The Theodore Presser Company is an American music publishing and distribution company located in Malvern, Pennsylvania, formerly King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and originally based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. It is the oldest continuing music publisher in the United States. It has been owned by Carl Fischer Music since 2004. History Theodore Presser Theodore Presser was born July 3, 1848, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to German emigrant Christian Presser and Caroline Dietz. As a young man, he worked in an iron foundry helping to mold cannon balls for the army during the Civil War. This activity proved too strenuous for his young physique, and at 16, he began selling tickets for the Strokosch Opera Company in Pittsburgh. In 1864, he began working as a clerk at C.C. Mellor's music store in Pittsburgh. He eventually achieved the position of sheet-music department manager. Presser began his musical studies at 19 by learning to play the piano. At 20, he began studies music at Mt. Union College, where he stayed for a year, and then worked as a piano teacher at Ohio Northern University for two years. Further studies were completed at Miami Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory, and the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany under Reinecke, Jadassoh, and Zwintscher. His late start in learning to play the piano handicapped his technique. He is credited as the founder of the Department of Music at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he taught 1876–1878. While there, he founded the Music Teachers National Association. His studies in Germany lasted from 1878 to 1880. He then became director of music at Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia. In October 1883, while working at Hollins, he began publication of The Etude music magazine with only $250 in cash. The immediate success of his new magazine prompted him to seek larger publishing facilities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1884. Presser died in Philadelphia on October 28, 1925. He married Helen Louise Curran (1890; d. 1905) and Elise Houston (1908; d. 1922). He is interred at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. The Presser Company Presser's need for music content within The Etude resulted in his establishment as a dealer and publisher. Following the purchase of the John Church Company in 1930, the Theodore Presser Company acquired the Oliver Ditson Company in 1931. Through this acquisition, Presser traces its origins to 1783, when Batelle's Book Store (later the Oliver Ditson Company), began