The Autoharp is a registered trademark for a musical stringed instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers which, when depressed, mute all the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a zither. The generic term for the instrument is chorded zither.
History
There is debate over the origin of the autoharp. A German immigrant
in Philadelphia by
the name of Charles F. Zimmermann was awarded US patent 257808 in
1882 for a design for a musical instrument that included mechanisms
for muting certain strings during play. He named his invention
the "autoharp"[1].
Unlike later autoharps, the shape of the instrument was symmetrical,
and the felt-bearing bars moved horizontally against the strings
instead of vertically. It is not known if Zimmermann ever commercially
produced any instruments of this early design. Karl August Gütter
of Markneukirchen,
Germany, had built a model that he called a "Volkszither" which
most resembles the Autoharp played today. Gütter obtained
a British patent for
his instrument circa 1883-1884. Zimmermann, after returning from
a visit to Germany, began production of the Gütter design
in 1885 but with his own design patent number and catchy name.
Gütter's instrument became very popular and Zimmermann has
often been mistaken as the inventor
