peace Jubilee in 1869. When Gilmore toured, “Blakely always hoped that the local managers would guarantee him a fixed amount, then divide the net after local expenses into approximately 75 percent for the Band and 25 for the local management.”¹⁶ It was not until around 1889 that Blakely moved to his office in the Carnegie Building on 57^th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City to further turn his passion for music into a career, arguably, as one of the most successful artist managers in history. Blakely’s employees included Howard Pew, press agent, Frank Christianer, assistant manager, and Jefferson Leerburger, who later became the acting manager of Blakely’s unsuccessful Ladies Symphony Orchestra.

Blakely was serious about creating an all-female symphony orchestra. He scoured the musical world for the best female musicians he could find. He corresponded with Otto Florsheim of The Musical Courier and J.

L. Stager of The Keynote asking if they could recommend female musicians. Blakely eventually placed ads in those trades as well as the publication the World for Female Orchestra Players. He contacted various figures in the music industry for recommendations including Hermann Wolff, the manager of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; Herman and Liman, dramatic, variety and musical agents; Henry Wolfsohn, Esq., a prominent agent in New York; and Maud Powell, a noted American violinist who agreed to be his concertmaster. In March of 1891 he corresponded with Fred Bacon, Esq. who was the musical editor for the Boston Herald. In his letters he inquired about musicians from the Eichberg Female Quartette and the Fadette Ladies’ Orchestra. Blakely wrote:

Confidentially, I am organizing a female orchestra, consisting of first class artists, among them being Miss Maud Powell, and other equally fine performers. And I intend to surprise the public one of these days by showing them what the girls can do towards making artistic music in America. I need not tell you that this will be an organization not only fine for women, but fine for men.¹⁷

Blakely truly believed that he could assemble a highly talented group of female musicians for his orchestra. Unfortunately this business endeavor was not successful. The primary reason was that many of the women whom Blakely approached were earning more money as music teachers and soloists than they would earn in the orchestra. He simply could not afford the salaries they were requesting.

Even though Blakely’s main client was not a classical musician, his business practices were similar to those of the concert agents in Europe who were representing classical musicians. Current music industry practices are also very similar to both Blakely’s and the European agents of the past.

Blakely used advance-men to check on local advertising, he sold space for advertisements in the concert program book, he routed a tour to maximize its success, he scoured the music world for the very best talent, and he learned what was popular in Europe and applied the formula in America. He even structured a promoter deal much the same way it is done today.

Blakely was working with some of the greatest bands and orchestras of his time: Gilmore, Sousa, Strauss, and others. His formula for managing and promoting musical groups was very successful.

There were also half a dozen others known as “advance men” who would precede the Band on the road by about a week or ten days to check up on the local advertising. These men were temporary employees who were often rehired each season.

Except for minor changes, the printing for all tours was the same. There were lithographs of the Band leader, the Band itself, and the soloists accompanying it. There were posters of three sizes with local time and place information strips to be added. Cuts of the leader and certain soloists were supplied for newspaper articles.¹⁸

When Gilmore died, Blakely recognized the opportunity and arranged for Sousa to take his place at the St. Louis Exposition and also for performances at Manhattan Beach. It was a fortuitous career moment that Sousa was ready to step right in and fill the void. There has been much documented on the business relationship between Blakely and Sousa. They entered into a five-year agreement on August 1, 1892 that lasted even after Blakely’s death. Blakely’s estate ended up with half the net profi ts from the final tour during the period of the contract and half of the royalties on all compositions Sousa published before Blakely’s death.¹⁹

Blakely died on November 7, 1896. His secretary Julie Allen left the office to run an errand. When she returned to the offi ce Allen found Blakely dead on the floor. About a month before his death he had been involved in a terrible bicycling accident at the house in Vermont. It was unclear if the accident had anything to do with his death. Due to controversy over the cause of Blakely’s death, his body was disinterred in order to perform an autopsy. Doctors representing the Preferred Accident Insurance Company and the Travellers’ Insurance Company were present.²⁰ He was only insured for accidental death, but the cause of his death was noted as apoplexy. It was the family’s contention that the apoplexy was the result of injuries sustained in the bicycling accident.

David Blakely was a man of many talents. He was an accomplished politician, publisher, editor, journalist, music industry manager, and entrepreneur. It is important to learn about Blakely and to recognize his contributions to American music and the American music industry.