Lyon and Healy
| Industry | Musical instruments |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1864 in Chicago, Illinois |
| Founder | George Washburn Lyon and Patrick J. Healy |
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
| Products | Harps |
| Website | Official website for Lyon & Healy |
Lyon & Healy is an American harp manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois. Their Chicago headquarters and manufacturing facility contains a showroom and concert hall. George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy began the company in 1864 as a sheet music shop. By the end of the 19th century, they manufactured a wide range of musical instruments—including guitars, mandolins, banjos, and various brass and percussion instruments.
Lyon & Healy harps are widely played by professional musicians, since they are one of the few makers of harps for orchestral use—which are known as concert harps or pedal harps. Lyon & Healy also makes smaller folk harps or lever harps (based on traditional Irish and Scottish instruments) that use levers to change string pitch instead of pedals. In the 1980s, Lyon & Healy also began to manufacture electroacoustic harps and, later, solid body electric harps.
George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy founded the company in 1864, after they moved from Boston to start a sheet music shop for music publisher Oliver Ditson. Determining Lyon & Healy's history is complicated because its building and company records were destroyed in two fires, including the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Two smaller fires did little damage to the firm and did not result in data loss.
Company letters and trade catalogs don't provide exact dates that would reveal when Lyon & Healy began manufacturing instruments. An article in the Musical Courier states that Lyon & Healy began manufacturing instruments in 1885. Clearly, Lyon & Healy was making fretted string instruments in the 1880s, with Washburn (guitars, mandolins, banjos, and zithers) as their premier line. By the 1900s, if not earlier, Lyon & Healy might well have been manufacturing bowed string instruments.
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