Happy Birthday, Dreadnought (Guitar, That Is)
One hundred years ago, the warship that dominated the waves was the formidable dreadnought battleship. But a different type of dreadnought came into being in 1916, and it’s still going strong, long past the time when the last guns of the last of those behemoth ships went silent—the Dreadnought guitar.
So in this year that marks the 100th anniversary of the ultimate dreadnought-battleship showdown, the Battle of Jutland, another dreadnought centennial is being celebrated by guitar-lovers everywhere along with the legendary C. F. Martin & Company, progenitors of the revolutionary instrument design.
In the early 20th century, the dreadnoughts (named, of course, after HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1906) had the mightiest hulls and the loudest boom. “Dreadnought,” then, was a fitting nickname for a new guitar type featuring a larger body and a richer, fuller bass sound. (If you think of a guitar body as a numeral 8, the new design featured a larger bottom half of the 8.) The Dreadnought, also known as the D-type, or to generations of guitar pickers as the “dread,” eventually came to be the dominant guitar type across a broad spectrum of American music, particularly in the bluegrass, country, and acoustic-rock spheres. To many people not even making the distinction, the Dreadnought guitar is the acoustic guitar.
No question the Martin Dreadnought is iconic, but was it an immediate success when it was introduced in 1916? “It was not!” said Chris Martin IV, Martin Guitar’s chairman and CEO. Prior to the Dreadnought, “people were used to guitars that could be cradled and did not project, but had a very balanced sound, the bass, the mid-range, and treble in proportion.” In fact, he said, “The first Dreadnoughts were called ‘bass’ guitar because of their predominant bass sound.”
Originally, the Dreadnought guitars were manufactured by Martin for the Oliver Ditson Company, a publishing firm based in Boston. Curiously enough, the guitars weren’t sold with the Martin name on them, but rather were marketed in Boston and New York under the Oliver Ditson brand name, beginning in 1916.
In 1931 the Martin Company began producing Dreadnought guitars that carried the Martin name. This was the time when the guitar’s full-bodied, resonant characteristics really began to take off in popular recordings. A whirl of technological innovation had led to the birth of commercial country music by the early 1930s. Radio broadcasts and 78 RPM phonograph records were spreading sounds around like never before, making stars of rural performers such as the Carter Family, whose story songs poignantly tugged at the heartstrings, or Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, laying down hillbilly string-band rhythms that got people up and dancing. Also in the media mix, the Grand Ole Opry out of Nashville, Tennessee, was popularizing country music nationwide through far-reaching weekly radio broadcasts. And finding favor at the heart of it all was the acoustic Martin Dreadnought steel-string guitar, its playability and deep projecting sound the ideal rhythmic anchor for solo vocalists or backing bands.
In 1916, at the dawn of the Dreadnought guitar era, C. F. Martin & Company had already been in business for more than 80 years. Frank Henry Martin is credited with having the idea of calling the new model “Dreadnought.” Evidently he was fascinated with HMS Dreadnought and the game-changing qualities of her design. To the guitar-maker, the parallels were obvious and too good to pass up. As Chris Martin explained, “If you dissect ‘Dreadnought,’ it means ‘fear nothing.’ The name was meant to remind people that Great Britain dominated the high seas and that British subjects anywhere in the world should feel secure and protected. Same with the guitar. Musicians feel secure behind it. The Dreadnought has a look, a presence that says, ‘Hey, I’m not fooling around!’”
Chris Martin noted further symbolic parallels between the warship and the guitar. “Could go faster than any ship. Could go farther than any ship. Had the largest available 12-inch guns mounted on deck where everybody could see. The guitar metaphor is obvious,” he said. “Like the warship, anything prior is now obsolete and anything post that does not embrace these new innovations will ultimately become obsolete. So, in 2016, not only do we celebrate the centennial of the Dreadnought guitar, but also the 110th anniversary of HMS Dreadnought.”
Longtime Conestoga Mystery Solved at Last
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Navy announced in March the discovery of the long-lost USS Conestoga (AT 54) in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary off San Francisco—95 years after the Navy seagoing fleet tugboat disappeared with 56 officers and sailors on board. The discovery solves one of the top maritime mysteries in U.S. Navy history.
On 25 March 1921, the Conestoga departed the Golden Gate en route to Tutuila, American Samoa, via Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. When she failed to reach Hawaii by the anticipated arrival date the Navy mounted a massive air and sea search. For months, the ship’s mysterious disappearance gripped newspapers across the country. Unable to locate the ship or wreckage, the Navy declared the Conestoga and her crew lost on 30 June 1921. She was the last U.S. Navy ship to be lost without a trace in peacetime.
“The discovery of the wreck was the result of a systematic survey of Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, not a deliberate search for the USS Conestoga,” said James Delgado, maritime heritage coordinator for NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. He and West Coast regional coordinator Robert Schwemmer codirected the investigation.
“When Bob Schwemmer and I realized what we’d found, it was a reminder that not even in near-shore waters, much of the ocean is unexplored and undiscovered,” Delgado said. “We also were reminded that archaeology can add to and even rewrite more recent history. But the greatest reminder was that this was really not about history, or a mystery, but closure for the families of the 56 crew.”
Based on the location and orientation of the wreck in 189-foot-deep water, three miles off Southeast Farallon Island, NOAA believes the Conestoga sank as officers and crew attempted to reach a protected cove.
“This would have been a desperate act, as the approach is difficult and the area was the setting for five shipwrecks between 1858 and 1907,” according to NOAA’s report on the discovery. “However, as Conestoga was in trouble and filling with water, it seemingly was the only choice to make.”
No human remains were observed during the dives, but the Conestoga nonetheless is protected under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act and the Sunken Military Craft Act of 2004, which prohibits unauthorized disturbance of sunken military vessels or planes owned by the U.S. government, as well as foreign sunken military craft that lie within U.S. waters.
What’s Up at the NHHC
Resources Offered for Midway Commemoration
4 June 2016 marks the 74th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. To assist in commemorating this pivotal naval battle, the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) has a collection of digital resources on its website, www.history.navy.mil. The Commemorations Toolkit, located under the Browse by Topic tab, includes all the tools necessary to plan and execute a commemoration ceremony or event in your area.
The two most time-consuming products to produce for any ceremony are the program and the script. The toolkit provides these two key pieces in several ready-to-download formats. Under the Commemoration Script tab, a script can be downloaded to your computer and customized to include only the elements and resources you intend to use in your ceremony. The Frequently Asked Questions tab provides helpful information on choosing the appropriate music for your ceremony and, if a wreath-laying will be part of your event, several examples of wreaths that commands have used in the past are shown.
Under the Battle of Midway Commemoration Program Templates tab, you will find templates for a professionally designed ceremony program that can be downloaded in several formats and customized as needed. If you require a ready-to-print program, you can choose a 16-page PDF template file to download. The template is also available in the Microsoft Word and InDesign formats. Each format includes a set of four options depending on the amount of customization desired. The package includes a guide for customizing and printing the program.
The toolkit also features a collection of digital content for public use. There is a link to a stylized version of a 1940s newsreel video that tells the story of the Battle of Midway’s importance through imagery and a picture slide show detailing the pivotal moments and platforms that contributed to the U.S. Navy’s success at the Battle of Midway. Links to blogs about the lessons and history of the Battle of Midway provide valuable tools for outreach with students and media. Images of Midway artifacts can be found in the Flickr album, and several Midway Commemoration logos can be downloaded from the Commemoration Logos tab.
To provide background information on the battle, the toolkit has a tab to Battle of Midway history and imagery. There one will find links to art and photo collections and select biographies of Navy leaders at Midway. There are firsthand accounts of the battle from different perspectives, such as from Lieutenant George Gay, the sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron (VT) 8, Lieutenant Joseph Pollard, a medical officer on board the USS Yorktown (CV-5), and Commander John Ford, the famed Hollywood film director, who describes making combat motion pictures under battle conditions. For further reading, the tab includes links to additional sources in the Navy Department Library’s online reading room.
For more resources and information about the Battle of Midway in particular or the NHHC in general, visit the NHHC website provided above or call 202-433-7880.
—Margaret Reborchick, Naval History and Heritage Command