Uncle Tom's Cabin show wagon panel: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Painted wood panel from a wagon used in a traveling production of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The long sawn wooden panels are braced with struts and held with nails, reinforced with thin strips of metal. The panel is coated in layers of paint, including lettering that reads “UNCLE T” in yellow with a blue shadow.

The donor, Frank Bushey, discovered the wagon in Windsor, Vermont, where its owner, Mr. Ellis, told him how he had come to acquire it: decades ago, an itinerant “road show” company had come into town (Bellows Falls, Vermont) to stage a production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but had run up debts while unable to perform during a days-long rainstorm, and had to surrender this wagon to the local sheriff, who then auctioned it. Mr. Ellis was the winning bidder and for forty years he used this former ticket wagon as a chicken coop on his farm. Ellis gave the Wagon to Bushey, who hoped to restore the wagon and exhibit it at his Gremlin Camp for Young Boys in West Topsham, Vermont.

The wagon appeared to have been used as living quarters for the proprietor of the company as well as a ticket wagon, with a window in the rear door that opened to allow for sales. Little is known about the troupe, but the wagon was used in the Vermont area around 1900, and the layers of paint reveal that the wagon advertised “Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Managerie.” The traveling show probably performed scenes from the popular play and exhibited exotic animals; correspondence from the donor indicates that this wagon traveled alongside a “monkey wagon” that has not survived.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: ca 1890 - 1900
• Object Name: panel
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Physical Description: wood (overall material)
• Physical Description: paint (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 24 1/4 in x 21 1/4 in x 1 1/2 in; 61.595 cm x 53.975 cm x 3.81 cm
• Associated Place: United States: Vermont
• Subject: Show, Traveling
• Subject: Theater
• ID Number: 1986.0180.01
• accession number: 1986.0180
• catalog number: 1986.0180.01
• Credit Line: Gift of Frank B. Bushey
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.