David Mannes was born February 16, 1866 in New York City. He studied the violin at a very early age, and formal lessons soon followed with August Zeiss, a pupil of Ludwig Spohr, and with Carl Richter Nicolai, concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra. Mannes studied later at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin with the Joachim Quartet's Heinrich de Ahna and with Carl Nadir, assistant to Joseph Joachim, who was a professor of violin at the Hochschule. In 1891, Mannes became a member of the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch; thirteen years later, he became the orchestra's concertmaster, a position he held until he resigned in 1912. He married pianist Clara Damrosch (sister of Walter) in 1898, and their first child, Leopold Damrosch Mannes, was born in 1899. In 1900, David began teaching violin at the Music School Settlement (later the Third Street Music School Settlement) for young, underprivileged children and amateurs. Accompanied by his wife and son, he went to Brussels in 1903 where he studied violin with Eugène Ysaÿe for six months. Once back in the United States, David and Clara began a thirteen-year professional collaboration in 1904 and toured as the Mannes Duo for violin and piano. Later that fall, their second child, Marya, was born. David became musical director at the Music School Settlement in 1910, and in 1912, inaugurated a similar school—the Music School Settlement for Colored Children—in Harlem, assisted by prominent, interested friends from the community. In 1915, Mannes resigned as director of the Third Street Settlement School and also ended his relationship with the Music School Settlement for Colored Children. The following year, he and his wife co-founded the David Mannes School of Music (later to become the Mannes College of Music), which developed potential professional musicians and offered opportunities to those who wanted "to enrich themselves through a better understanding or playing of music without the responsibilities of a career." The final tour of the Mannes Duo occurred during 1916-17, but the couple continued to perform locally until the mid-1920s. After years of intermittent assignments leading an orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for special occasions, David received a chance to conduct an annual series of free concerts at the Museum which continued for twenty-eight years until 1948. On April 16, 1956 a concert was held there to celebrate David Mannes's ninetieth birthday and to raise funds for the Mannes College of Music. His autobiography, Music Is My Faith, was published in 1938. He died in New York City on April 25, 1959.

Leopold Damrosch (1832-1885), the family patriarch, was a violinist, conductor, and composer who was educated in Posen, his native city, and in Berlin. The Damrosch family—Leopold and Helene von Heimburg Damrosch, their four children, Frank, Walter, Marie and Clara (the fifth and last child, Elizabeth, was born in America), and Helene's sister Marie von Heimburg—immigrated to America from Breslau in 1871. He came to America in 1871 to conduct the Arion Society, a men's choral group; later, in 1873, he founded the Oratorio Society of New York and, in 1878, the Symphony Society of New York. He introduced Wagner operas to America and other large choral works, many of which were American premieres. Both Frank Damrosch (1859-1937) and Walter Damrosch (1862-1950) also contributed to the musical life of New York City. Frank conducted the People's Choral Union, the Oratorio Society of New York, and the Musical Art Society and was founder of the Institute of Musical Arts; Walter conducted operas, particularly Wagner operas, the New York Symphony Society (formerly the Symphony Society of New York), and the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the "Music Appreciation Hour" radio show.

Clara Damrosch Mannes was born on December 12, 1869 in Breslau, Germany. Clara was the middle daughter and the only daughter to pursue a music career. She began piano lessons as a child in New York City; in 1888, she studied piano in Dresden with H. Scholtz and theory with Johannes Schreyer; and, in 1897, she took piano lessons from Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin. David Mannes proposed to Clara in Europe during the summer of 1897 and the following June, they were married. A year later, their son Leopold Damrosch Mannes was born. (A daughter, Marya, arrived in 1904.) While in Brussels in 1903, Clara learned piano parts to various violin sonatas, and on their return to the United States, the couple began a successful career as the Mannes Duo for violin and piano, which performed until the mid-1920s. During the winter of 1915-16, David and Clara prepared for the inauguration of their new school, the David Mannes School of Music, which opened in the fall of 1916. From the very beginning, Clara was responsible for most of the administrative work, taught advanced chamber music students, and supervised the ensemble department. She continued in different capacities at the school for the rest of her life. She died in New York City on March 16, 1947.

Leopold Damrosch Mannes, who inherited the position of director of the Mannes College of Music from his parents, became president of the school in 1950. Born December 26, 1899 in New York City and named after Clara's father, Leopold displayed an early precocity in music. When Ysaÿe heard the youngster perform in Brussels in 1903, the illustrious elder musician remarked that Leopold must be "the reincarnation of Mozart." Leopold Mannes studied piano with Elizabeth Quaile; he also learned composition from Rosario Scalero at the Mannes School and from Percy Goetschius at the Institute of Musical Arts, founded by his uncle, Frank Damrosch. Leopold's interest in music waned during his teens, however, when he developed an interest in photography. He graduated from Harvard University in 1920 after three years of study. Subsequently, he went to Paris where he studied piano with Alfred Cortot. In 1925, Mannes won a Pulitzer scholarship for composition, and later in 1926, a Guggenheim Fellowship. That same year, he married Edith Vernon Simonds, and they lived in Rome during Leopold's eighteen-month fellowship. On their return to America, Leopold taught theory at the Mannes School and at the Institute of Musical Arts. In 1916, Leopold had met Leopold Godowsky, then an underclassman at the Riverdale Country School. Both Leopolds moved to Rochester, New York in 1930 to work at the Eastman Kodak Company after many years of trying independently to invent a color process in photography. In 1935, they completed the development of the Kodachrome process. Leopold divorced Edith Simonds in 1933, and he remained at Rochester until the end of 1939, after which he resumed his musical life in New York City, where he became associate director of the Mannes School of Music the next year. In the summer of 1940, he married Evelyn Sabin, a dancer who studied with Martha Graham at the Eastman School of Music and who danced in the original Martha Graham Trio. In 1948, Leopold established the Mannes Trio (piano, violin and cello) which performed in New York City until 1955. He became president of the Mannes School in 1950, and in 1953, he oversaw the conversion of the school to the Mannes College of Music, which became accredited and began to offer degrees. Leopold Mannes died on August 11, 1964 on Martha's Vineyard.

Marya Mannes was born in New York City on November 14, 1904. Although she came from a musical family, she preferred to be a writer and developed her talent at Miss Veltin's School for Girls. After graduation in 1923, Marya went to Europe where she studied sculpture in London, followed by a resumption of her writing. She returned to New York a year later, and worked further on her writing, which included plays, one of which was produced in 1925. During this time, she met the artist and scenic designer Jo Mielziner, whom she married on March 31, 1926 (and divorced in 1931). In 1930, one of her plays, Café, opened on Broadway, but closed after four days. A short time later, she was engaged by Vogue magazine, first as a copy writer and later as an editor until 1936, when she left for Europe where she eventually married her second husband Richard Blow in 1937. She returned to sculpting activities, which included bronze portraits of Walter Damrosch, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Raoul de Roussy de Sales. Because of the escalating political turmoil in Europe in 1939, the couple returned to the United States; her only child, David Blow, was born in the same year. During WWII, Marya worked for the Office of War Information and for the Office of Strategic Services. For the latter, she briefly lived in Madrid, also writing articles for Vogue and The New Yorker. Marya divorced Richard Blow in 1943. After the War, she wrote features for Glamour magazine, leaving after a year to complete her first novel, Message from a Stranger, published in 1948. During that same year, she married Christopher Clarkson, who was a British civil air attaché. (They divorced in 1966.) After four years in Washington, DC, Marya and Christopher returned to New York in 1952, where she joined the staff of The Reporter. She remained with the magazine for twelve years writing television, theater, and social criticisms, other articles, and verses, frequently under the pen name SEC. She published three books: More in Anger (1958), The New York I Know (1961), and But Will It Sell? (1964), all of which contained her previously-released essays from various magazines and newspapers. Marya also published a collection of poems, Subverse: Rhymes for Our Times in 1959 and her second novel, They, in 1968. She continued to publish books; her autobiography Out of My Time in 1970; Uncoupling: The Art of Coming Apart with Norman Sheresky in 1973; and Last Rights, dated 1974, based in part from her and Leopold's experiences with the death of their father, David Mannes. Her final tome, The Best of Marya Mannes, an anthology of her writings edited by Robert Mottley, was published in 1986. She moved to San Francisco in 1983 to be near her son David Blow, and died there on September 13, 1990.