Gibson borrowed a violin trick and went on to shape the electric guitar
Orville Gibson began selling mandolins from a single-room Kalamazoo workshop in 1894, carving their tops into arches the way violin makers did. That idea became the archtop guitar, and the company carrying his name later gave the world the Les Paul, the Flying V and one of rock's most prized pickups.
The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. was incorporated in 1902 to sell Orville's designs, and after his death in 1918 the firm hired Lloyd Loar, who created the L-5 archtop guitar and the F-5 mandolin. Under Guy Hart, who ran things from 1924 to 1948, Gibson produced the much-copied Super 400, the SJ-200 flattop and, in 1936, its first electric Spanish model, the ES-150. Hart kept wages flowing through the Depression partly by making quality wooden toys.
The Second World War exposed a hidden chapter. With men away, women built nearly 25,000 guitars between 1942 and 1945, although company lore long credited elderly craftsmen and Gibson denied making instruments then. Under Ted McCarty, president from 1950, a team designed the solid-body Les Paul of 1952. The 1950s also brought the Tune-o-matic bridge, the PAF humbucking pickup first released in 1957, and the ES-335 of 1958, whose solid centre gave notes a longer sustain.
Not everything landed at once. The angular Explorer and Flying V of 1958 sold poorly until reissued in the late 1970s. When the Les Paul body was reworked in 1961 with two cutaways, Les Paul himself disliked it, so it was renamed the SG, for solid guitar; the original returned in 1968.
Ownership by conglomerates from 1969 brought a period remembered for poor management and slipping quality, and production moved from Kalamazoo to Nashville between 1976 and 1984. The firm was reportedly three months from closing when new owners bought it in January 1986. It entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2018 and emerged that November.
Source: Gibson (guitar company)
