Arthur Paul Schmidt is born on April 1, 1846, to Helene and Paul H. Schmidt. The family lives in Altona, which stands along the river Elbe just west of the German city of Hamburg.

Schmidt arrives at the Castle Garden immigration center in New York Harbor on January 16, 1866, after a voyage of several weeks aboard the S.S. Borussia. Upon entering the United States, he travels north to find lodging and employment in Boston. 

Schmidt sets himself up as a music dealer, and soon a music publisher, at 40 Winter Street in Boston. He shares the address with foreign bookseller Fanny Möehler, who—according to Henry James—operates “a vastly better shop than any of the kind in London.”

Schmidt publishes Elements of Harmony by Stephen A. Emery. The introductory theory text sells thousands of copies. It is the first of many educational volumes (including by Arthur Foote and Edward MacDowell) that Schmidt will publish in the years ahead.

Schmidt issues the full score to John Knowles Paine’s Symphony No. 2 in A Major, “Spring,” (1880) in association with Hamburg music publisher August Cranz. It becomes the first symphony by an American composer ever to appear in print.

Clara Kathleen Rogers (1844–1931) becomes the first of numerous women composers to appear in Schmidt’s catalog when the publisher issues her Six Songs, Op. 10. Rogers was an Anglo-American composer, a graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory, and (as “Clara Doria”) an erstwhile star of the Italian opera stage.  

Keen to establish a foothold in the European market, Schmidt hires Franz Schäffer to serve as his agent in Leipzig, Germany. Read more about the publisher’s audacious plan in an 1890 report from the Boston Musical Herald.

Schmidt becomes the first to publish a symphony composed by an American woman when he issues Amy Beach’s “Gaelic” Symphony, Op. 32, in full score. He remains “the only American publisher who gives encouragement to native composers by printing their large orchestral works,” comments the Boston Herald.

In acquiring the catalog of rival New York music publisher P. L. Jung, Schmidt cements his legacy as the chief publisher of famed American composer Edward MacDowell, whose music he would continue to publish until the composer’s death in 1908.

Continuing his tradition of publishing ambitious concert works, Schmidt issues the Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 22, of Polish-American composer Zygmunt Stojowski (1870–1946). He prints the music in both full score and piano reduction.

Schmidt agrees to print two promotional pieces, “Rainbow Waltz” and “Rainbow Tango (Red and Yellow),” on behalf of gay restauranteur Theodore Kruse of Portland, Oregon. Credited to “Frank Marion,” the two pieces are believed to be the work of noted modernist composer Marion Bauer.

Together with Augener of London, Schmidt issues ten art songs written by the late Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912), making him one of the first Black composers to appear in the publisher’s music catalog. “Life and Death” becomes the most popular song of the set.

Schmidt escapes from war-torn Europe aboard the Holland America Line’s S.S. Rotterdam in October of 1914, following the outbreak of hostilities in World War I. Composer Amy Beach had already fled the continent about a month before her publisher.

After nearly 40 years as a music publisher, Schmidt retires. On December 31, 1915, he signs over the entire business to three trusted employees: Henry  Austin, Harry Crosby, and Florence Emery. Together, they form The Arthur P. Schmidt Company.

Arthur P. Schmidt dies on May 5, 1921, at his home in Jamaica Plain. A string quartet plays at the funeral, after which he is laid to rest in Boston's nearby Forest Hills Cemetery.