Mission Statement

The Organ His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety enrich­es pub­lic knowl­edge, under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion of the pipe organ, par­tic­u­lar­ly its place in his­to­ry and culture. 

History of the OHS

The Organ His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety began with an impromp­tu meet­ing of young organ enthu­si­asts who were inter­est­ed in locat­ing his­toric pipe organs in New York City. OHS mem­ber­ship has grown since 1956 from that small group to an inter­na­tion­al soci­ety of musi­cians, organ­builders, his­to­ri­ans, schol­ars, and music lovers. The founders of OHS aspired to vis­it extant Amer­i­can ​“track­er” organs, cre­ate a com­pre­hen­sive list with spec­i­fi­ca­tions, and share infor­ma­tion with inter­est­ed organ schol­ars. The OHS has far exceed­ed this aspi­ra­tion in the six decades since, hav­ing cre­at­ed an online data­base of pipe organs with more than 60,000 entries; a his­toric organ cita­tion pro­gram that has rec­og­nized more than 400 instru­ments; the world’s largest col­lec­tion of pipe organ-relat­ed archives, books, jour­nals, pam­phlets, and oth­er ephemera; annu­al con­ven­tions that take place in loca­tions around the coun­try; pub­li­ca­tions includ­ing a quar­ter­ly jour­nal and award-win­ning schol­ar­ly books on the pipe organ; and an online store with organ-relat­ed books, CDs, videos, and sheet music.

The new head­quar­ters of the OHS is Stoneleigh Estate in Vil­lano­va, Penn­syl­va­nia, a his­toric man­sion locat­ed on a 40-acre prop­er­ty man­aged by the Nat­ur­al Lands Trust. Stoneleigh show­cas­es a his­toric Aeo­lian-Skin­ner organ as a cen­ter­piece. The OHS Library and Archives, a world-renowned research col­lec­tion, is also housed at Stoneleigh. The ren­o­va­tion of the Stoneleigh Estate and the relo­ca­tion of the OHS is fund­ed by gen­er­ous sup­port from the Wyn­cote Foundation.