Chet Stussy, UCSB Musicology PhD Candidate, Publishes on Stroh Ukulele History

Photo of Chet Stussy at Bodleian Library at University of Oxford

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October 1, 2025

Stroviols advertising postcard, undated (ca. 1920) Image courtesy of Børge Kallesten

^{(Left) Chet Stussy in the courtyard (Schools Quadrangle) of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. In June of 2024, Chet presented his research on the Stroh ukulele at the annual conference of the Galpin Society, held at the University of Oxford. (Right) Stroviols advertising postcard, undated (ca. 1920). Image courtesy of Børge Kallesten. You can read (and see) more about this instrument in Chet’s forthcoming article in the 2025 volume of JAMIS.}

An article by Chet Stussy, a PhD Candidate in Musicology at UCSB, will be published in the next volume of the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society (volume 51, 2025). Chet’s article, titled “Exotica, Intrigue, and the Talking Machine: The Case of the Stroh Ukulele,” examines the history of what might seem to be just one of the many instrumental and technological oddities of the early twentieth century. However, through Chet’s effort to reconstruct the object’s biography, it becomes clear that the Stroh ukulele can be seen as a material manifestation of early twentieth-century attitudes toward exotica, machines, and material mimicry. You can read an abstract of Chet’s article here:

“In 1920, during a frenzied height of the American public’s fascination with Hawaiian culture, the instrument firm C. Bruno & Son, Inc., advertised in the Music Trade Review that “Few dealers realize the important part the Talking Machine plays in stimulating a desire for musical instruments . . . . The ‘craze’ for Ukuleles, Hawaiian Guitars, Saxophones and ‘Jazz Bands’ has largely been created by the publicity given these instruments by the Talking Machine.” While the history of the ‘ukulele has been well documented, the journey of the ‘ukulele into the orbit of the phonograph merits closer attention. Specifically, an instrument from this milieu offers a fruitful case study (one currently unexamined in organological literature) to explore the changing status and morphology of musical instruments developed during an era of heightened interest in phonography at the dawn of the twentieth century: the Stroh ukulele. This article examines the instrument and its origins at the nexus of a confluence of factors (exotic, material, and technological ones) during the machine age. Using advertisements, trade publications, and related ephemera, I illustrate the varied cultural origins of this object and thus offer a preliminary history of the instrument. Attention is also given to dialogic relations between musical instruments and machines.”

In addition to this exciting publication news, Chet is in the midst of writing a dissertation on the construction, marketing, and reception (and ultimate obsolescence) of novel musical instruments used within the orbit of the early phonograph industry (ca. 1880–1920) in the United States and England. His dissertation advisor is Professor Derek Katz. Following undergraduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, Chet received his BA in Music from Westmont College and his MA in Musicology from UCSB. He is a two-time recipient of the William E. Gribbon Memorial Award from the American Musical Instrument Society (2024 and 2025).

For more information on Chet’s article and the Journal of the American Musical Instrument
Society (JAMIS), please visit www.amis.org/journal.