 |
| Advertisement from The Music Trades c.1928 |
About
The Lyric Music House in Manila on the Philippine Islands produced ukuleles constructed from coconuts. According to the obituary of his brother, Arthur Melvin Uggen was the owner of the Lyric Music House [2].
Arthur Uggen was born April 30, 1889 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Erick and Dena Uggen. An accomplished musician, he worked both in retail and has a performing artist. By age 21 he was a piano salesman and by 1917 he had moved out to Washington to sell pianos at the Lawrence Music House [5]. Its unclear to me what motivated Arthur to uproot his family and move to the Philippines but I suspect his experience in the music industry gave him the confidence to embrace the growing ukulele trend. The Lyric Music House was formed in 1921 [3].
I am unable to determine where they were initially located but by 1928 they were located in The Pérez Samanillo Building which was the largest building in Manila at the time. They had left the building by the mid 1930s and Berg's Department Store took over [4].
 |
| The Lyric Music House in the Pérez Samanillo Building Date Unknown Image Credit: Pinterest - Batang Blumentritt |
The fate of the company is unclear but by the 1940 Census, Arthur was living in Juneau, Alaska. He died in 1951 [5]. There is another Lyric Music House that was operating in Australia in the 1950s, I'm not sure whether they were connected.
Finances
They were involved in legal case concerning taxes in 1935 which gives us some rare information about their operation including their gross sales for the years of 1930 and 1931 [1]. The Philippine Coinage Act of 1903 set the value of the Philippine Peso to exactly half of a US Dollar in from 1903 until 1946 which allows us to approximate their sales in USD
Gross Sales:
1930: ₱296,653.61 = $148,326.805 (1930) = $2,476,276.12 (2022)
1931: ₱381,283.12 = $190,641.56 (1931) = $3,182,709.47 (2022)
Sources
[1] https://www.chanrobles.com/scdecisions/jurisprudence1935/sep1935/gr_42236_1935.php
[2] https://www.mnopedia.org/person/uggen-elmer-george-1891-1949
[3] "Elizalde Model Employer", Published by Employees and Workers of Elizalde & Co., Inc., Manila, Philippines, 1936 p.13
[4] http://www.lougopal.com/manila/?p=2231
[5] https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/61734713/person/36075862177/facts
No comments: