Highlights Archives
Meet the Teenie Weenies
Although largely forgotten today, the "Teenie Weenies" cartoons enchanted readers of all ages for more than 50 years. Created by William Donahey, the diminutive Teenie Weenies, a self-sufficient group of hardworking and courteous 2-inch-tall people, appeared in newspapers, books, and on a variety of licensed products between 1914 and 1970. Thirteen of Donahey's original Teenie Weenies drawings are the featured gallery this month from Wisconsin Historical Images, the Society's online image database.
Cartoonist William Donahey was born in Westchester, Ohio, on October 19, 1883. An introverted child, he spent much of his time alone creating an imaginative world of small, strange creatures that he later credited as the birthplace of the Teenie Weenies. Donahey's parents, noticing his creative streak, enrolled him in the Cleveland School of Art, hoping that he would follow his older brother into the newspaper illustration business. After graduating in 1903, Donahey worked briefly in advertising before joining the staff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where his brother was the political cartoonist and where he met his wife, columnist and children's writer, Mary Dickerson.
Donahey began specializing in children's cartoons while working for the Plain Dealer. His wife introduced him to some of the traditional children's stories he had missed as a child, such as Arabian Nights, Alice in Wonderland, and Mother Goose rhymes. Donahey started illustrating Mother Goose rhymes, preferring their gentle verses to what he considered the violence of contemporary children's stories. He also composed his own poems and stories. When the editor of the Chicago Tribune saw Donahey's original creations, he offered him a regular position as a cartoonist.
It was at the Chicago Tribune that Donahey created the Teenie Weenies. The Teenie Weenies stories consisted of one large illustration and accompanying text about the lives of some 40 characters that lived beneath a rosebush in structures made out of hats, an old boot, jugs, and a rusty tomato can. The first appeared in black and white on June 14, 1912. Color was quickly added and, in 1923, the feature moved to the regular Sunday comics section.
The Teenie Weenies proved so popular that it was soon syndicated in newspapers around the world. The characters also appeared in books, school primers and advertising, as well as on handkerchiefs, tin boxes, decals, dolls and clothing. Donahey also had a number of licensing agreements for his work with companies like Monarch Foods and Reid-Murdoch. Donahey poured most of his energy into his newspaper cartoons, though, retiring from the paper only a few months before his death in 1970.
The Teenie Weenies collection came to the Society after a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago informed then-Society Director Les Fishel in 1963 that Donahey had offered the collection to the Newberry. The librarian, Bill Towner, thought the collection would fit nicely into the Society's Mass Communications History Collections, which include some other cartoon collections. Fishel visited Donahey, and they agreed that the Society would be the proper repository for the collection. The first installment of Donahey's drawings arrived in October 1964, with additional drawings — and Donahey's papers — coming to the Society after Donahey's death in 1970.
In addition to this gallery, a selection of giclée print reproductions of Donahey's Teenie Weenies drawings are also on display on the fourth floor of Society's headquarters through April 2008. The exhibit, like the online gallery, represents only a fraction of the extensive collection of original Donahey drawings and other material held by the Society.
:: Posted April 25, 2007
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