MORRISTOWN, NJ.- The Morris Museum is presenting a new exhibition that explores the prominent role played by New Jersey manufacturers in the early music industry. Featuring more than a dozen mechanical musical instruments and other related objects, ‘Musically, Made in New Jersey’ will be on view in Morristown through October 18, 2015.

By 1885, New Jersey was the musical box manufacturing center for the United States, if not the western world. There were no less than six manufacturing companies located in Rahway, Jersey City, Bradley Beach and Hoboken. These companies employed hundreds of workers and produced several hundred thousand instruments. The mechanical musical instruments manufactured in New Jersey introduced new audio technology to the masses.

‘Musically, Made in New Jersey’ includes a 1908 Reginaphone by the Rahway based Regina Music Box Company. This hybrid machine plays both punched metal discs and 78rpm records. The exhibition also features a Capital “cuff” Music Box by F. G. Otto and Sons of Jersey City. This unique instrument includes perforated metal cones on a rotating mandrel. Also represented are mechanical musical instruments manufactured by the Aeolian Company of Garwood, the Symphonion Manufacturing Company of Bradley Beach, the American Music Box Company of West New York and Hoboken, and others.

“The Morris Museum, through this exhibit, will be the first institution to ever shine a spotlight on the mechanical music industry that made New Jersey it’s “home” during the very late 1800’s and into the early twentieth century.” Said Jeremie Ryder, Conservator of the Guinness Collection. “Virtually nowhere else in the United States was such a tremendous pool of talented engineers, machinists, musicians and craftsmen, who together with the entrepreneurial spirit, supplied the masses with music from around the world.”

‘Musically, Made in New Jersey’ features instruments selected from the Museum’s Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata, one of the most significant collections of its kind in the world. The exhibition also includes objects lent by the Museum of Music Box Society International, Altenburg Piano House, and other private collections.