18. Marionettes

This marionette was made by Mary Garner White as a teaching tool during her 41-year career at Poolesville Elementary School (1924-1965). A puppet manipulated by strings from a wooden control paddle, it is a caricatured depiction of an African-American woman. The figure is dressed in a long dress, scarf, and straw hat with a hat pin. A companion caricatured male marionette is dressed in dark pants, print shirt, and straw hat.

Made in the tradition of the minstrel shows of the 19^th century that were still seen in early 20^th-century vaudeville acts, this marionette was still a product of that Jim Crow era in America, when negative stereotypes were used to reinforce the notion of African-American inferiority. In the early 20^th-century, Montgomery County, whose allegiances had been divided during the Civil War, still had strong southern sentiments. Public schools were segregated, so it may have been only white students who ever saw these black figures in action.

Mrs. White wrote a small book about her teaching with My Merry Marrionettes. It is uncertain if that book, listed for sale in the publication of the National Recreation Association in 1962, would have included her African-American characters. Those two figures were purchased at Mrs. White’s estate sale by the donor, who had been told by Mrs. White’s niece that others of her marionettes “were distributed among the family, but apparently no one wished to have these black puppets.” What was an acceptable depiction in the 1920s and 30s was rightly problematic decades later.

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