Today, 11 January, is the anniversary of the birth of Laurens Hammond, inventor of the Hammond organ. New College Library holds this pamphlet, The Hammond Organ, published in the 1930s,  in the Hymnology collections.

Patented eighty years ago in 1933-4, the Hammond Organ was aimed at church and domestic use, and  it offered a new and cheaper alternative to the traditional pipe organ for church music. Later, it became popular for jazz, blues and rock music, as well as for church and gospel music.

Laurens Hammond was awarded the Franklin Institute’s John Price Wetherill Medal in 1940 for the invention of the Hammond electric organ.

This item was recently catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library.