Current Temporary Exhibit
Strike Up the Bands!
Until radio entered the mainstream during the 1920s, town bands were the most common form of local musical entertainment in the United States. The bands provided music for social events such as picnics, patriotic observances, and parades. The parade held in Westminster on April 11, 1887, to celebrate Carroll County’s “Semi-Centennial” (50th anniversary) featured 12 bands. Often bands traveled to nearby communities to perform. Carroll County’s incorporation records provide the names of 40 local bands from the Mount Pleasant Brass Band Society in 1857 to the Lineboro Band in 1952. But these were not all the bands in the County. Photographs in HSCC’s collection and articles in local newspapers document bands that do not appear on the list of incorporated organizations. The exhibit includes uniforms, equipment, and photographs from bands across the county.
Now open in Cockey’s Wednesday-Saturday 10am-4pm.
About the Society’s Collection
HSCC works with objects relating to the history and culture of Carroll County, MD, a region settled in the early 18th-century by Pennsylvania Germans and Tidewater English emigrants. The collection is somewhat richer in material relating to Westminster, the largest town and the county seat, but the collection includes significant objects from throughout the County. The combined collection contains approximately 40,000 items dating from the settlement period to the present. These include almost 25,000 documents in the manuscript collection and over 5,000 photographs. Of the Society’s 9,000 three-dimensional holdings, the greatest numbers are in the textile category (3,000 artifacts), including clothing dating to the 1830s and quilts; ceramics and glass (1,000 artifacts), including a collection of locally-produced redware; furniture (500 artifacts), including examples of Baltimore furniture; and eleven tall clocks made in Carroll County and southern Pennsylvania. The collection includes objects that document local businesses and institutions.