The furniture maker changed his tune.

A furniture maker occasionally builds an instrument for a friend. Word spreads. Eventually, instruments become the business. That is the appealing turn in Franz Schwarzer’s Washington story, as recounted by Washington Historical Society secretary George Bocklage: a change of product without abandoning the craft of working wood. [1]

Schwarzer and his wife, Josephine, came from Austria in 1866 and settled in Washington the following year. His birthplace matters: this Missouri story belongs to the wider German-speaking cultural world, not to an invented German nationality. In Washington, he participated in the Turn Verein and Liederkranz, organizations within the town’s German cultural life. [1]

His growing reputation allowed him to make concert zithers full time. The workshop’s materials included imported woods and mother-of-pearl decoration; customers could visit and choose inlay designs. These were not merely anonymous objects leaving a factory. Bocklage’s account describes a business in which a buyer could help decide how an instrument would look. [1]

Another way into the story is through the State Historical Society of Missouri’s Schwarzer Zithers Photograph Collection. Its catalog describes thirty photographs, dated 1885–1913, covering the maker, the Washington factory, artisans, players, clubs, and instruments. The list widens the frame: making music involved people at workbenches as well as people ready to play. Those are leads offered by the catalog, not a claim that every photograph has been examined here. [2]

Try approaching a musical instrument as both a tool and a handmade object. What would you ask its maker about the sound? What would you ask about the wood or decoration? Keeping those questions together lets craftsmanship share the stage with the performance.

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