(Vacuum Tube Organs)
Long before the advent of digital technology, Allen's leadership in the organ industry was legendary.
From the Company's first patent in 1938, research and development always played a key role in its success.
Allen was responsible for many firsts, including the first three-manual electronic organ and the first electronic
drawknob console. From 1937 through to the mid-1950s, Jerome Markowitz and Allen engineers stretched the capabilities
of vacuum tube technology to its limit.
An early Allen Organ Company accounting ledger.
First Organ Tone Generators
These racks of vacuum tubes and coils (photo on left) are the tone generators of the world's first commercially available
electronic organ. The console from which these generators were played is no longer in existence. Hand-made by
Allen's founder Jerome Markowitz, the coils were wound on a wood lathe. The organ was sold to St. Catharine of Siena
Roman Catholic Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Since then, St. Catharine of Siena has become the cathedral for the
Diocese of Allentown. Today the cathedral is the proud owner of its third Allen — a four-manual digital organ.
Pictured here are views of the early production facility in a leased second floor factory space in Allentown, 1946–1953.
