Samuel Swaim Stewart

Samuel Swaim Stewart (January 8, 1855—April 6, 1898), also known as S. S. Stewart, was a musician, composer, publisher, and manufacturer of banjos. He owned the S. S. Stewart Banjo Company, which was one of the largest banjo manufacturers in the 1890s, manufacturing tens-of-thousands of banjos annually. He also published the S. S. Stewart Banjo and Guitar Journal from 1882 to 1902. He is known today for his efforts to remake the banjo into an instrument of cultural sophistication and for his high-quality banjos. For Stewart, that sophistication included learning to properly sight-read music, so as to be able to play the "proper repertoire" for middle-class citizens.

Childhood
Stewart's father was a physician and "medical director" for Swaim's Panacea, a patent medicine. His family was well off and pushed Stewart toward a music career. He began training on the violin when he was 12 under Professor Carl Gaertner.

Stewart was inspired to play the banjo by hearing banjoist Lew Simmons play at a concert, when Stewart was a boy. He purchased a tack-head banjo (banjo with skin sound-table nailed to the instrument's head with tacks) to learn to play and was disappointed with the instrument's quality, especially when comparing it to his violin. Although discouraged by his initial banjo experience, he got instruction in 1872 from George C. Dobson of Boston and Joseph Ricket of Philadelphia. With his earlier training toward a classical-violin career, he didn't need much musical instruction; he became a good enough player, that after "several lessons, " he himself began teaching others to play.

Teaching, publishing and sales career built on standards
When Stewart began learning and teaching the banjo, the instrument was embedded in an era of the blackface-minstrel and variety shows. Initially, he taught what was standard for banjo performing repertoire, organizing a minstrel show. Then he took a step away from the minstrel music that was the popular music of its day, embracing European music and society culture and envisioning the banjo in that setting. He pushed European music as proper for the banjo, to make it the equivalent of the violin. In his efforts to change the banjo's image, he was facing an established culture which he considered "vulgar", the banjo frequently being the instrument of the "variety parlors and drinking saloons" and dance halls instead of in middle class homes with ladies and gentlemen. Using his S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal he promoted performances and recitals.

As he began selling his banjos and publishing, Stewart began competing to with his former teacher George Dobson, who had come out with a simplified way of teaching people to play. Dobson's method didn't teach students to read sheet music, and Stewart felt they would be struck at the level of picking out simple songs. He felt students should learn to read sheet music from the beginning so that they could progress into more complex and satisfying songs.

Building an S. S. Stewart banjo


Alongside teaching, he began making banjos. His banjo rims were made of a layer of German silver outside of a wooden layer. The silver folded over a wire on top of the wooden rim, and the silver and wire were sandwiched between the wood rim and the skin. Stewart felt that the silver-and-wood combination would produce the best tone, a combination of the silver ring of metal with pure tones from wood. Having arrived at this conclusion, he committed to it, while his competition continued to develop their banjos, which eventually may have reached a quality to surpass his.

His company became a major manufacturer, competing with Lyon and Healy, A. C. Fairbanks and William A. Cole. These men and their companies were producing some of the highest quality banjos of the Classic Era (1880s-1910s).

Stewart and his company were part of a larger movement to create the banjo into an instrument of concert halls. Others participating in this movement included Fred Van Eps, Vess Ossman, Frederick J. Bacon, Alfred A. Farland and George W. Gregory. These players were to take on European works by Beethoven, Paganini and Mendelssohn. He associated with some of the better banjo players of his time, including E. M. Hall, Horace Weston, John H. Lee and William A. Huntley, promoting them in his journal and printing their endorsements of his products.

Swain versus Swaim
His full name has been written as:
 * S. S. Stewart
 * Samuel Swain Stewart
 * Samuel Swaim Stewart
 * Swain Stewart
 * Swaim Stewart
 * Swaim S. Stewart
 * S. Swaim Stewart.

Swain appears on his obituary, on 8 April 1898 in the Philadelphia Times and in the 1860 U.S. census.

Swaim appears on his tombstone, on city directories from his lifetime (including 1879, 1880, 1889, ), 1890, 1891, 1892, 1895 ), his church admission record in 1868, the 1870 U.S. census and US Patent number US355896A.