Eugene Van Doren was a clarinettist at the Paris Opera during the Belle Epoque at the end of the 19th century. It was a time when wind players made their own reeds, with a greater or lesser degree of success. Eugene Van Doren must have had the knack : his reeds sounded so good that his colleagues prevailed upon him to sell them some. But making reeds by hand is a long and tedious business. In order to save time Eugene Van Doren, a skillful and gifted engineer, designed and built a special reed-making machine, treadle-operated in the same way as a sewing machine. The reeds he made with this machine in the dining room of his home in the rue André del Sarte were immediately successful and in 1905 (the year his son was born) he founded a reed making business at 51, rue Lepic, which soon took up more of his time than playing the clarinet.
