Starting with snow white

Snow White 
tale’s forward 
movement from European traditions to its first “American” representations. Distinctly 
American qualities in the early plays and film have also been recognized, per the studies 
of film circles, though these most frequently identify their first usage in the Disney film.
Drawing on some of these misconceptions, this chapter displays an earlier lineage of the 
American 
Snow White 
tradition featuring: romance and humor, evolving American ideals 
(concerning equity, democracy, and gender), and consumeristic desire, which pre-dated 
Disney’s version. 
At the same time, the chapter gestures toward the motivation for the appearance 
of such distinctly American versions of the 
Snow White 
tale. Once the fairy tale took 
hold in the United States, cultural adaptation proved less significant and individuation, 
laying claim to ownership of this obviously marketable commodity, was prioritized.
Although Pauline Greenhill and Sidney Eve Matrix argue that “the movement of 
traditional fairy tales to cinematic form may have enabled their commodification in 
capitalist socioeconomic structures,” and Tony Grajeda likewise contends that “
cinema
contributed to the larger development of commercialized mass culture,” I would posit 
that the development of the early 
Snow White
tradition in the United States displays this 
transition prior to cinematic deployments of the tale (Greenhill and Matrix 3; Grajeda 
137; emphasis added). Where one might argue that the Grimms had earlier latched on to 
the trend of
 
marketing 
their
tales by means of adaptation to individuate their influence, I 
aim to suggest that 
American 
creators more actively strove to minimize a tale’s “classic” 
attributes toward the ends of: first, generating a culturally conducive national form, and 

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later, claiming ownership, to enable their own rise toward success. While Walt Disney 
has been heavily criticized for his consumeristic desires, a study of the 
Snow White 
tale’s 
earlier exchange of hands will show that he was not the first to reshape the tale in an 
American way 
or to engage in the business of buying, selling, and stamping the fairy tale 
as his own.
In the first section of this chapter, I gesture toward playwright, Marguerite 
Merington. Merington, while invested in defining her tale culturally, as American, was 
also the first to claim ownership of 
SNOWWHITE And the SEVEN DWARFS 
in the 
United States, in 1910.
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Her adapted play for children recognizes its earlier precursor, 
Goerner, as well as the “Fairytale Plays of the Brothers Grimm,” but foregrounds her 
claim to this American adaptation beyond those other voices. Where Merington, either 
intentionally or unintentionally
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began to adapt the content
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of 
Snow White 
to her 
surrounding American culture, her claim upon the tale was relatively short-lived based 
upon her limited status in the theatrical space, or her position within this new context.
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Unable to move the American 
Snow White 
tradition forward, the tale was soon 
bought over by Winthrop Ames, whose influence I go on to discuss in the second section 
of this chapter. Ames published and produced two staged versions, 
“SNOW WHITE”: A 
Fairy Tale Play From the Story of the Brothers Grimm
, by Jessie Braham White (Ames’ 
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Although Merington’s manuscript, available at the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public 
Library for the Performing Arts, is marked, n.d., Eric Smoodin notes a copyright date of 1910. 
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Because of her gender and minimal or covert attempts to counter culturally prescribed social values, little 
is known or written of Marguerite Merington and her contribution to fairy tale, even though she has been 
referred to as a prominent playwright (see Smoodin). Thus, her transformational intentions remain unclear. 
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