Restoration of a Very Early French Harmonium: The Alexandre Factory and the Industrial Revolution in France

 The Industrial Revolution came late to France. Into the early 19th century products were made in small shops by small groups of craftsmen. Much of France was still agricultural at the time so there were not factories in cities that people could gravitate to for employment. 

The textile and iron industries were among the first to develop on a larger scale. Interestingly, mill and factory owners in Britain helped these industries to get going, no doubt for a fee.

When Jakob Alexandre began the manufacture of harmoniums in 1843, large factories were not very common in France. An 1855 circular published by Alexandre touted the large, modern factory in the Ivry section of the outskirts of Paris. This circular, Les Orgues-Melodium D'Alexandre Pere & Fils was published as a handout for the 1855 Industrial Exposition in Paris, which showcased French industry.  After nearly fifty pages of glowing descriptions and testimonials about the Alexandre instruments the final pages offer illustrations of the showroom and factory.

My harmonium dates from 1846-1851, the years that the showroom was at the address on the label. Considering the stops that have the percussion feature are labelled "percussion" rather than the usual names, I believe this instrument to date from soon after Alexandre's purchase of the percussion patent, so probably 1846-48.

This is no small shop with half a dozen hands. This was a modern, well laid out factory with designated departments for every aspect of the manufacture of harmoniums.

Like many European cities, Paris has expanded greatly in its history, starting off with an island in the Seine River to the metropolis it is now. Paris at the time that Jakob Alexandre started manufacturing harmoniums is quite different than the Paris we are more familiar with. Paris as it is now is a creation of Georges Eugene Haussmann, with the full support of Napoleon III in the 1850's and beyond. 

In his novel Sentimental Education (1869) Gustav Flaubert offers an informative view of Paris in the late 1840's before the changes brought about by Haussmann. In Chapter VII Flaubert describes Ivry at the time that Alexandre was ramping up their production in that section of Paris, the exact period when my harmonium was being built. The main character, Frederic, passes through Ivry on his way to the city. Flaubert's description is of a broken down industrial wasteland:

The plain, quite broken up, seemed a waste of ruins. The enclosing wall of the fortifications made a horizontal swelling there; and, on the footpath, on the ground at the side of the road, little branchless trees were protected by laths bristling with nails. Establishments for chemical products and timber-merchants' yards made their appearance alternately. High gates, like those seen in farm-houses, afforded glimpses, through their opening leaves, of wretched yards within, full of filth, with puddles of dirty water in the middle of them. Long wine-shops, of the colour of ox's blood, displayed in the first floor, between the windows, two billiard-cues crossing one another, with a wreath of painted flowers. Here and there might be noticed a half-built plaster hut, which had been allowed to remain unfinished. Then the double row of houses was no longer interrupted; and over their bare fronts enormous tin cigars showed themselves at some distance from each other, indicating tobacconists' shops. Midwives' signboards represented in each case a matron in a cap rocking a doll under a counterpane trimmed with lace. The corners of the walls were covered with placards, which, three-quarters torn, were quivering in the wind like rags. Workmen in blouses, brewers' drays, laundresses' and butchers' carts passed along. A thin rain was falling. It was cold. There was a pale sky; but two eyes, which to him were as precious as the sun, were shining behind the haze.     (Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34828/34828-h/34828-h.htm#CHAPTER_VII) accessed 1/27/25)

Although Ivry is now very much a part of Paris, at the time it was a broken up suburb that had little to commend itself.

Possibly the assembly department?

What appears to be the case department. Note the spacious and well-lit work area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The well-appointed showroom in classical style must have exuded sophistication and elegance.

 The Alexandre factory is completely gone today, but their instruments survive today in fairly large numbers. The Alexandre firm continued under new ownership until 1939.