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History of the Dumbhundred
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An overview of how Dumbhundred developed as a working neighborhood and became part of Cumberland’s historic landscape. It introduces the people, buildings, streets, institutions, and traditions explored throughout this series.
A Musical Tradition
in Dumbhundred
From Parlor Piano to Radio
Music and Entertainment in Cumberland's Dumbhundred Neighborhood, 1850-1939
Before music came from a machine, it came from a person: a child at the piano, a church choir, a singing society, or a brass band moving down the street.
The neighborhood's changing soundtrack
A Dumbhundred resident in 1850 could not buy a record, tune a radio, or press a button to summon an orchestra. Music was something people made. Families sang hymns and popular ballads; children learned pieces from printed scores; churches trained choirs; and social groups organized choruses and bands. By the 1930s, a resident could still sing around a piano, but could also wind a phonograph or turn a radio dial. The history is not a straight march from old to new. Pianos, organs, records, live bands, church music, theater, and radio overlapped for decades.
The surviving evidence is unusually rich at the city level. Cumberland directories document music lessons, instrument sellers, halls, German singing societies, and a band. The 1930 census measures radio ownership for Cumberland and Allegany County. What it does not provide is a complete Dumbhundred household-by-household playlist. Accordingly, the songs below are representative pieces that residents could plausibly have encountered, while every specifically local claim is tied to a directory, census table, newspaper, or institutional history.
Evidence rule: Local directories tell us who taught, sold, organized, and met. National collections tell us what music circulated widely. The article joins those records without claiming that every named song was performed in every Dumbhundred home.
Music before machines: home, church, and school
The 1873 Cumberland City Directory already shows formal music education. St. Edward's Academy listed Sister Mary Gertrude as its music teacher. At SS. Peter and Paul's School, conducted by the Ursuline Sisters, the advertised course included music alongside German and English instruction. For German-Catholic families living near the church and school, music was therefore part of education as well as worship.
In the parlor, the most likely instruments were a piano or, often more affordably, a reed or cabinet organ. Sheet music supplied the melody and words, and the player supplied everything else. A revealing 1895-96 advertisement by Cumberland's Morrell & Shafenberg offered pianos and organs on easy monthly payments and claimed that 2,000 organs had been sold in Allegany County during the preceding five years. J. P. Wiesel likewise sold pianos, organs, sheet music, and musical instruments, while several residents advertised as music teachers or musicians. Those listings turn the parlor instrument from a vague possibility into a well-supported feature of Cumberland life.
Figure 1. 'Silver Threads Among the Gold' (1873): cover at left, first music-and-lyrics page at right. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University.
A musical city by 1895
The strongest snapshot is the 1895-96 Cumberland and Allegany County Directory. It lists three singing societies: the Arion Gesangverein, meeting at Arion Hall nightly; the Germania Maennechor, meeting at Maennerchor Hall on Bedford Street; and St. Joseph's Singing Society, meeting at St. Joseph's Hall nightly. The same directory lists German Evangelical Lutheran, Zion German Reformed, and SS. Peter and Paul churches, as well as German beneficial societies. Music, mutual aid, faith, and ethnic identity were plainly connected parts of community life.
These were not merely private parlors. Cumberland had the Academy of Music in the City Building, Arion Hall, Maennerchor Hall, St. Joseph's Hall, Grand Army of the Republic Hall, and numerous other lodge and society rooms. The directory also names the Florence Dramatic Club and a 'Western Maryland Band' located on Frederick Street near Linden. The latter was identified as a Black organization in the segregated terminology of the directory, an important reminder that Cumberland's musical life was never exclusively white or German.
Taverns and saloons were numerous in and around the North End, and dances or informal music may well have occurred in some of them. Yet the clearest documentary evidence of organized live music points to the singing halls, church-linked halls, theaters, and band organizations. Without an advertisement or program naming a specific tavern performance, it is safer to describe beer-hall music as plausible context rather than a proven Dumbhundred booking.
Figure 2. 'After the Ball' (1892), one of the great sheet-music successes of its era. Cover at left; first music-and-lyrics page at right. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University.
German voices, American popular music
German-heritage residents did not live inside a sealed musical world. Their repertoire could mix German hymns, part-songs, waltzes, polkas, marches, and sentimental songs with the English-language music circulating throughout Cumberland. Songs such as 'Du, du liegst mir im Herzen,' 'Die Lorelei,' 'Muss i denn,' and 'O Tannenbaum' are useful examples of the broader German-American song tradition. The local singing societies prove that organized German choral culture existed; they do not, by themselves, preserve the societies' exact nightly set lists.
American publishers also marketed comic or sentimental 'German' songs. 'Under the Anheuser Bush' (1903) is a good illustration: a Tin Pan Alley beer novelty built around a German-American commercial image, not an old German folk song. It belongs in the story because it shows how German identity could be repackaged for a national audience. During the First World War, anti-German sentiment pressured many societies and bands to change names or suppress German repertoire; the nearby Frostburg Arion Band's history records that shift in the region.
Figure 3. 'Under the Anheuser Bush' (1903): a commercial American beer novelty, not a traditional German folk song. Cover at left; first music-and-lyrics page at right. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University.
Bands, schools, veterans, and the stage
The evidence for school music begins earlier than the evidence for a school marching band. Music was part of local instruction by 1873, but no firm pre-1930 founding date for a Dumbhundred or Cumberland school marching band emerged from the available directories. That distinction matters. It is reasonable to picture pupils singing or learning keyboard music; it is not yet possible to name a neighborhood school band and year with confidence.
Community and military bands are better documented. The Frostburg Arion Band was organized by German immigrants in 1877 and became the Fourth Battalion Band of the Maryland State Militia in 1889. It performed in the Frostburg-Cumberland area. Sousa marches such as 'The Washington Post' (1889) and 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' (1896) became national band standards and fit the sound world of community, militia, parade, and veterans' events. No evidence has been found that Sousa himself performed in Dumbhundred, so the safe claim concerns his music, not his presence.
The Academy of Music, opened in 1876, brought touring theater and local performances to downtown Cumberland until fire destroyed it in 1910. The Maryland Theater opened on North Mechanic Street in 1907 and offered another route to musical theater, vaudeville, silent-film accompaniment, and later motion pictures. Surviving accounts also remind us that Cumberland's theaters were segregated, with Black patrons restricted to designated seating.
A later newspaper reference provides a tantalizing neighborhood trace: in 1955 the Cumberland Times described a Dumbhundred Band as North End amateur musicians. Because the report is later than the period covered here, it cannot prove that a Dumbhundred band existed in the nineteenth century. It does show that the neighborhood name eventually became attached to an amateur ensemble.
From wind-up phonograph to radio
The first household phonographs did not need electricity. A listener wound a spring motor, placed a cylinder or disc on the machine, and heard the sound through a horn. Cylinders and early discs entered American homes in the 1890s and 1900s, while pianos and organs remained active. Electric pickups, amplifiers, and electrically recorded discs became important in the 1920s. Thus electricity changed recorded sound, but it did not create the home phonograph.
Cumberland was being wired gradually rather than all at once. One documented benchmark is the wiring of a major hotel by the Cumberland Electric Light Company in 1898; that does not mean every Dumbhundred home had service that year. Radio likewise arrived unevenly. National broadcasting expanded rapidly after 1920, and Cumberland gained a local station when WTBO began operation in December 1928. A 1929 station guide lists WTBO at 1420 kilocycles, 50 watts, from the Cumberland Electric Company at 138 Virginia Avenue.
Figure 4. 'In the Good Old Summer Time' (1902): sheet music at left and its first music-and-lyrics page at right. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University.
Figure 5. 'Let Me Call You Sweetheart' (1910): cover at left, first music-and-lyrics page at right. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University.
What the 1930 census says about radio
The federal censuses of 1900, 1910, and 1920 did not ask whether a household had a radio. The 1930 census was the first to do so. Its published table used 'families' as the unit and reported city and county totals, not a separate Dumbhundred figure.
Source: U.S. Census, 1930, Families, Table 11 (Maryland), p. 589; national estimate from the National Archives' 1930 census overview.
Cumberland's 43.3 percent was slightly above Maryland's rate and notably above Allegany County's; nationally, the National Archives estimates that about 40 percent of households had radios. In practical terms, more than half of Cumberland families still lacked a radio in April 1930. Radio was important, but it had not yet erased the piano, organ, phonograph, church choir, bandstand, or theater. An exact Dumbhundred percentage would require identifying the neighborhood's enumeration districts and manually counting household schedules.
A decade-by-decade listening timeline
Before standardized national record charts, no single defensible 'number one song' exists for every decade. The selections below are representative, widely circulated pieces and productions that help evoke the changing soundscape.
Listen to the era
The Library of Congress National Jukebox provides playable historical recordings. These links work especially well in an online version of the article.
Silver Threads Among the Gold (1912 recording) - A later recording of the 1873 parlor favorite.
After the Ball in a 1922 old-time-song medley - The medley also includes 'Sweet Rosie O'Grady' and other favorites.
In the Good Old Summer Time (1902 recording) - A recording from the year of publication.
Under the Anheuser Bush (1904 recording) - A period performance of the beer-themed novelty.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart (1911 recording) - A close-to-publication performance.
Du, du liegst mir im Herzen (1915 recording) - A familiar German song in an early commercial recording.
The Washington Post March - A modern U.S. Marine Band performance with historical notes and downloadable materials.
Du, Du Liegst Mir im Herzen - Pitt Men's Glee Club - A convenient YouTube example of the German song tradition.
Conclusion
The sound of Dumbhundred changed from decade to decade, but community remained the constant. The medium might be a hymnbook, a parlor organ, a men's chorus, a theater orchestra, a hand-wound record, a school lesson, a militia band, or a radio loudspeaker. Each placed music inside a social setting. The most revealing local evidence is therefore not a single famous song; it is the dense network of schools, churches, halls, teachers, sellers, singers, bands, and listeners that made music part of daily neighborhood life.
Sources and Further Reading
Local primary sources
Cumberland City Directory, 1873 - WHILBR collection. Includes schools, teachers, booksellers, and music dealers.
SS. Peter and Paul's School listing, 1873. Directory page describing German and English instruction and music.
Cumberland and Allegany County Directory, 1895-96. Digital Maryland's complete directory collection.
Singing societies and halls, 1895-96 directory, page 007. Arion Gesangverein, Germania Maennechor, St. Joseph's Singing Society, and named halls.
Morrell & Shafenberg advertisement, 1895-96 directory, page 149. Pianos, organs, instruments, payment terms, and the claim of 2,000 organs sold.
Western Maryland Band listing, 1895-96 directory, page 213. A Black band identified in the period directory's terminology.
J. P. Wiesel music business, 1895-96 directory, page 215. Pianos, organs, sheet music, instruments, and music instruction.
Windsor Hotel wired for electricity in 1898 - WHILBR. A documented local benchmark for the gradual spread of electric service.
Cumberland Times, July 3, 1955, page 31. Later reference to a Dumbhundred Band of North End amateur musicians.
Census and radio
1930 Census, Volume 6: Families. Census Bureau publication page.
1930 Families, Chapter 5 PDF. Table 11 for Maryland appears on printed page 589.
National Archives: The 1930 Census in Perspective. Explains the radio question and national context.
Lefax Radio Log, 1928. Lists WTBO, Cumberland Electric Company, Cumberland, at 1420 kilocycles.
Radio Listener's Guide, Spring 1929. Lists WTBO's address, frequency, and 50-watt power.
FCC: History of Commercial Radio. A concise official national broadcasting timeline.
Music, technology, and listening
Library of Congress: National Jukebox. Playable historical recordings and collection background.
Library of Congress: Parlor and Concert Stage. Context for parlor songs and concert music.
Library of Congress: History of Ragtime. Background on a major turn-of-the-century style.
Library of Congress: Recording Technology Timeline. Cylinders, discs, electrical recording, and later formats.
Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection. More than 29,000 pieces of American popular sheet music, including every figure reproduced here.
Silver Threads Among the Gold. Digitized 1873 sheet music.
After the Ball. Digitized 1892 sheet music.
In the Good Old Summer Time. Digitized 1902 sheet music.
Under the Anheuser Bush. Digitized 1903 sheet music.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart. Digitized 1910 sheet music.
Regional institutions and interpretation
Frostburg Arion Band history. German immigrant origins, militia connection, band hall, and wartime name changes.
History of Music in Mountain Maryland. Regional overview of immigrant, African American, band, theater, and later traditions.
Maryland Other Cumberland Theaters - WHILBR. Local theater history, including segregation and Black audiences.
German Marylanders: Singing Societies. Wider context for German-American choral organizations in Maryland.
University of Wisconsin: Du, du liegst mir im Herzen sheet music. A 1917 bilingual edition with German and English lyrics.
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An imagined Dumbhundred family gathered around the parlor piano, circa 1900. Illustrative reconstruction—not an authenticated historical image.
An imagined Dumbhundred family listening to the radio, circa 1930. Illustrative reconstruction—not an authenticated historical image.
The Entertainer” (1902), composed by Scott Joplin. Public-domain piano recording performed by IE. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
An imagined Dumbhundred family gathered around the parlor piano, circa 1900. Illustrative reconstruction—not an authenticated historical image.
An imagined Dumbhundred family listening to the radio, circa 1930. Illustrative reconstruction—not an authenticated historical image.
The Entertainer” (1902), composed by Scott Joplin. Public-domain piano recording performed by IE. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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This illustration depicts what an evening may have been like
in 1906, as a family gathered in the parlor of a Dumbhundred home to listen to a phonograph record. Playing here is “In the Good Old Summertime,” composed by George Evans with lyrics by Ren Shields, performed by the Haydn Quartet with orchestra and recorded on May 10, 1906. Public-domain recording courtesy of the Library of Congress.
THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC: CUMBERLAND’S GRAND STAGE
A Place Where Dumbhundred Residents Could Enjoy an Evening of Entertainment
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, residents of Cumberland’s Dumbhundred neighborhood lived within walking distance of one of the city’s most impressive entertainment centers: the Academy of Music.
Despite its name, the Academy of Music was not primarily a school where people took music lessons. In that era, the term “academy of music” was commonly used for a theater or public performance hall. Cumberland’s Academy presented plays, musical productions, touring theatrical companies, concerts, lectures, public gatherings, and other forms of live entertainment.
For families living in Dumbhundred, the Academy offered an opportunity to step away from the demands of work and daily life and enjoy an evening at the theater. Residents could walk from the neighborhood into downtown Cumberland to see performers and productions that brought a wider world of entertainment to the city.
A CITY HALL AND THEATER IN ONE BUILDING
Construction of Cumberland’s City Hall and Academy of Music began in 1874 and was completed in 1876. The imposing building stood on the site occupied by the present Cumberland City Hall.
It was a remarkable multipurpose public building. City offices occupied part of the structure, while the ground floor included a public market. The southern portion of the building contained the Academy of Music.
The Academy officially opened on Tuesday evening, March 7, 1876. The opening attraction was “The Big Bonanza,” presented by the theatrical company of John T. Ford, a prominent nineteenth-century theater manager.
The theater reportedly seated approximately 1,300 people, although exceptionally popular events sometimes attracted even larger crowds. It contained a stage measuring approximately 30 feet by 30 feet, private theater boxes, an orchestra-level seating area, a dress circle, and an upper balcony.
The word “orchestra” in descriptions of the building referred to the main-floor seating area nearest the stage. It should not be interpreted as evidence that the Academy maintained its own permanent orchestra. Musicians may have accompanied particular performances, and visiting musical groups appeared there, but the building was principally a performance venue rather than a music school or resident musical organization.
A BEAUTIFUL INTERIOR
Will H. Lowdermilk described the new Academy in his 1878 History of Cumberland. His account portrays an elaborate Victorian theater decorated with ornamental ironwork, soft colors, gold accents, frescoes, and carefully arranged lighting.
The main floor was divided into the Orchestra and Orchestra Circle and contained nearly 500 folding chairs. Above it were the Dress Circle and Balcony. The theater also had dressing rooms beneath the stage and a special room for prominent visiting performers.
One of its most memorable decorative features was its painted drop curtain. The curtain depicted the “Decline of Carthage,” while a portrait of William Shakespeare appeared along the border near the stage.
For Cumberland audiences, the building was more than a practical meeting place. Its elaborate interior made attending a performance an event in itself.
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Cumberland’s original City Hall and Academy of Music, completed in 1876. The Academy occupied the southern portion of this large public building and provided theatrical and musical entertainment within walking distance of the Dumbhundred neighborhood. Illustration from Will H. Lowdermilk’s History of Cumberland, published in 1878. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Public domain.
ENTERTAINMENT FOR A GROWING INDUSTRIAL CITY
The Academy opened during a period when Cumberland was expanding as a railroad, canal, manufacturing, and commercial center. Workers and their families had limited forms of entertainment compared with those available today. There was no radio, television, recorded film entertainment, or internet. Live performances, church programs, community gatherings, and music made in the home formed an important part of social life.
The Academy of Music helped connect Cumberland with the national theatrical circuit. Touring companies could travel by railroad, perform before a large local audience, and then continue to another city. Plays, musical presentations, visiting entertainers, lectures, and public programs gave Cumberland residents access to performers and ideas arriving from beyond Western Maryland.
The Academy therefore belonged to the larger musical and cultural life surrounding Dumbhundred. Neighborhood residents may not have had a major theater on their own streets, but they lived close enough to walk downtown and attend performances at one of Cumberland’s leading public venues.
THE END OF THE ACADEMY
The Academy of Music served Cumberland for approximately 34 years. By the first decade of the twentieth century, newer entertainment venues were beginning to appear. The Maryland Theatre opened in 1907, signaling the gradual development of a new generation of theaters in Cumberland.
On March 14, 1910, a devastating fire destroyed the old City Hall and Academy of Music. The damaged remains were removed, ending the history of the building as Cumberland’s principal nineteenth-century civic theater.
The present Cumberland City Hall was constructed on the same site during 1911 and 1912. Although the Academy itself disappeared, the location continued to serve as the center of Cumberland’s municipal government.
A PART OF DUMBHUNDRED’S MUSICAL STORY
The Academy of Music was not located inside the formally recognized boundaries of Dumbhundred, but it was close enough to be part of the everyday cultural world available to neighborhood residents.
A person leaving a Dumbhundred home could walk into downtown Cumberland, enter the grand Academy, and experience a touring play, musical production, concert, lecture, or community program. In an age before electronic entertainment entered every household, such an evening could be a memorable occasion.
The Academy of Music reminds us that the musical history of Dumbhundred was not confined to performances occurring within the neighborhood itself. It also included the churches, theaters, gathering places, and public halls that residents could reach on foot. For more than three decades, Cumberland’s Academy of Music was among the most important of those places.
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Library of Congress — Will H. Lowdermilk, History of Cumberland, Maryland, published in 1878. The Library of Congress identifies this volume as public domain and free to use and reuse:
https://www.loc.gov/item/rc01003489/
Direct link to the complete public-domain book:
Maryland State Archives — Guide to historic Cumberland newspapers:
https://speccol.msa.maryland.gov/pages/newspaper/index.aspx
Cumberland Times excerpts for 1910, including the March 14 report that City Hall and the Academy of Music were destroyed by fire:
https://www.usgenwebsites.org/MDAllegany/c-times/1910.htm
Maryland Historical Trust — Cumberland City Hall historical information and National Register documentation:
Library of Congress suggested credit line for the illustration:
“Will H. Lowdermilk, History of Cumberland, Maryland, 1878. Library of Congress. Public domain.”
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