Steinway & Sons Shows Way for U.S. Reindustrialization

For 30 years, Bernard Craddock has been one of roughly 200 workers handcrafting pianos at the 150-year-old Steinway & Sons factory in Astoria, a neighborhood in the New York borough of Queens.

By making pianos many consider the best in the world, Steinway can charge high enough prices to keep its U.S.-based operation up and running. (Photo: Steinway & Sons Facebook) 

“Everybody has a specific job here,” Craddock said while working on a piano frame.

“My job is to set this straight for the hammers to hit the strings,” Joel Williams reported for CNN.

President Donald Trump has vowed to start an American manufacturing renaissance, one of the main aims of his trade war. But manufacturing isn’t easy anywhere in the U.S., thanks to high costs, strict regulations, and a lack of workers with the necessary skills.

Steinway & Sons, however, is a rare bright spot in U.S. manufacturing—a company that thrives because it doesn’t mass-produce its products.

Instead, it uses a small workforce of skilled craftsmen to produce a premium item: world-class pianos.

“They have this storied, legacy brand,” said Adam Hersh, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

“They can charge a premium for that, but they also are serving higher market segments that can afford to pay those premium prices and need to because they’re performing on pianos at the highest levels.”

By making pianos many consider the best in the world, Steinway can charge high enough prices to keep its U.S.-based operation up and running. A Steinway grand piano can be priced as low as $90,000 or as much as $200,000.