Welcome to the Eintracht Singing Society website.
Eintracht continues to promote German culture and traditions with
our annual German Day Festival, biergartens in our beautiful picnic
grove featuring live music, German and American home cooked food
prepared by our club ladies, special dinners and fish fry's during
the winter season, dances in our air conditioned ballroom and
concerts by the Eintracht Chorus locally as well as throughout
the tri-state area.
A brief history
of Eintracht
In 1904, Jacob Kohl
arrived in America from Hainstadt an Main, Germany. He settled
in Dayton, Ohio and formed the Arbeiter Gesangverein Eintracht
(Workers Singing Society). The group provided a place were immigrant
workers could meet and discuss work, social problems and sing.
Meetings were originally held in homes and later at a hall on
Wayne Avenue while concerts were held in rented halls and parks.
The club consisted of
a music committee, three trustees, a protocol secretary, a Schatzmeister,
a historian and a music director. The trustees handled all of
the finances. A fee of 50 cents to join and
25 cents monthly dues were collected from members. There were
21 singers to start, and by 1917 there were 50 singers and 350
members. In 1932, land was purchased on the banks of the great
Miami River for picnics and festivals and a caretaker's cottage
was later built.
After World War I ended,
an influx of German immigrants boosted the membership of Eintracht,
even though there were twenty or more German clubs in the Dayton
area at that time. During World War II, many German members of
Eintracht served in the American armed forces and the Eintracht ladies
bundled and sewed clothing to aid in the war effort. The end of
the war also saw many more German immigrants arriving and
an increase in membership.
more
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