Teenie Weenies & Commercial Products

8/14/2019 Teenie Weenies & Commercial Products

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Children loved Donaheys Teenie Weenies Fantasy world

by Jean Sparks Ducey

for AntiqueWeek Eastern Edition Mon., Feb 28, 2000

William Donahey was born Oct. 10, 1883, in New Philadelphia, Ohio. The youngest ofthree boys, Bill and his brothers read the Bible, the Youths Companion, and theMcGuffeys Readers; but fairy tales were not allowed in their family. Bill often playedby himself and created his own play world. Although his family could well affordstore-bought toys, Bill had a collection of flat-headed screws that became real to him.

One screw I dabbed with red paint and called it the General. Another screw had anuneven head and was constantly failing down. That one I named the Dunce Iremember standing for hours before a Chinese laundry ... with a bit of string I madea queue on one of my screws. He dated the inception of the Teenie Weenies to theyear he was 8 and playing with this collection.

After study at the Cleveland School of Art he began work in advertising and thenmoved on as an artist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. He remembered aneighbors 3-year-old daughter who burst into tears while looking at comic strippictures of a man kicking another man down the stairs. It made him think that thereshould be a strip more appropriate for children. When he suggested this, themanaging editor turned him down saying, Kids are just little savages and they likethis kind of comics.

Donahey continued to lobby for a gentle comic strip, and the editor finally gave him apage in which he illustrated the Mother Goose rhymes, recasting the words incontemporary language. The page was popular and ran from 1910 to 1915.


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Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill Patterson noticed the feature and invitedDonahey to Chicago. Donahey remembered the early screw characters of hischildhood as people 2 inches tall and began to write about them.

Patterson was away when the first three drawings were ready. The editor whoreviewed them said, These stink! Take em away! Donahey, however, waited untilPatterson could see them. He approved and ordered them printed on the first page ofthe section, removing all ads to do so.

The first Teenie Weenie feature appeared in the June 14, 1914 issue of the Tribune in

black and white. It was an overnight sensation and Patterson ordered it to continuein four colors. The Teenie Weenies and the other childrens features helped doublethe Tribunes circulation from 1914 to 1921. Donahey was inundated with fan mailand answered each letter. He continued this practice throughout his career. Hiscontract was generous. He earned $75 a week and worked at home exclusively on theTeenie Weenies.

Patterson asked Donahey to go daily but the artist declined. He preferred the weeklyschedule and said, This way I enjoy doing it and the kids will like it, too. If I try to doa daily feature as well, Id tire of it, and so would the kids.

Syndication of the Teenie Weenies began in 1923 with at least 30 newspapers in the

United States and Canada carrying the feature. It was exported in 1916 to Cuba andplans were made to send it to European countries.

In 1921, Donahey and Patterson experimented with involving readers by invitingchildren to color a panel. The 10 best would receive a prize. The mailroom wasflooded with 37,000 pictures and they kept coming from China, South America and

Europe for a long time.


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In 1925, Donahey and his wife, Mary,bought a house in the Lincoln Parksection of Chicago. Bill had hisstudio in a front room on the secondfloor. He set up a workshop in thecellar so he could build scale modelsof every contraption the TeenieWeenies used, to make sure themechanisms he drew would really

work. He also built a scale model logcabin, 34 inches by 20 inches by 20inches high, with all its furnishings.In 1956 he donated it to the OhioHistorical Society in Columbus.

TO A TEENIE WEENIE an ash heap is a mountain. The General is thebeloved ruler and commander in chief of the Teenie Weenie armed forces. He

organizes all activities and settles all disputes, passing sentence most often onthe Dunce, whose punishment is seldom harsher than bed without supper.This is the title page of The Teenie Weenies Under the Rosebush, JuniorEdition, published by Rand McNally & Co. in 1940.

Many businesses wanted to capitalizeon the Teenie Weenies but Donaheyrefused until 1917, when he began along correspondence with GeorgeBorgfeldt & Co., a manufacturer of

high quality toys and novelties. Thisresulted in Borgfeldts marketing agreat range of Teenie Weenies dolls ofbisque and cloth, handkerchiefs,safety pins, furniture, picture storyblocks, tin boxes and decalmonia.

Now and then Donahey was involvedwith other consumer advertising. One


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and the insects I get many ideas for my Teenie Weenies, for I spend much if my timeroaming through the woods.

Bill and one of his Reid-Murdoch friends planned a surprise for Mary on the shore of

Lake Superior. At dusk one day they went for a walk on the dunes of Grand Sableand Mary saw an odd shaped building with the Teenie Weenie logo on it. Suddenly agroup of children dressed in Teenie Weenie costumes burst out of the door. A pint-sized General greeted them with a fancy oration and presented them with the keys toa full- sized Teenie Weenie Barrel House and a barrel kitchen next door.

The Reid-Murdoch friend had this idea from the advertisement for Teenie Weeniepickles, which were sold, in small oak casks. This large cask stood 16 feet tall andhad two stories. The other, half as high, was a kitchen stocked with a full line ofMonarch brand foods.

Almost immediately, hundreds of visitors found them. The Donaheys dealt with it

patiently until photos went out over the wire services. Then they found it impossibleto cope and locked the barrel each Sunday and went away into the woods. After 10summers the, attention was too much and they gave the barrel to a merchant inGrand Marais, four miles away, who set it up as an information center. Later it wasdeeded to the town, where it served, for a time as a visitors kiosk, before being movedyet again and falling into disrepair.

1964 marked the Teenie Weenies jubilee year, much covered by the press. One trade journal said that the feature was the oldest in the country drawn continuously bythe same artist. The Chicago Tribune published an anniversary article whichresulted in countless messages of congratulations


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In 1969, Donahey was ready toretire. He drew his last feature forthe paper in November. A proof wasdated, in his own handwriting, forpublication on Feb. 2, 1970. Hedied at Michael Reese Hospital onFeb. 1.

IN DOWN THE RIVER real war is fought against the dread Saboes. Thesewild men have kidnapped two Teenie Weenies who must be rescued. When

the wild men raise the white flag of surrender, the Teenie Weenies are kind invictory to their prisoners and work toward future peace. This title page is fromthe 1940 Junior Edition published by Rand McNally & Co.

Where are all the Teenie Weeniebooks today? They rarely come onthe market and when found, rangein price from $50 to $355, and fromfourth printings with rubbedcorners to fine first editions.

During the 1920s the first fivetrade books sold nearly 30,000copies and the two primers were insteady demand. The JuniorEditions in 1941 sold over 150,000copies in the first six months, and

better than 100,000 copies in thenext half period.

Children loved the illustrations.Each picture showed a large objectfrom their real world as a reference

point. The Teenie Weenies canoe inpeapods in the runoff from a drain


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spout or they go riding on the cats back. There are 26 named Teenie Weenies livingin the cluster of houses under the overgrown rosebush as well as many otherunnamed, all women and children. There is respect for elders, deference to women,kindness to children, birds and animals, and cooperation with one another. Topicalmatters such as rationing and DDT and the atom bomb have some influence on theirlives, and there are thunderstorms, but no severe weather as the four seasons comeand go. Like the much beloved characters in Peanuts, the Teenie Weenies never ageand never die.

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