Jumping jack (toy)

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A jumping-jack toy
A dandy jumping jack toy

The jumping jack is a toy whose origins date back thousands of years.[citation needed] The joint jumping jack figure is a cross between a puppet and a paper doll. The figures are generally made from wood and their limbs are joint and tied to a pull string. When the string is pulled and released, the arms and legs move up and down.


Although the jumping jack is popularly thought of as a European toy, ivory dancer figures made to spin by pulling their strings, which were found at the archaeological site El Lisht and date back to ancient Egyptian times, are considered to be among the earliest forms of this family of mechanical toys.[citation needed]

In the mid-1700s, jumping jack figures known as “pantins” were popular among the French nobility.[citation needed]

In 1832 the Hampelmann was created by Carl Malss as a figure for the burlesque at Frankfurt am Main. Later the jumping jack toy became known as Hampelmann in German-speaking countries. They were manufactured in the Erzgebirge mountain range in Germany.[1]

In 1926, in her first year as a student at the famous Bauhaus design school in Dessau, Germany, the textile designer Margaretha Reichardt undertook a preliminary course run by Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy.[2] As part of the course she designed a modern version of the Hampelmann, which was later produced commercially by Naef, a Swiss toy company. Her version is set in a wooden frame, but like traditional Hampelmänner he has articulated limbs that move when a string is pulled.[3]


Michael Quinion of World Wide Words has written an article about the word quocker-wodger, defined as "a wooden puppet on a string".[4]

External links[edit]


  1. ^ Dtv-lexikon, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, 1971, vol. 8, p. 169
  2. ^ Bauhaus100. Preliminary course. Available at: https://www.bauhaus100.de/en/past/teaching/classes/preliminary-course-by-josef-albers/ (Accessed: 30 October 2016)
  3. ^ Jumping jack Bauhaus. http://shop.naefspiele.ch/classic/bauhaus-hampelmann.html?___store=ch_en&___from_store=ch_de (Accessed: 11 November 2016)
  4. ^ Quinion, M. World wide words: Quocker-wodger. Available at: http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-quo2.htm (Accessed: 30 October 2016)