Page "Harmonica" Paragraph 38

Owing to competition between the harmonica factories in Trossingen and Klingenthal, machines were invented to punch the covers for the reeds.

In 1857, Matthias Hohner, a clockmaker from Trossingen, started producing harmonicas, eventually to become the first person to mass-produce them.

He used a mass-produced wooden comb that he had made by machine-cutting firms.

By 1868, he began supplying the United States.

By the 1920s, the diatonic harmonica had largely reached its modern form.

Other types followed soon thereafter, including the various tremolo and octave harmonicas.