Tiger I Marionette
date: label: date made
content: 1930-1940
name: label: user
content: Haines, Elizabeth L.
label: user
content: Haines, Frank D.
label: maker
content: Haines, Elizabeth L.
label: maker
content: Haines, Frank D.
notes: label: Description
content: The childhood story of Little Black Sambo was originally written by Helen Bannerman, a Scot living in India, and published in London in 1899. In the tale, an Indian boy attempts to save himself from four hungry tigers by offering items of his brand-new clothing just purchased for him by his father. The prideful tigers strut circling one another, arguing over who looks the finest, and in a mad chase of each other's tails, turn themselves into ghee (Indian butter). Sambo's father happens upon the butter in the woods and brings it home for his family to have with mountains of pancakes for breakfast.
label: Description
content: Philadelphia artists Frank and Elizabeth Haines took up puppetry during the early 1930s and crafted hundreds of marionettes. Their play The Circus featured a number of marionettes designed as performing animals, including a pair of exotically attired Patagonian pig musicians named Pinkie and Patti. They hold mallets to play a prop marimba. The imposing Mr. Ringmaster presides masterfully over them.
label: Description
content: Illustrations for later American versions of the story depicted a stereotypical African American boy. Modeled on the iconography of Florence Kate Upton's late 19th C. rag doll-like children's character, "Gollywogg," the American Sambo had black skin, wildly curly hair, wide googly eyes, and bright red lips.
label: Description
content: The tiger body is made of stuffed orange felt fabric and painted with black stripes. The head is hand carved from wood , and the faces are painted in great detail; each one with their own distinct characteristics. The bodies are attached to the head with paper adhered to a wooden support. The jaws and all of the appendages including the tail are operative.
label: Description
content: This marionette uses a two piece wooden T- shape control and a coat hanger with eleven strings.The placement of the strings greatly extends and enhances the tiger's range of movement and persona.
label: Description
content: In the 1930s puppet play version produced by husband-and-wife puppet makers, Elizabeth L. and Frank D. Haines, there was a substantial difference displayed between the sophisticated craftsmanship of the animal marionette figures with finely carved heads and the rag-doll-like floppy human marionette figures in Black Sambo's family. The play was presented to area schoolchildren in the Philadelphia area until the 1950s.
label: Description
content: Tiger marionette with 2-piece wooden T-shaped control with coat hanger wire pendulum; 11 strings. Stuffed body covered in orange felt fabric with black painted stripes; hand-carved and painted wooden head has operative jaw; underside of jaw consists of painted paper adhered to wooden support.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
topic: label: classified
content: Puppetry
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2007.0137.002.07
label: accession number
content: 2007.0137
label: catalog number
content: 2007.0137.002.07
objectType: label: Object Name
content: puppet
label: Object Type
content: puppets
label: Object Type
content: marionettes
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: felt (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paint (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 11 in x 14 in x 4 1/2 in; 27.94 cm x 35.56 cm x 11.43 cm