Oliver Ditson was an American businessman and founder of Oliver Ditson and Company, one of the major music publishing houses of the late 19th century. Ditson began his business with Samuel H. Parker

Samuel H. Parker

Samuel Hale Parker was a publisher and bookseller in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He published musical scores as well as novels, sermons, and other titles...

 as the Parker and Ditson company in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, then bought Parker out in 1842, acquiring the Oliver Ditson and Company moniker in 1857 when he began collaborating with John C. Haynes on what would become the John C. Haynes & Co.

John C. Haynes & Co.

John C. Haynes & Co., a significant American maker of a wide variety of musical instruments in the late 19th century.By early in the 20th century, the company was no longer making instruments; it had become a retail store selling pianos and instruments under the Ditson name.- References :...

.

Ditson's company published the first American edition of Haydn's The Creation, "Jingle Bells

Jingle Bells

"Jingle Bells" is one of the best-known and commonly sung winter songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont and published under the title "One Horse Open Sleigh" in the autumn of 1857...

" and "Darling Nelly Gray", as well as most of the works of the Hutchinson Family - though Ditson refused to publish "Get Off the Track" due to its abolitionist sentiment.

In 1858, Ditson purchased Dwight's Journal of Music

Dwight's Journal of Music

Dwight's Journal of Music was an American music journal, one of the most respected and influential such periodicals in the country in the mid-19th century. John Sullivan Dwight created the Journal, and published it in Boston, Massachusetts...

, a serious musical journal.

During the American Civil War, Ditson released a number of popular songs, including "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground

Tenting on the Old Camp Ground

"Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" was a popular song during the American Civil War. A particular favorite of enlisted men in the Union army, it was written in 1863 by Walter Kittredge and first performed in that year at Old High Rock, Lynn, Massachusetts....

".

Theodore Presser purchased the Ditson catalogue in 1931.

Published by Ditson

• Levina Buoncuore Urbino
  Levina Buoncuore Urbino
  Levina Buoncuore Urbino or Lavinia Buoncuore Urbino was a writer and translator in the Boston, Massachusetts-area in the 19th-century. Among her published works was An American Woman in Europe , a frank account of her travels in Europe 1866-1869; she also wrote children's books and a guide to art...
  
  . Biographical sketches of eminent musical composers. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1876 Google books

External links

• Temperance melodeon. Boston: O. Ditson, 1850.
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/2491865829/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/2492686114
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/2492686298