The Wurlitzer's basic principles were developed in America in the middle of the 1930s by a man named Ben F. Meissner (b. 1890). In 1932 he patent and licensed several new revolutionary electrical ideas e.g. several TV-components, electron pipes and the Wurlitzer principles (the string less piano). Meissner came up with the idea to place electromagnetic pickups on each string inside an ordinary acoustic piano. In order to achieve a more powerful tone he added reeds inside the piano which he blew air into. His concept caused great interest from different piano manufactures around the country, and his ideas were sold to the Everett Piano Company who came to develop his original ideas. 

They started to work on the concept but what from the start was supposed to be an electric form of a piano, instead became a more electric organ under the supervising of the Everett Piano Company. But the idea had now reached the big jukebox and organ company, Wurlitzer who realized that the invention had a far greater potential. They took over the development of the piano and instead tried to come up with a electric version of a piano more similar to the Rhodes, than to an organ. To achieve their goals they designed a felt dressed hammer which was placed in the piano in order to stroke the metallic reeds. The vibrations from the stroke on the reeds produced a big fat and rich tone, which was picked up by a pickup system converting the tone into electric energy and leading the tone out of the built in speakers on the front of the piano. The Wurlitzer Electric Piano was born.