American firm of instrument manufacturers and distributors, primarily of band instruments. It was started in Elkhart, Indiana, in 1875 by Charles Gerard Conn and Eugene Dupont to produce cornets and a special type of mouthpiece. By the 1890s, known as C.G. Conn Co., it offered a range of brass instruments, flutes, clarinets and saxophones of its own make, and imported wind instruments. From 1915 it introduced assembly-line production and cultivated the new school-band market. The firm has expanded through affiliate companies (including Ludwig & Ludwig from 1930) and an electronic organ division (c 1947).
