History of French American Reeds

In 1939, they, Mario and Maria Maccaferri, established the French American Reeds Manufacturing Company in Paris, France, and created their first tie to the United States through the exportation of their reeds. Due to the international success of the Maccaferris’ reeds, the American businessman by the name of Gratz and Company readily approached Maccaferri about becoming partners. Gratz brought Mario and his family to New York and set them up in a hotel on 3rd Avenue. The first night the family was in the hotel, Maria was awakened by her baby. She turned on the lights and found bed bugs crawling around her daughter. They closed up their luggage and spent the night in the hallway. The next day they relocated to a better hotel. The bed bugs were an inauspicious sign of what Gratz was trying to do. While in New York, Gratz tried to convince Mario of a 51-49% deal. Gratz, a successful American businessman, attempted to trick this seemingly naive immigrant who had just arrived and was struggling with the language. Gratz, however, was not aware that he was dealing with the astute and confident man that Mario was. Mario told Gratz that just because he could not speak the language, it did not mean that he was stupid. Mario informed Gratz that he was going to take his machines and knowledge of reed manufacturing and establish a business of his own. The Maccaferris were well on the road to success in France when they departed for America. Instead of being a small successful reed manufacturer in Europe, the Maccaferris would move to America and dominate the reed market.

According to Mrs. Maccaferri, America was "wonderful" when they arrived. It was just coming out of the depression and the market was open for someone to take advantage of it, which is precisely what they did. The trip to New York was not a worthless one for the Maccaferris. Mario attended the 1939 New York World*s Fair, which sparked his interest in a new material: plastic. This material would have a profound effect on the Maccaferris’ lives in America and their pursuit of the American Dream. The Nazi Blitzkrieg was holding Europe, yet during a time of political lull in 1939, Mario returned to Paris to check on his reed business. Even though the countries were trying to formulate a peace treaty, Mario feared what might ensue and packed up two reed-cutting machines and two shaping machines and sent them to New York. At that time, one of Mario’s friends who worked in the Foreign Office called and told Mario that the truce was off, the Germans were about to take Paris, and departure seemed virtually impossible. Mario hung up the phone and rushed to the docks to find the harbor blockaded by German warships and the last ship allowed to leave, the Ile de France, was loading passengers and no more tickets were available. The following is a direct account of Mario Maccaferri’s escape from France relayed to Michael Dresdner in a 1982 story and reprinted in a 1995 Vintage Guitar Magazine article by Michael Wright. "I went down to the French Line, which was in the same building as the Embassies, and saw a line of people circling more than two blocks. "What am I going to do?" I thought.