Mrs. Cinderella for General Electric Pamphelet: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This brightly colored pamphlet titled "Mrs. Cinderella" is a program that accompanied a puppet show performed at the General Electric display building at the 1939 World's Fair In New York. (See 1979.1164.05)

The Tatterman Marionette Company, led by led by William Duncan and Ed Mable, entertained at the 1939 World's Fair and toured the country and performed this show hundreds of time to promote the wonders of electricity.

The book follows Cinderella and Prince Charming after they are happily married but living in a drafty, old castle inhabited by little elves who interfere with her daily chores and make her life miserable. Her fairy godmother appears and insists Cinderella call G-E 1939.

In a flash the castle is overrun with good little elves who get rid of the evil gnomes and install all new updated GE appliances that will make her life easier, including a new stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, mixer toaster, washing machine, hot water heater and a vacuum. The moral of the story being that GE products can make your life easier and give the housewife "added hours of freedom" to make a happy home. This is a wonderful example of early advertising using puppets as the media.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1939
• depicted: CInderella
• Object Name: advertisement
• Object Name: pamphlet
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 6 in x 8 3/4 in; 15.24 cm x 22.225 cm
• ID Number: 2013.3001.039
• nonaccession number: 2013.3001
• catalog number: 2013.3001.039
• 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.