Starting with snow white

Snow White 
as a new kind of folkloric model in the United States.
This strategy of combining approaches, as opposed to emphasizing one discipline 
over another enables me to begin to close some of the historical gaps left open by 
discipline-specific analyses of 
Snow White 
in the United States. Where Jack Zipes 
recognized the earliest trends of the literary fairy tale in the United States as having 
mirrored the earlier European or British translations without alteration,
1
his work does 
not touch on the influence of the translational movement in the United States into those 
alternate contexts of stage and silent screen. Eric Smoodin’s study of 
Snow White and 
the Seven Dwarfs 
(2012), while thorough in its filmic analysis of Disney’s work, only 
minimally acknowledges the success of Marguerite Merington’s stage version of 
Snow 
White
(1910), performed by children through the Hebrew Educational Theater (19).
1
See Zipes, 
Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children’s Literature from Slovenly Peter to 
Harry Potter 

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Winthrop Ames’ (1912) version is similarly glossed over, despite Smoodin’s recognition 
of Ames as “one of the most important Broadway talents of the era” (
Snow White and the 
Seven Dwarfs
19). Where Smoodin spends a bit more time with the 
Snow White 
(silent) 
film, his account again centers primarily on reception (more broadly based, and regarding 
Disney’s individual experience) and on the actress, Marguerite Clark (linking Ames’ 
earlier play to the film) (
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
21-22). While these details 
offer hints of a greater American lineage, Smoodin is more interested in briefly 
contextualizing the popularity of the 
Snow White 
tale and tradition
 
prior to Disney, as his 
main subject is Disney’s film itself. Karen Merritt’s studies of the plays and film broadly 
inspect the American lineage they create, though the arguments she provides are in 
greater part geared toward defending Disney and his animative innovations than 
inspecting the plays and film to acknowledge their offerings to the American (and larger) 
Snow White 
tradition. Focused initially on the theatrical tradition and later, on the 
cinematic tradition (which she had earlier contested), Merritt misses some of the thematic 
influences which closer readings of the plays and silent film, “as texts” might offer.
2
This type of textual engagement not only generates an historical lineage, but also 
provides a clearer assessment of folkloric transmission and adaptive innovation.
However, theatrical and film studies generally prioritize the work of the film, or in this 
case the animator, and literary studies miss the plays and film altogether. As a result, 
2
In “The Little Girl/Little Mother Transformation: The American Evolution of ‘Snow White and the 
Seven Dwarfs,” Merritt argues, “It was not the 1916 film, however, that was the source for his ideas. […] 
Disney made no direct use of the film when his SNOW WHITE was in production” (111). Yet, ten years 
later, when the film surfaced, she directed attention to this “acknowledged inspiration for [Disney’s] first 
animated feature” (“Marguerite Clark” 5). 

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both have given only very limited attention to the early 
American 
folkloric steps 
generative of patterns, themes, and motifs, which blended into the more traditional 
European folklore leading toward Disney’s adaptation. 
Critical discourse inspecting fairy tale/folklore leaves a similar gap, where the 
American history of the