Aunt Jemima pancake demonstration photographs, approximately 1950
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Summary
- Creator:
- Quaker Oats Company
- Abstract:
- Aunt Jemima was a brand of pancake flour mix produced by the Pearl Milling Company (later acquired by Quaker Oats) in St. Joesph, Missouri, beginning in 1889 and continuing until the brand name was retired in 2021 and the product renamed "Pearl Milling Company" pancake mix. Two black-and-white photographs depict Black actresses portraying Aunt Jemima preparing pancakes during a grocery store demonstration. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.
- Extent:
- 2 items
- Language:
- Materials in English.
- Collection ID:
- RL.12078
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Two black-and-white photographs depict Black actresses portraying Aunt Jemima preparing pancakes during a grocery store demonstration.
- Biographical / historical:
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Aunt Jemima was a brand of pancake flour mix produced by the Pearl Milling Company (later acquired by Quaker Oats) beginning in 1889 and continuing until the brand name was retired in 2021 and the product renamed "Pearl Milling Company" pancake mix. The character of Aunt Jemima was borrowed from a Vaudeville skit, a "Mammy"--the stereotype of Black servants and kitchen help in white households, a popular trope in late 19th and early 20th-century stage, film and literary productions. Pearl Milling hired the formerly enslaved Nancy Green to first portray Aunt Jemima, for the 1893 World Columbia Exposition in Chicago; a number of actresses would portray the brand icon in print, radio and television promotions into the 1960s. In addition, Aunt Jemima actresses would make national and regional personal appearances where the they would cook and serve pancakes to patrons. Some Aunt Jemima actresses, such as Edith Wilson and Ethel Ernestine Harper, were also professional singers and theater performers; others, such as Anna Short Harrington, had a lengthy career portraying Aunt Jemima lasting nearly 25 years. In the 1980s the figure of Aunt Jemima was updated to portray the spokescharacter in a more contemporary style as a middle class homemaker, and in 2021 Quaker Oats' parent PepsiCo abandoned the Aunt Jemima brand name and renamed the product after the Pearl Milling Company.
Source: Wikipedia, "Aunt Jemima"
- Acquisition information:
- The Aunt Jemima pancake demonstration photographs were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library as a purchase from Walkabout Books in 2023.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Richard Collier, Apr. 2023
Accessions described in this collection guide: 2023-0039.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Subjects
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Collection is open for research.
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- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Aunt Jemima pancake demonstration photographs, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
- Permalink:
- https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/m1df0g