Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall

Humpty Dumpty Coin Bank
ca. 1950 – 1970
Maker Unknown, Manufactured in Taiwan
Original design by Shephard Hardware Co, Buffalo, NY, Patented 1882
Cast Iron
Dimensions: H/L: 7 ½”, x W: 6 ½”, x D: 3 ½”
Private Collection of Eileen DeMulder, Unadilla, NY
Photograph by Gabe DeJoseph

By Gabe DeJoseph ’23

This object is a cast iron, mechanical coin bank modeled after Humpty Dumpty the Clown, a popular pantomime act on Broadway from 1867 – 1877.[1] The operator places a coin into Humpty’s hand and pulls a lever. Humpty’s arm raises and his tongue recedes, depositing the money within. The bank’s design was patented in 1882 by Shepard Hardware in Buffalo, NY,[2] a company that designed novelty banks and sold them across upstate NY.[3] The banks were often children’s gifts, advertised as a fun way to teach about savings.[4] As their popularity increased, Shepard reproductions were manufactured and imported from Asia. This model is a mid-20^th century Taiwanese reproduction.

While the bank’s original advertisements highlighted the clown’s “unusually attractive appearance,” Humpty’s design is unsettling to modern viewers.[5] Yet distaste towards clown imagery always existed alongside the profession. Nineteenth-century clown comedy focused on clowns’ “manic” movements and “voracious appetites for sex…and alcohol.”[6] These shows were adult entertainment where clowns enacted behaviors shunned elsewhere in society. Clowns were portrayed as mischievous tricksters who acted unpredictably, leading to literary comparisons with Satan and other “cultural depictions of demons.”[7] Based on recent studies, the fear of clowns is also caused by an “emotional response to ambiguity” and threat perception.[8] Some viewers have difficulty perceiving the performer’s true emotions underneath their makeup and painted smile, creating a feeling of “latent potential for harm.”[9]

Nowadays, friendly children’s clowns like Bozo and Ronald have been replaced in mass media with violent, horror based imagery. A majority of American children report “disliking and fearing clowns,”[10] and clowns have largely disappeared from popular toy lines.[11] While originally marketed as a visually appealing children’s toy, the bank’s frightening design now demonstrates how our perceptions towards clowns have changed since Humpty’s debut.

---

[1] Tom Raymond, “George Fox, the American Grimaldi,” Famous Clowns – The History of Clowns and Clowning, February 10, 2013, https://famousclowns.org/famous-clowns/george-fox-the-american-grimaldi-famous-white-face-clown/.

[2] Dan Morphy, The Official Price Guide to Mechanical Banks (Random House Information Group: 2007), 168. https://books.google.com/books?id=nH27ULE7BF8C.

[3] Morphy, The Official Price Guide to Mechanical Banks, 168.

[4]  Bill Norman, “Old Mechanical Banks of the Shepard Hardware Company,” Collector’s Showcase 1, no. 4 (March/April 1982): 27. https://www.mechanicalbanks.org/scrapbook/1980s/pages/1982_shepard_banks.htm.

[5] Morphy, The Official Price Guide to Mechanical Banks, 365.

[6] Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, “The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary,” Smithsonian Magazine, July 31, 2013, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-and-psychology-of-clowns-being-scary-20394516/.

[7] Wolfgang M. Zucker, “The Image of the Clown,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 12, no. 3 (1954): 312. https://doi.org/10.2307/426974; Darcie Nadel, ” A Brief History of Clowns: How Did They Become Evil?” Owlcation, June 13 2022, https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/A-Brief-History-of-Clowns-How-Did-They-Become-Evil.

[8] Francis T. McAndrew and Sara S. Koehnke, “On the Nature of Creepiness,” New Ideas in Psychology 43, (2016), 10 – 15. https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/McAndrew-Koehnke-2016.pdf

[9] Benjamin Radford, Bad Clowns (Albuquerque, UNM Press, 2016), 21. https://books.google.com/books?id=KDyHCwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gbs_navlinks_s

[10] McRobbie, “The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary.”

[11] Andrew McConnell Stott, “Clowns on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: Dickens, Coulrophobia, and the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi,” Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 12, no. 4 (2012): 5. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26899534

The “New Woman”: Innovations for the Farm

Have you ever heard the phrase “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”? It suggests that someone not put all of her faith or effort in one way of doing things. In the early twentieth century this bit of wisdom was actually taken quite literally. The

Egg Carrier, 1880-1889, wood and metal, 9×6.75. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York, Gift of Clara and Lee Matteson, F0027.1986, Photograph by Sammy Smithson.

women of the farm would collect the eggs from the chicken coop each day, stack them in tall wire baskets, and then load them up into the horse-drawn wagon to take them to the town market. The trek to town in a wire basket could break and damage many of the fragile eggs and that just was not something that most families could afford. It was the woman’s responsibility to assure that the daily needs of the house were met. Egg money was especially important for farm families because whatever they made at the market from sales was what they could spend on groceries and fabric for clothing. [1]

In the early 1900’s, disease brought the chicken mortality rate up to forty percent, and most hens were only laying approximately 150 eggs each year. [2] A farm wife could produce the most desirable eggs in the county, but if the fragile product could not survive the trek by wagon to town, then that farmer’s whole livelihood was at stake. This 1890s egg carrier’s wooden exterior provided a sturdy and attractive casing that was easy to pack. The slats allowed the eggs to stay cool while the springs were installed to protect each individual egg from the jostling that it would experience in travel. Such care was taken for every single egg because every single egg determined what the family could buy at the store that week.

Egg Carrier, 1880-1889, wood and metal, 9×6.75. The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York, Gift of Clara and Lee Matteson, F0027.1986, Photograph by Sammy Smithson.

The late 1800’s and early 1900’s was the time of the “New Woman”; women were beginning to take pride in their contributions to society and their work in the domestic field. Some were even venturing out of the home for work and money. Rose C. Trimble of the Williamson Institute wrote in 1898, “[The New Woman] is not an instantaneous creation or fungous growth upon the old order… She understands physiology and hygiene and chemistry.” [3] During this time the patent office saw many farmers and entrepreneurs trying out different packaging techniques to assure that eggs were reaching the market in a safe and attractive fashion. This particular “Common Sense Egg Carrier” patent was applied for by G.M. Miles in Buffalo, New York. Now, while G.M. could be a man or a woman, only .8 percent of all patents in the United States were given to women inventors in 1910. [4] Since women were the experts on eggs and their packaging, could this patent have been filed by a “Genevieve” or “Gertrude”? Could a husband have applied for a patent on behalf of his wife to increase its chances of being accepted? How many inventions were actually female-made but got male credit?

Sammy Smithson, Cooperstown Graduate Program

[1] University of Northern Iowa. “Iowa Farm Women.” Accessed Oct 2, 2015. http://www.uni.edu/iowaonline/prairievoices/images/Iowa_Farm_Women_1.pdf.

[2] American Egg Board. “History of Egg Production.” Accessed Oct 2, 2015. http://www.aeb.org/farmers-and-marketers/history-of-egg-production.

[3] Trimble, Rose C. “Woman and Her Work.” Annual Report of the New York State Agricultural Society 57(1898): 334. Accessed Oct 7, 2015.

[4] Frey, Thomas. “A Study of Women Inventors.” Futurist Speaker. Accessed Oct 5, 2015. http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2008/08/a-study-of-women-inventors/.