Aunt Jemima

Welcome to the History Tricks where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental. Hello, it is Jessica today, Susan is on her annual New England vacation. In lieu of a 30-second summary, an explanation. This is one of our lost episodes. We had done some research for this episode way back in the first year of the show 10 years ago. When we were covering Betty Crocker, we thought, hey, what about covering Aunt Jim Maima? And for assorted reasons, we did not think it was such a good idea at the time. Mostly, we felt that we needed to learn more, frankly. But since then, we've done quite a few episodes about women of color, some of which intersect with this episode. And I would ask you, please, please, listen to some or all of those. Particularly Ida B. Wells, Mary Terrell, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Hadi McDaniel. Also, our episode on 1950s housewives. And heck, Betty Crocker. History is an octopus. Also, I have a cold, ideally, just a cold. And I know my voice is scratchier than normal. I'm sorry about that. I blame the air conditioning. And now on with the show. Let's talk about Aunt Jim Maima. But first, let's drop her into history. In 1889, the Eiffel Tower, built for the Exposition Universal, first opened to visitors. It would be the tallest man-made structure on earth for the next 41 years. Frederick Douglass noted abolitionist and frequent appearer in our episodes was named the minister and chief console to Haiti. The Wall Street Journal began publishing. The Nintendo company was founded. Yes, you heard me to produce a card game. Nellie Bly left on her journey around the world to try to beat the character Phillyus Fox time in Jewels Burns around the world in 80 days. Born this year, Adolf Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, and Zerna Sharp, future author of the Dick and Jane books. Died this year, Bell Star, the poet Robert Browning, and Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederate States of America. And in 1889, at the theater, the recently trending spokeswoman for Aunt Jim Maima products crossed the footlights and into the American grocery store, where she's been for 131 years. On that fateful day in 1889, in St. Joseph, Missouri, a white entrepreneur named Chris Rutt had indeed fallen into a rut. With the grand visions and limited knowledge, common these days to many internet startups, this former newspaperman and his business partner had sunk most of their money into a bankrupt flower mill, not to make lofts out of it or a distillery like two young men would be guilty of today. But brace yourselves to sell a flower out of weird, but not like their predecessors, who sold flower as a commodity. You know, barrels of flower, just like every other kind of flower, sold in bulk to people who sold a lot of flower. Oh, hum, big yawn. There's too much competition. That's why the mill went bankrupt in the first place. No, Mr. Rutt and his mill worker partner, Mr. Underwood, had been mad, scientisting. It up with a bright idea. Everybody loves a big stack of pancakes with sugar on top. But getting good, reliable results really depended on having an experienced cook to evaluate the flower and the age of the lovin'ing and the ratio you needed on any given day. What if we found a good recipe and packaged everything together in small quantities? Like in little bags, in a fancy box that the shopkeeper could just display on a counter. Several manufacturers that we'd recognize today had pioneered this kind of radical change from the way food had shipped and been sold before. Nabisco crackers no longer sat in a cracker barrel at the store, getting increasingly stale and subject to dust and mice, gross. But look, in these clean sanitary boxes that you open in your own home, you're the first person to touch it since it was made. You can see the appeal if you were going to do the shopping. Quaker Oats was another early adopter of the branded sanitary packaging. The technology to even make cardboard boxes economically was less than a decade old. Our entrepreneur friends were getting in on the ground floor, so Mr.'s rut and Underwood were basically 1889 tech bros on the forefront of this big technology change in the food industry. These guys had no experience with cooking though, or chemistry, or food at all, except for eating it. So, they likely asked around and got help with the basics. Able assistants are lost a time. I vote their own mothers, but I have no evidence of this. But after a while and a whole bunch of product testing, they got a good reliable recipe that had wheat flour, corn flour, leavening, and salt in it. All the customer would have to do is add milk, stir, and hay-press style. It was a radical, radical idea. One of the first convenience foods. The concept was exciting. The name, not so much. Hello, grocery owner, would you like to stock our new product? Self-rising pancake flour? It's self-rising. They'd overcome their lack of knowledge and manufacturing and packaging, but marketing was giving them a problem. Storekeepers were not eager to get hold of their product. They needed a hack. They needed something. The partners were obsessed and sort of flailing around. And so, according to the legend, Mr. Rutt was primed for inspiration when he sat in the audience of a minstrel show and got hit by a fender bolt. What is a minstrel show, you ask? Well, they differed from place to place and over the decades different forms emerged. But from around the 1830s to 1940, performers in blackface entertained audiences with a variety of stereotyped African-American characters, deeply rooted in slavery, prejudice, and oppression. I'm having a hard time, honestly, getting to the bottom of minstrel shows popularity with the African-American population. They were so heavily attended by African-Americans. In fact, that many times audiences were integrated in defiance of the outside world's guidelines, although on separate sides of the room. I'll give you some links to follow for a more detailed history on minstrel shows themselves. I mean, they were even completely African-American troops of minstrels that build themselves as, quote, "real southern darkies" or "slave singers." How do you make Daniel the arguably second most famous Mammy that's ever existed, who played Mammy and gone with the wind, also had performed in one of these shows in her youth. I'm wondering, and I'm obviously not alone, what damage was wrought by having your entire existence degraded and mocked for everyone's entertainment as a cultural norm. We talked in the Fanny Lou Hamer episode that we just did how hurtful it was to have no one, but little black Sambo, who looked like you in your school books, magnify that, and stretch it out over decades. Representation, real representation is important. Well, anyway, the fashion within the genre came and went. They mocked different things in different times, including women's suffrage, by the way. But there seemed to be a basic set of characters, and I assure you none of them are flattering or appropriate in any way. I did not create them. I am only reporting their existence. The first act you'd get all of them kind of coming out in a parade, kind of like in the circus when all the acts come out and wave with the opening ceremonies. And in the menstrual show, it's all your favorites. There's Jim Crowe, you should recognize that name, who typically was portrayed as lazy and dumb and prone to being a trickster, old uncle, who was shambling and loyal and really sort of pitiful. I'd even say this one, the tragic mulatto. She actually went straight into New Zealand after the menstrual shows, by the way, a beautiful timetress. Zip Koon, who was a dandified free black man, who thinks he is a fine gentleman. Mr. Tambo and Mr. Bones, who were typically the blackest of the blackface, and capered around, and they were kind of mascot-y, and the butts of jokes. The interlocutor, the only white character, typically the straight man in the quote comedy, who made everyone else look more foolish. The dancing pick and any, bring to mind little topsy, or probably you're familiar with buckwheat and farbina in the little rascals. And last, but certainly not least, your favorite comfort food for your spirit, your dear, old, sweet, loyal, mammy. Mammy rose up into the public consciousness to sort of smooth over the quote uncomfortable issue of A, having kept human beings in bondage in the first place, and B, the shall we say, relations between white men and their enslaved women. Mammy was round and dark and always smiling no threat to the status quo for sure, or anyone's marriage. Mammy loved her white family more than her own children. Mammy preferred servitude over freedom and never wanted anything on earth, but to raise those white babies and be a beloved and condescended to figure for the rest of her life. What sort of fantasy was this? You know, because we've talked about this before, real life nursemaids were often very, very small children. I don't know if you've heard our Harriet Tubman episode yet, but she was beaten to within an inch of her life at the age of five when she accidentally tipped over the white baby in the crib. The whole mammy as nurture vision, real wet nurses were often forced to feed the master's white baby and leave her own to struggle and starve. So imagine the powerlessness of that reality, and this is certainly not a contest as to which is more horrifying, but here you've got layered on top of each other, the dismissal of the humanity of black women on one hand. And layered on that, the relentless joy the public took at the mockery of all African-Americans in the average minstrel show. We are going to minimize your trauma and ask you to laugh about it. Mammy was an insult. Mammy was a lie, but people sure loved the idea of her. Here's Mammy from the famous Uncle Tom's Cabin of 1852, which is always held up as a work of literature that may have led to the desire for the Civil War and for the end of slavery. And I quote, "Her whole plump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment from under a white-checked turbine with that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the neighborhood as Aunt Chloe was universally held and acknowledged to be. This is from an abolitionist work. As actual real-world people of color after the Civil War were struggling for their rights, their lives, and their dignity, white-America sort of idolized this calm, non-threatening character in this weird fit of nostalgia for quote the old south, most of which didn't exist, where everyone knew their place and society just worked. And Mammy would always welcome you home." So all of that to say, that Mammy, by the time our entrepreneur friend Mr. Rhett saw her on stage in 1889, was such a recognized cultural icon of comfort and the well-run home that her appearance caused him to sit up straight. That's it. Never mind that the Mammy on stage was as usual an overweight white man with burnt cork on his face wearing a dress. Never mind that the song that the character Aunt Jemima sang was lamenting that her old mistress had promised to free her before she died and then forgot to do it. Whatever reality, my company has found its personality. Clicker Oatsnow on its website says or said, "Here's Southern hospitality, personified." Sure, that's a way to say it. Mr. Rhett rest home and worked at a trademark for Aunt Jemima pancake mix with a Mammy illustration on the box and a star was born. Aunt Jemima was not the first mammy to sell baking products. Actually, Aunt Sally had appeared on Kids of Baking Powder 15 years before, but Aunt Jemima had recognized presence already from her menstrual songs and the partners were confident that they had a winner. What they didn't have was enough capital left for any more waiting around. They had to sell their company, including the Aunt Jemima trademark to the RT Davis company in 1890 and sadly retreated back to their day jobs. The Davis company, number one, improved the product itself by adding rice flour to improve the texture, sugar, and powdered milk. So now, all the consumer needed was water, no need for your own milk. And in these pre-refrigerator times, this was the key. And the company was savvier in the marketing department too. The biggest stage on earth was going to come to Chicago. Say it with me, the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, which keeps coming up, was coming to their doorstep and word went out. All right, everybody, we're looking for a live Aunt Jemima. Must have the look, be good in the room, cooking skill of bonus. And enter onto the stage, a Chicago cook and nanny named Nancy Green. Mrs. Green, birth name and parents, unknown, I'm sorry to say, was born sometime in 1834 in Montgomery County, Kentucky. She was born, as you might guess, from the location and year into slavery. And for the first 31 years of her life, she was literally the property of someone else. At some point, she is thought to have had a husband, that would be Mr. Green, and at least two children. But these have all disappeared from the records I could find by the time she re-emerges as the household cook and nanny for the Walker family in Mount Sterling, Kentucky after the Civil War. Now, was this her former owners? No way to know. But 10 or so years after the war was over, the entire Walker family decided to move to Chicago in this sort of prominent family uprooting. They all settled together in an area of the city that became known as the Kentucky colony, judges, politicians, and people who wielded power in the city, including the mayor. Nancy Green went to Chicago with them. And like many women of color that we cover, details are murky about her life outside of her work. As she later lived with some nieces and nephews, all we can do is hope they were a part of her life now, and perhaps sisters and brothers. More documented was her involvement with the Olivet Baptist Church, one of the oldest and most prominent black churches in the city, sort of considered to be the mother of many others. So more on that a little bit later. At the time, history's curtain pulls back, Nancy Green was working as a cook and nanny for the second generation of the Walker family. Her current employer was a prominent judge who encouraged her to go out for the opportunity to be on stage at the world's fair. She met with the Davis representatives and they were delighted. She was in. And at age 59, Nancy Green was the new Aunt Jamima. We have talked about the African-American experience at this world's fair before, especially during our Ida B. Wells and Mary Terrell episodes. There had been an effort by the black community to be involved in the fair for years. The Civil War had been over for decades and we would like to show off our achievements and glory just like everyone else. The organizers, including the president of the United States of America, kept all people of color off of the organizing committee. They couldn't even get jobs as guards at the fair. As a black American, you could sure pay to get in, but most restaurants wouldn't serve you. And many vendors, it was left up to the individual vendors to decide wouldn't sell you souvenirs either. You were definitely a second-class citizen. It was humiliating and it was frustrating. Ida Wells printed tens of thousands of copies of a book to be distributed to fairgoers called "The reason why the colored American is not included in the world's Colombian exposition." And the introduction went like this. At Jackson Park, our displayed exhibits of our country's natural resources and her progress in the arts and sciences, but that which would best illustrate her moral grandeur has been ignored. The exhibition of the progress made by a race in 25 years for freedom, as against 250 years of slavery, would have been the greatest tribute to the progressiveness and greatness of American institutions which could have been shown to the world. Inside, it listed black achievements in the arts and sciences, including a list of black patent holders whose items I have to say certainly could have fit in with the fair, the modern ironing board, automatic elevator doors, the carbon light bulb filament, which is pretty dang important, and the potato chip, which I would argue is also very important. And also, within its pages, the book documented the horrors of lynching. The pavilion of the Republic of Haiti was the only major structure that had been erected by a black nation in the main, nicer part of the exhibition, the white city. Frederick Douglass had been the consul, like the ambassador to Haiti, and it was sort of natural that they would allow him and his serious African American compatriots to hold their meetings there and their conversations and do their work there since African Americans had been denied a structure of their own. So that's at the fair where you as an African American could find real discussions on progress or the lack of progress in America. At the other end of the spectrum, a white syndicate had built a West African village in the less savory part of the fairgrounds and displayed actual living West Africans as if they were animals in a zoo, subject to mockery, mistreatment, and definitely misunderstanding. Of course, black Americans objected to this, but what could they do? Liberia had a quiet display over in the hall of agriculture, but if you were an average attendee of the world's fair, the black experience you were most likely to encounter was Aunt Jemima. Nancy Green was worth her weight in gold for the Davis company. She appeared in a giant flower barrel, tipped over on its side, cooking pancakes. She regaled the crowd with stories and songs of the old south and dressed exactly like white America's glorious vision of a mammie and acting like one to boot. Jolly, joky, holding the crowd's attention and yelling her catchphrase, eyes in town, honey, buttons were giving out tens of thousands of them with her face and eyes in town, honey printed on it. You know the metal kind that you bend the narrow side over under your collar. Eyes in town, honey, became famous in the way catchphrases from Saturday Night Live did later. Well, isn't that special? Yeah, that's the ticket. It was super fun to say and everyone was saying it. I'm pretty sure we can guess what I'd be well thought of the Angel Mima booth and all it represented. I imagine her heart sank and also that she was not surprised. But Mrs. Green, how was it to be a person who had been a literal enslaved person for over half her life to delight white audiences playing this stereotypical character. We don't know how she felt about it. All we have is the words of hademic Daniel again, arguably the second most famous mammie actress who was like, look around. Do you see a cavalcade of opportunities waiting for me as a middle aged black woman? I can be a cook or I can play one for 50 times the money and do some good with that money while I'm at it. I myself find the situation horrifying. But Mrs. Green was a grown adult who obviously some were good than harm in her performance personally and socially. So it's none of my own business really. But as to actual business, Mrs. Green's work gained the Davis company over 50,000 orders from companies and individuals who wanted to buy Angel Mima pancake mix for themselves. The fair organizers gave her a medal like, thanks for all the buzz. At one point, they had to hire and deploy special policemen to deal with the traffic, the eager enthusiastic traffic around the Angel Mima exhibit. She did a lot for the fair and she did a lot for her employers. And the company was delighted, of course, and offered her a quote lifetime contract to play Angel Mima. Nancy Green traveled the country making public appearances and the public just loved her for 30 years. She was Angel Mima to the world. Although the Davis company created a backstory for the character of Angel Mima, that is pretty cringy. So here's what it goes like. Angel Mima was owned by one general Higbee and some soldiers took refuge in his house after a battle in 1864. Filthy and scared and starving, the young men were revived with the best pancakes anyone had ever eaten. One young man, in particular, having after the war become a representative for a Missouri flower mill went back to the Higbee plantation and there found that same mammy, old Aunt Jemima, known all over the South for her good cooking and persuaded her to sell him her recipe. She came back with him to the mill to make sure his product met with her high standards since her name was going to be on it. And that was the origin story that they gave in advertising materials often written in a southern dialect with a lot of apostrophes. They began printing paper dolls of Aunt Jemima on the boxes and her husband called Uncle Rastus and the kids Abraham Lincoln, Zeb, Dina, and Dilsie. So they had them all raggedy and debarifloats in some boxes with a label before she sold the recipe. And then other boxes had different printing on the clothing fancy and with the note after the recipe was sold. About 10 years later, you could send away for Aunt Jemima rag dolls and now her husband was called Uncle Mose because they discovered that the name Rastus was being used by a company called Cream of Wheat in North Dakota and her children were now called Diana and Wade Davis. People loved these and couldn't get enough of them. I just looked in there is a set of original old rag dolls for $350 for the set of four originally they were 75 cents for all I mean the Mammy memorabilia market was off the chain even then. Dinnerware, salt and pepper sets, tea towels, cookie jars, hooks, boxes, puzzles, costumes, lamps, art, Mammy sold Louisiana, coffee and tea, gold metal flour, Higgins soap, Del Monte pineapple juice, rice, crispies, peanuts, washing powder, shoe polish, infinite amounts of fresh fruit, jello, luxe, laundry detergent, you name it Mammy sold it and Mammy's word was good enough to get the public to spend their money. Similarly, Rastus the Chicago chef Frank White in reality was the spokesperson for Cream of Wheat Uncle Ben sold rice Uncle Tom sold tobacco which killed me. And an army of minstrel pickenies sold watermelon and ice cream to the American public Aunt Jemima had opened the floodgates. Third Love just does bras differently. Third Love believes that every woman deserves to feel comfortable and confident every day and with the right kind of support they help her do just that. The designers at Third Love take the measurements of millions of women to create their styles and they have over 80 bra sizes but they also know that the only bra that matters is yours. Third Love has a team of expert fit stylist that are dedicated to helping you find your perfect fit. Then they back everything with a perfect fit promise you'll have 60 days to wash it and wear it and if you don't love it returns are always free and easy. If my bra I want it to be comfortable. I want it to have the thinnest memory phone possible that doesn't add any bulk but molds to my shape. I want a bra this tag list. I want a smooth scratch free band and I really don't want my strap slipping down. Basically I want a bra that's both high comfort and high quality and third love gives me that and they have four years. Third Love knows there's a perfect bra for everyone so right now they're offering our listeners 15% off your first order. Go to thirdlove.com/chicksnow to find your perfect fitting bra and get 15% off your first purchase. That's third love spell it out THIRD-L-O-V-E.com/chicks for 15% off today. In addition to reviving the cult of Mami, shall we say, in such a grand way, Aunt Jemima was a fabulous spokesperson and saleswoman for pancake mix. It is estimated that by 1910, 120 million Aunt Jemima pancake breakfast were sold across America a year. Nancy Green herself in her off time was a fixture at her church, all of that Baptist on 27th Street. Not as a founding member as you'll often read as she was still enslaved and in Kentucky when it was founded in 1850, but Nancy had arrived in the decades before the Great Migration. Southern African Americans fled north in record numbers during these early years of the 1900s and the most familiar institution to the newly arrived citizens of New York, Cleveland or in this case Chicago was of course the church. At the beginning of the century, Nancy Green's church had only 600 members, only 15 years later it was over 10,000. So all of that and the other black churches acted as sort of settlement houses. All of it itself had over 40 organizations operating out of it from social clubs and educational programs to food assistance, business advice, and of course spiritual guidance. And it seems that Nancy Green followed the pattern that Mary Terrell made famous when she said lifting as we climb. As you achieve success, you've reached down and pull up a brother or sister with you. Historians who are eager to dive deeper into the specifics of her philanthropic work with the all of that organization are hard at work and I hope I can add an addendum here at some point. But for now, let's just say that Nancy Green used her financial security to give opportunities to others back in the world at large when Nancy Green was 80 years old, the Davis Milling Company officially changed its name to Aunt Jemima Mills. The very next year, Aunt Jemima Mills had to sue a manufacturer who was making Aunt Jemima's syrup. Wait, you'd say they can't do that. But get this precedent in US trademark law said that this is the test you have to apply. Would someone that bought Aunt Jemima's syrup be confused by this and go, hey, wait, where's my pancake mix? And in olden days, if the answer was no, they would have dismissed the case. But the argument was Aunt Jemima is so famous and so respected that other companies were attempting to kind of ride the hard one. I mean, Cotails or apron strings of America's favorite mammy and those people's inferior products would be assumed to be made by the same company. And this would tarnish Aunt Jemima's goodwill and reputation. Trademark law actually changed radically as a result witness McDonald's being able to stop you calling your hotel mix sleep. That's a real example. The broader picture is now considered. It's literally called the Aunt Jemima doctrine. Well, on August 30th, 1923, Nancy Green died as a result of an auto accident that ran up onto the sidewalk as she was preparing to cross the street. She was 88 or 89 years old and you'll read that Nancy Green was a millionaire that she achieved great heights of financial security, but her annual income doesn't seem to have risen much past $1,000 and she was buried in an unmarked grave in Chicago's Oak Woods cemetery. There's been a lot of legal wrangling, mostly having to find Nancy Green's next of kin to get permission, but a historian named Sherry Williams has finally as of March of this year received permission from the cemetery to finally put a headstone up for Nancy Green. And if you have any interest in contributing to that cause, I will provide you a link to the jammin with Jane fundraiser for the bronzeville Black Chicago and Historical Society on Facebook. If you would like to be a part of getting Nancy Green, the memorial she deserves. But for Aunt Jemima, the character, the show must go on. Quaker Oats bought the Aunt Jemima brand in 1926 and almost immediately a young woman named Lillian Richard was hired to travel throughout the South and portray Aunt Jemima at grocery stores in fairs. She worked as Aunt Jemima for 23 years and her hometown was later named the Pancake Capital of Texas by the Texas legislature as a result. Another woman named Agnes Moody was hired to travel to Paris, Lucky Dog, for the Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931. She worked as Aunt Jemima in the Chicago area for a number of years after that. But if you close your eyes, unless you're pretty young, close your eyes and think of Aunt Jemima, and the face you see is likely Anna Robinson who was hired in 1933 to play Aunt Jemima at the Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago in a log cabin booth instead of a barrel this time. She had also come from Kentucky like Nancy Green and also like Nancy Green, she knew how to work the room and light a crowd. Eyes back in town, honey. Yes, the slogan was back. Aunt Jemima's power to sell product was also back. The advertising that featured Anna Robinson is still famous in ads are close today, though honestly brace yourself for the taglines or if you go on the Pinterest board and look at the old ads, which I am not about to read in their written vernacular by the way. Very popular one, pancake days is happy days and day shirt needs me in this house. Oi, oi. Well, alongside those more basic ad campaigns, there was a fancier one. A clever juxtaposition of Anna Robinson as Mami in otherwise chic locations like El Morocco and the Stork Club, the Waldorf Astoria with celebrities. It was a hit more prosaically in real life and a Robinson as Aunt Jemima appeared at grocery stores and trade food shows and county fairs. She was so successful and popular that it is her image painted by the same man who had done the famous Santa for Coca-Cola that you probably saw on the products until well into the 1980s. Though her picture was updated with a headband in the 60s, you have to look closely to me. I still thought of it as a headscarf. I'll post a picture. Was she compensated for this explosive growth and brand recognition? Well, just like Hadamick Daniel said, she was paid a lot more than a real cook would have been, but recognizing the worth of a personality driven ad campaign had not occurred yet. Like it hadn't occurred to anyone that for example Stephanie Courtney, i.e. flow from progressive is worth a half a million dollars a year. Yeah, the guy that plays mayhem, you know, mayhem like me, that guy makes a million dollars a year. Well, Aunt Jemima was sort of the first character, you know, played by a real person. And Anna Robinson adjusted for inflation only made around $23,000 a year. That's a significant difference. So the short answer is no. Anna Robinson did not get proportionally paid for her hard work. But again, this was sort of uncharted territory. At this early stage is it ignorance of her importance or is it actual oppression and prejudice? Jury's still out on that you can find arguments on both sides. In Edge themselves during this time period in the 40s to early 50s, mothers were marketed to by using anxiety and guilt, I guess. Like here's how to be a good wife. And maybe you should listen to our 1950s housewife episode for how well that worked out. There was a high standard for house withery in the 1950s and Aunt Jemima and the convenience and reliability she promised were keys to not failing, I guess. Conversely, men were marketed to how shall I put this like even dad can do it. That's why pancake days is happy days because mother gets to stand bed because dad is going to wield his spatula. And I'm wondering if the 50s father put down his grill spatula or use the same grill spatula because those were the two activities in the kitchen that it was thought that men could handle. I once took a history class that was all based on contemporary ads from the different periods and I have to tell you I highly recommend it. If you were a history teacher and can put something like that together, that was one of the most interesting history classes I ever took and just little facts like that made the society come alive. Like what were the expectations? What are societies assumptions about you at the time ads are published? What are your insecurities that they're going to exploit? Or even just assumptions about society in general like I have a tin box upstairs that used to hold mustard plasters and it says on the back in the case of women or children or other people with tender skins please place a sheet of muslin in between the plaster and the skin and it assumes you have muslin for household use. It makes large assumptions about the delicacy of women and who's reading the box etc. It's very interesting to me so anyway I highly recommend it even just to cruise through old ads on Pinterest of an afternoon. Well Anna Robinson died in 1951 while she was still on the Quaker payroll and another woman named Anna Short Harrington had been playing Aunt Jemima during almost the same time period. She'd been born to some sharecroppers in South Carolina and was discovered by Quaker in New York State making pancakes at the New York State Fair. So there were two simultaneous two decade long working Aunt Jemima's at the same time. There were others for example a college educated teacher named Maude Woodcock McElroy was the radio voice of Aunt Jemima during the Aunt Jemima variety hour at the end of which the host would say what's the word Aunt Jemima smiling and happy Aunt Jemima says I'm literally that's what he would say smiling and happy Aunt Jemima says. And then the voice would come on and say like a phrase or a quote of inspiration well there's nothing so pretty as a happy face and nothing so wonderful as a happy life. You can hear these shows on YouTube if you're interested I will provide a link. Edith Wilson was an established blues singer who became the first Aunt Jemima to appear in TV ads. I mean George Gershwin had written a song for her that's Waller wrote a song called black and blue for her to sing established blues singer. Also as a teacher she had made a point of teaching black history to her students and after her career as Aunt Jemima she was one of the first black field directors of the Girl Scouts. She was friends with Josephine Baker her pastor after her death told an interviewer that she took this job out of grim necessity see I'm just worried about that. Aileen Lewis was the face of Aunt Jemima at Aunt Jemima's pancake house in Disneyland and a close personal friend of Walt Disney. There are many many other women some known some anonymous to us but all of them through the 1950s were perpetuating the same old Mami stereotype from the days of reconstruction after the Civil War. Selfless smiling and happy here for you with no dreams of her own. Some of the later actresses gave interviews in which they described their efforts to kind of drag the character into the modern day they asked for costume changes that were denied or quote insisted on serving black and white customers on a first come first serve basis even in the south. The fact that that needs to be said and that that was a stand that they had to take as vulnerable black women in the south in the 1950s is something to think about well as we enter the 1960s there was actually less Aunt Jemima herself in the advertisements Aussie and Harriet started doing ads on their TV shows. And the commercial that I like actually doesn't feature Aunt Jemima either there was an episode of Bewitched from 1966 when Darren and his boss Larry are at breakfast saying how glad they are that they had gotten the Aunt Jemima syrup account. Do you remember that Darren worked at an ad agency that is a good transition and a good like secret way to pop it in. So they're arguing about taglines and blah blah blah and Samantha saves the day by twinkling her nose and suggesting Aunt Jemima what took you so long because it really took this long decades for the Quaker Corporation to realize that they could make so much bank selling syrup with their pancake mix speaking of what took you so long. Then I'm preparing to go to the moon and here is Aunt Jemima just now getting a headband after 80 years of wearing a head scarf. This is when it happened place in history all of this was before I was born of course and honestly I'm sorry to admit this the entirety of my childhood I didn't think one thing about Aunt Jemima I genuinely. And honestly had no idea of the history of the term in my defense I did miss each and every one of the actresses as Aunt Jemima era maybe that's the key also I have to say I think I conflated Aunt Jemima with Mrs Butterworth. Who who evidently was never intended to be a person of color but you kind of have to look closely at the bottle to realize that she is like a grandma with a Mrs Santa Claus bun and she's not wearing a head scarf for a turban and she's never been played by a person of color I just think anyway doesn't really matter I I'm interested to know if listeners of color was your experience any different did you understand about Aunt Jemima. I am very interested if you're like between 30 and 50 say where you taught about her did you know anything I just I would like to know if it is just my ignorance or just a generalized human ignorance of the decade I mean for example I read little house on the prairie. It was little town on the prairie actually in which pa appeared in a minstrel show and I have to admit I didn't as a child understand that either although I was faster to the uptake on the minstrel shows to know that that was not cool anyway get back to me if you want to fast forward to 1989 for her 100th birthday and under pressure from consumer groups Aunt Jemima got a makeover. She got what I consider to be a Betty Crocker haircuts and Pearl earrings and she looks like anyone's grandmother said one member of a focus group like she volunteers at her church and there she remained until June 17th of this year Pepsi co the current owner of Quaker and therefore of the Aunt Jemima brand announced a radical change and I'll quote a Quaker vice president here Kristen crow full hope I got your last name right. We recognize Aunt Jemima's origins are based in a racial stereotype while work has been done over the years to update the brand in a manner intended to be appropriate and respectful we realize those changes are not enough no word yet on the new name it's only been about a week. So we have to assume that there are some frantic intense and long lasting zoom meetings happening right now in home offices and at dinner tables all over the nation. So I hope to be able to update you on that looks like they're going to release the name what they say is fourth quarter I'm guessing October is this winter maybe now here's an interesting little bit more. Some descendants of Anna Scott Harrington and Lillian Richards are dismayed and worried that their ancestors work is as they say being swept away a descendant of Anna Scott Harrison said the following and I quote this isn't injustice for me and my family this is part of my history is a descendant of Lillian Richard now remember that the state legislature in Texas was so proud of her that in 1995 they declared her hometown the pancake capital of Texas. This person said I wish we would take a breath and not just get rid of everything because good or bad it is our history removing that wipes away a part of me a part of each of us we are actually very proud of our cousin. But the opposite opinion is going to come out on top I think that is nearly inevitable at this time for example an author named Tony tipton Martin who is the author of a book called the jamaica code two centuries of African American cookbooks said this this acknowledges that our ancestors names and values have been weaponized and monetized not equalized it exalts elements associated with real black cooks and validates calls for truth and equity that are being demanded by young people in the streets and then from Neil deGrasse Tyson it's not that Angela was a symbol of a racist past she was the very embodiment of a racist past she will not be missed by anyone who knew that now I do have to say that Neil deGrasse Tyson demoted Pluto on a list serious notes my soft spot for him is sort of gone but my soft spot for the women who played and jamaima is not gone and they made some tough choices in a world that did not give them very many chances this job was for the tough and for the smart and for the strong and I wanted you to know that so they're not forgotten and I also wanted you to know the real history in the menstrual shows and the mami myth of the character of aunt jamaima herself I think we can keep those two ideas simultaneously in our mind and that the background of this American icon problematic as she is is going to live on but in museums and in context it's time thanks for listening and now it's time for media and I hope that I can get the show notes up soon this is something that's who's usually does so I might need a retraining program after work tomorrow so bear with me on that but first I'll leave with books and for these books I have got to thank specifically Sharon a librarian at the St. Joe main downtown library I was able to find a copy of several books and drive a couple of hours to go pick them up the reason they had these books there is that the whole story began in St. Joseph so it was neat to drive around and and someone has painted historical murals on a lot of walls there it's a pretty neat little town I really liked it so here are the books in question slave in a box the strange career of aunt jamaima by m m man ring aunt jamaima uncle Ben and rastus blacks in advertising yesterday today and tomorrow by Maryland Kern Fox worth the jamaima code two centuries of African American cookbooks by Tony tipton martin which is not just cookbooks it's you know societal history and everything with really good illustrations so don't miss that one the warmth of other sons by Isabelle Wilkerson is about the great migration if that is a rabbit hole you wish to fall down online you can visit the Jim Crow museum they actually have a virtual tour and they have a giant collection of mommy figurines in memorabilia all link you to an article about the history of all of that Baptist church in Chicago and then on YouTube always this a subject that you can get a lot off of YouTube from documentaries about minstrel shows and their history lots and lots of preserved ads I don't know who takes the time to save all these commercials but my goodness they're there including the bewitched one that I liked so much clips from the radio show are there public appearances are there if you would like a little proof into how enamored the world was with the concept of mommy you can also on YouTube find a clip from the first feature length talkie movie from 1927 in which all jolson in black face sings a song called mommy there are several websites that are devoted to the black presence or lack of black presence at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and for more on that issue you can also go back and listen to our itawells episode because it plays a big part in her episode we did touch on her during this episode and the Smithsonian has a first edition bottle of a angel I missurup in their collection and don't miss the Pinterest board for this one that Pinterest board has been sitting in secret mode for years and years and years ever since we decided not to do it all all that time ago so it has a lot of ads just brace yourself for the language last but not least a link to the fundraiser to get Nancy green a headstone at last I won't have a closing statement because I think they said at all at the end of the body of the show I learned a lot on this one I hope you did too and Susan will be back for the next episode if you liked what you heard today leave us a review on Apple podcasts or tell a few friends about us make sure to listen to the itawells Mary Terrell Fannie Lou Hamer and had a McDaniel episodes by going to the history chicks dot com and looking on the right for the links also 1950s housewives is there and our episode on Betty Crocker you can join our Facebook group where the conversation is hopping and we are rather coincidentally having a baking challenge slash exhibition it's pretty fun all you do is go to the history chicks page on Facebook and click the button that says join group make sure to answer the question to prove that you're not a robot and you're in the song in the middle is slow cooking by Joe and the spicy pickles and the song on the end is character assassin by a band called seconds before and you will be just like me you look like someone I'm going to give things to people that they will really love I like to find things that are high quality that they'll not only love but use and if possible maybe something that they wouldn't think to get for themselves I have been shopping a lot this year at quince everything on the quince site from clothing to housewares to jewellery and luggage and handbags every piece is made with premium materials from ethical trusted factories and priced far below what other luxury brands will charge the craftsmanship shows in every single detail the stitching the fit the drape it's elevated it's timeless it's clothing that's made to wear on repeat which makes it not only good for gifting but also for getting for yourself they take their Italian 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