I have no idea why this laughable article/idea persists, but the actual answer about 440 Hz is completely commercial and mundane.
Decisions made by the J.C. Deagan mallet instrument company at 1770 W. Berteau in Chicago are the sole reasons why A=440. I once worked in this building, still called the Deagan building.
The company made chimes and xylophones and instruments. They had customers all over the US. Each symphony in each city used a slightly different reference tuning. Philadelphia used 442, New York 438, etc.
This fact forced Deagan to retool their machinery every time a different order came in. This cut into profits. The owner, J.C. Deagan urged his customers to standardize on one reference tuning. One reference tuning meant one set of machine tools for his machines and no time or money spent retooling.
Deagan got results only when he contacted James Petrillo, the President of the AFM - the national musicians' union. Petrillo made it a work rule that A=440, overriding the conductors local preferences.
This was in 1910. Therefore there are no nazis involved.
I would think you'd be getting more upvotes, since the Deagan work is so completely rational and reasonable, and makes this whole thing such a non-story...
Right, the second sentence describes a conspiracy theory, and the end of the article dismisses this theory. The person you were replying to concurs with this dismissal, and presents additional evidence.
You are wrong about that. This is the third or fourth time I've seen this dippy nonsense in print, and I wish it did not persist. Its central sin is that it obscures the mundane, industrial-based reasons for the tuning standard's emergence.
Decisions made by the J.C. Deagan mallet instrument company at 1770 W. Berteau in Chicago are the sole reasons why A=440. I once worked in this building, still called the Deagan building.
The company made chimes and xylophones and instruments. They had customers all over the US. Each symphony in each city used a slightly different reference tuning. Philadelphia used 442, New York 438, etc.
This fact forced Deagan to retool their machinery every time a different order came in. This cut into profits. The owner, J.C. Deagan urged his customers to standardize on one reference tuning. One reference tuning meant one set of machine tools for his machines and no time or money spent retooling.
Deagan got results only when he contacted James Petrillo, the President of the AFM - the national musicians' union. Petrillo made it a work rule that A=440, overriding the conductors local preferences.
This was in 1910. Therefore there are no nazis involved.
http://richsamuels.com/nbcmm/deagan/index.html
Hey internet: don't be so goddamn gullible all the time, okay?