- Steinway & Sons builds and sells 2,205 pianos (1,035 grands and 1,170 uprights).
- Union leader James Cerofeci, motivated by instability of Steinway & Sons’ sales, persuades the workers to sign a two-year contract that includes only 1% increase in the company pension contribution, and no pay raise.
- Yamaha’s president Genichi Kawakami launches an American corporation Yamaha International, with a small office in Los Angeles. Roughly at that time, Everett Rowan, a salesman working on commission for Sam Zimmering, has a falling out with his employer. He visits Yamaha International, and persuades the management to cancel the contract with Zimmering and sell directly to young start-up dealers, selling pianos in shopping malls and targeting suburban home-owners (so, initially, Yamaha operates within a very different market niche form that of Steinway & Sons). Everett Rowan becomes the American sales manager for Yamaha, and comes up with the ingenious way to generate word of mouth advertisement: he makes friends with, and throws cocktail parties for, piano tuners.