File:Fiddlette (AM 1998.60.326-1).jpg

English: Fiddlette, incomplete, strings, tailpiece and bridge missing, wooden body, neck, fingerboard, scroll, pegs, metal ring nut at base of body and metal nut joining body to neck Edwin Harris Bergh and the fiddlette Edwin H. Bergh, father of Harris V. Bergh, was born in 1885. Edwin Bergh ran the Bergh School of Music and was music teacher at Sterling Grade School. He joined forces with H.A. VanderCook to run the summer music camp in Bridgman, Michigan. Bergh also taught briefly at VanderCook College of Music, his specialty being recruitment of students into string programs. He later founded the Chicago Children’s Festival Orchestra, consisting of approximately 125 players. Edwin Bergh died in 1939. Designed by Carl Wheeler Mott around 1927, the fiddlette was a stripped-down version of a violin, invented as an inexpensive way for students to find out if they had talent. If they did, they could purchase a standard violin later. Bergh envisioned the potential of the fiddlette, commissioning the building and refinement of Mott's original design. The fiddlette came in a kit, precut, and had to be assembled. The sounding chamber was a hollow box of California redwood. The promotion and sale of the fiddlette were given to the Gamble Hinged Music Company of Chicago, and its manufacture continued to be handled by Mott. The fiddlette sold for less than a dollar. At the height of its popularity, from 1928 to 1929, approximately 8,000 of the instruments were sold. These included violaettes, celloettes and bassettes. In Dixon, Illinois, during the 1929-30 school year, 178 students were enrolled in the fiddlette program. When the depression struck in 1929, the market for them was greatly reduced. Another incident cited in the decline of the fiddlette was a blizzard in Chicago during the spring of 1930. A demonstration by a group of 21 fiddlette students was scheduled to appear before a national convention of music supervisors. Due to the blizzard, and the resulting size of the audience, the intended widespread promotion of the instrument did not occur. - Annotated Bibliography of the Fiddlette Behrens, Gail. "Birth of the Fiddlette." Illinois History 14-2 (January 1961)- 90-91. Gives a brief history fo the fiddlette, guidelines for using the fiddlette for class instruction, how to organize a fiddlette program, sample lessons, diagrams of the instrument, ordering information for parts and accessories. Bergh, Edwin H. Organization Manual for String Class Teachers. Chicago- Gamble Hinged Music Co., 1930. Brief history of the fiddlette, based in part on an interview with Carl Wheeler Mott, who came up with the fiddlette's final design. Speaker, Charles. "Strains of Bygone Fiddlette Music Silenced by Blizzard, Depression." Rockford Morning Star, 5 February 1961, A15. Brief history of the fiddlette, citing reasons for the fiddlette's loss in popularity. sourc- http-www.vandercook.edu-archives-collections-hvbergh.htm