- Steinway & Sons introduces its Model O, a small, low-cost grand piano designed by Henry L. Ziegler. Steinway & Sons vice-president Frederick T. Steinway despises the Model O, seeing it as his company’s capitulation to cheap piano trade. (Nowadays, used Model O pianos are sought as home instruments by many true piano lovers.)
- Steinway & Sons builds its 100,000th piano, an “artcase” grand, designed by Joseph M. Hunt and Richard H. Hunt, decorated by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, and carved by Steinway & Sons-employed woodworker Juan Ayuso. The price of this piano is estimated at $7,500 – over 4.5 times more expensive than the most expensive Model D grand piano ($1,600). Nahum Stetson comes up with the idea to donate Steinway & Sons’ 100,000th instrument to President Theodore Roosevelt, and makes the proper arrangements. The piano is placed in the East Room of the White House (and will remain there till 1938, to be replaced by Steinway & Sons’ 300,000th piano).
- Steinway & Sons makes $540,000 net profit.