After the "Monitor" folded, Dumm moved to New York City, where she continued her art studies at the Art Students League. She was hired by the George Matthew Adams Service to create "Cap Stubbs and Tippie," a family strip following the lives of a boy Cap, his dog Tippie, their family, and neighbors. Cap's grandmother, Sara Bailey, is prominently featured, and may have been based on Dumm's own grandmother, Sarah Jane Henderson, who lived with their family. The strip was strongly influenced by Mark Twain’s "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", as well as Dumm’s favorite comic, "Buster Brown" by Richard F. Outcault. Dumm worked very fast; according to comics historian Martin Sheridan, she could pencil a daily strip in an hour.