From the OHS PC Database, derived from A Guide to North American Organbuilders, rev. ed. by David H. Fox (Organ Historical Society, 1997). -

Michael Hartmann Swinger was born in 1942 in Dayton, Ohio. He was an instrument maker and occasional organ repair assistant, from 1960 until 1969 when he graduated from Ohio State University with a major in art history. He was an instructor at Columbus College of Art and Design, 1969. He apprenticed with Philip Eppel of Vienna, Austria; returning to the United States, he established his own firm in Belleville, Ohio, in 1974, building portative and positiv organs. He relocated to Carroll, Ohio, in 1976.

Sources:

• Bicentennial Tracker (Organ Historical Society, 1976), 57.
• Susan Caust Farrell, Directory of Contemporary American Musical Instrument Makers (Columbia, MO: The University of Missouri Press, 1981), 136.
• Organ Handbook (OHS Press, 1976).
• Uwe Pape, The Tracker Organ Revival in America, (Berlin: Pape Verlag, 1978) , 64.
• Elizabeth Towne Schmitt.
• A mailing list of purchasers of organ supplies compiled by several prominent firms. The entries that appear in this list are of undetermined date.