By the year 1900 mandolin sales constituted 10.6 percent of the nation's "small goods" musical instrument sales, less than the 21.3 percent of the market that music boxes held and more than the guitar's 9.6 percent. At the time, Partee was using an imported French-made mandolin. Partee characterized the early instrument as being larger than the European instruments he was used to, with a "peculiar shape" and "crude construction," and said that the quality improved, until American instruments were "superior" to imported instruments. Partee a publisher in the BMG movement (banjo, mandolin and guitar), the first mandolin made in the United States was made in 1883 or 1884 by Joseph Bohmann, who was an established maker of violins in Chicago. Mandolin awareness in the United States blossomed in the 1880s, as the instrument became part of a fad that continued into the mid-1920s. Abt called the Gibson Company "the pioneer of plectrum instrument making in America" and mentioned its carrying power. Valentine Abt posing with a Gibson mandolin in a 1912 endorsement advertisement for the instrument. Hill who played with his wife May, both Americans, who had eloped to London, but toured America in 1887.
![kentucky mandolin history kentucky mandolin history](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/HaUAAOSwD5teOGUf/s-l400.jpg)
They weren't Spanish, and Zerega was the stage name of Indiana-born Edgar E. Īnother imitation group was Zerega's Spanish Troubadours, a quintet of three mandolins and two guitars. The imitators' use of mandolins helped to generate enormous public interest in an instrument previously relatively unknown in the United States. An Italian musician, Carlo Curti, hastily started a musical ensemble after seeing the Figaro Spanish Students perform his group of Italian born Americans called themselves the "Original Spanish Students," counting on the American public to not know the difference between the Spanish bandurrias and Italian mandolins. The success of the Figaro Spanish Students spawned other groups who imitated their musical style and costumes. Ironically, this ensemble did not play mandolins but rather bandurrias, which are also small, double-strung instruments that resemble the mandolin. on Januin New York City, and played in Boston and New York to wildly enthusiastic crowds. The mandolin's popularity in the United States was spurred by the success of a group of touring young European musicians known as the Estudiantina Figaro, or in the United States, simply the "Spanish Students." The group landed in the U.S.
![kentucky mandolin history kentucky mandolin history](https://www.vintageandrare.com/uploads/products/39733/1389336/original.jpg)
The Spanish Students, who were first brought to the United States by Henry Eugene Abbey's firm, performing with his "Humpty Dumpty Combination." This poster was for a Manhattan performance February 3, 1880, at the Booth's Theatre on the corner of 6th Avenue and 23rd Street. Its instruments reflect that origin, and it too had a connection to the mandolin's development in North America. Mexico, the other nation in North America has a history with different origins. The mandolin has found a home in both countries. The music scene in Canada as the United States is similar, with both countries having a common origin and having English-based music in the same genres, such as rock, country, bluegrass. While not as popular as the guitar, it is widespread across the country. The instrument has been taken up in blues, bluegrass, jug-band music, country, rock, punk and other genres of music. The mandolin found a new surge with the music of Bill Monroe the Gibson F-5 mandolin he played, as well as other archtop instruments, became the American standard for mandolins. The fad died out after World War I, but enough had learned the instrument that it remained. Afterwards, a "mandolin craze" swept the United States, with large numbers of young people taking up the instrument and teachers such as Samuel Siegel touring the United States. In spite of the mandolin having arrived in America, it was not in the cultural consciousness until after 1880 when the Spanish Students arrived on their international performing tour. The continent was a land of immigrants, including Italian immigrants, some of whom brought their mandolins with them. The mandolin has had a place in North American culture since the 1880s, when a "mandolin craze" began.