Where did Aunt Jemima come from?

[Shell Beau]

Isn't she kind of offensive? Same for Mrs. Buttersworth.

*This is NOT intended as flame bait*

I really am curious about this.

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. The black "mammy" stereotype...

of the antebellum (and often, thanks to Jim Crow, Reconstruction) South, popularised in minstrel shows...

[peace frog]

26. Correct, and

elderly slaves were universally addressed as "Aunt" and "Uncle" (as in Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben).

[BamaLefty]

2. A Slave n/t

[RummyTheDummy]

3. Don't know. Don't care.

But she makes some damn fine pancakes.

[Shell Beau]

4. I buy those two brands, but I am curious if black (or anyone

for that matter)people find it offensive.

[RummyTheDummy]

9. Ive known a couple who did

And several others who didn't give it much thought.

[Shell Beau]

12. I never gave it much thought until

I saw some post that mentioned Aunt Jemima. Then for some reason I had a picture of her in my head and wondered if it was offensive.

[BamaLefty]

28. I doubt it.

They're so used to that sort of thing they just brush it off. At least the blacks I know don't seem to mind.

[ronnykmarshall]

10. Looks like she's hangin' out w/ nuns these days.

[ronnykmarshall]

11. That nun gets around .....

she dancing w/ ol Chiquita Banana.

[Shell Beau]

13. Ha ha!

[Fenris]

5. Mammy stereotype.

Developed in the post-Civil War era to appeal to whites who longed for the "good old days" when they could simply have their slaves do their work for them.

[WCGreen]

6. Frangelica is Mrs. Butterworths evil twin....

BYW, I seem to remember from the commercials that Mbs. Butterworth was white....

[Shell Beau]

8. Oh is she? I have never seen that. I guess

with the bottle filled with syrup she looked black. I guess she can be whatever color you want her to be!

[WCGreen]

16. Look at the frangelica bottle and you will

see the resemblence to Mrs. Butterworth....

[yewberry]

31. Do you mean frangelico, the liqueur?

I think the bottle is supposed to be shaped like a (mythical?) Italian monk--Fra. Angelico--in his robes.

Rope belt and all!

[msongs]

7. from the RNC: jemima /butterworth: closet lesbians trying to poison the

children of america? infiltrating the grocery store to destroy god fearing society one bite of sugar at a time?

Nah.

I got mine at the grocery store, now I make my own it is tooo easy and much better.

Msongs
www.msongs.com

[ronnykmarshall]

14. From the White House

[NoPasaran]

15. Modeled on a real person

The world knew her as "Aunt Jemima" but her given name was Nancy Green. The famous Aunt Jemima recipe was not her recipe but she became the advertising world's first living trademark. Miss Green was born a slave in Montgomery County, Kentucky. Chris Rutt, a newspaperman, and Charles Underwood bought the Pearl Milling Company and had the original idea of developing and packaging a ready-mixed, self-rising pancake flour. To survive in a highly competitive business, the men needed an image for their product.

In 1889, Rutt attended a vaudeville show where he heard a catchy tune called "Aunt Jemima" sung by a blackface performer who was wearing an apron and bandanna headband. He decided to call their pancake flour "Aunt Jemima". Later, Rutt and Underwood were so short of capital funds that they were broke. In 1890, they sold the formula to the R. T. Davis Milling Company. Mr. Davis began looking for a Negro woman to employ as a living trademark for his product, and he found Nancy Green in Chicago. She was 56 years old. The Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix was introduced in St. Joseph, Missouri.

In 1893, the Davis Milling Company aggressively began an all-out promotion of "Aunt Jemima" at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Green, as "Aunt Jemima" demonstrated the pancake mix and served thousands of pancakes. Green was a hit, friendly, a good storyteller, and a good cook. Her warm and appealing personality made her the ideal "Aunt Jemima" a living trademark. Her exhibition booth drew so many people that special policemen were assigned to keep the crowds moving. The Davis Milling Company received over 50,000 orders, and Fair officials awarded Nancy Green a medal and certificate for her showmanship.

She was proclaimed "Pancake Queen." She was signed to a lifetime contract and traveled on promotional tours all over the country. Flour sales were up all year and pancakes were no longer considered exclusively for breakfast. Nancy Green maintained this job until a car crash in Chicago killed her, on September 23, 1923. The Davis Company also ran into money problems, and the Quaker Oats Company purchased the Aunt Jemima Mills in 1925

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1287/Nancy_Green_the_original_Aunt_Jemima

[Shell Beau]

19. Interesting! Thanks for the info.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

29. You beat me to it...I had a book way back when called

"Why did they name it?" that gave the story of products and how they came to be

[Taverner]

17. The Aunt Jemima Story

The official one

http://www.foodreference.com/html/fauntjemimapancake.html

And a bit more behind it

http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/scoop_article.asp?ai=1353&si=126

For a great movie about representations of blacks in media, check out Spike Lee's Excellent (and unnoticed) Bamboozled.

[ronnykmarshall]

18. From Puerto Rico

Aunt Ines

[Dhalgren]

20. I always thought that she looked a lot like my

Grandmother (whom we all called, "Momma").

[maveric]

21. And what's the deal with Uncle Ben?

A "step n fetch it" stereotype?

[Shell Beau]

23. My hometown was home to the factory or

whatever you call it. Where they made the rice. Yeah, I forgot about Uncle Ben.

[gmoney]

24. What's small, white, and crawls up your leg?

Uncle Ben's Perverted Rice...


"I love rice. Rice is great when you're hungry for like 2000 of something." -- Mitch Hedberg (paraphrased from memory)

[Shell Beau]

30. Aw, Mitch. I loved his sense of humor.

[Taverner]

25. Stepin Fetchit

was the stage name of a character actor....

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/909/Stepin_Fetchit_played_Vaudeville_and_Films

[Sequoia]

32. I know a little:

That book, "The Empire of Chocolate" mentions that the Mars Candy guy went to this restaurant where a black waiter named Ben would serve him and that's where the name came from.

[MN ChimpH8R]

37. Uncle Ben

Supposedly there actually was a real rice farmer who was the model or inspiration for Uncle Ben. Read it at The Straight Dope, IIRC.

[gmoney]

22. "Imitation of Life"

"Imitation of Life" is a tearjerker movie with Claudette Colbert that seems to be based on some sort of fictionalized, mythologized version of Aunt Jemima. Kind of strange premise, and somewhat politically outdated (the Jemima character has a daughter who tries to "pass" for white, while ignoring her lovin' mother), but maybe worth a watch on a rainy afternoon as a cultural relic.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0783227647

[ronnykmarshall]

27. The one with Lana Turner was great too.

[Sequoia]

33. Totally, with Natalie Wood and Sandra Dee!

A real sob story. I hated that the black characer had to call Launa Miss something, but Natalie's mother was always called by her first name. But the Civil Rights Movement was just getting underway when that movie was made.

[caty]

38. It wasn't Natalie Wood,

it was Susan Kohner. She resembled Natalie Wood.



http://www.thegoldenglobes.com/welcome.html?nominee/kohner_susan.html

[caty]

34. Women who have portrayed Aunt Jemima:

http://www.prmuseum.com/kendrix/jemimas.html

[Bouncy Ball]

35. Nevermind.

NoPasaran's got the story above.

[MercutioATC]

36. I know where the guy on the Pringles' can came from...

It's a representation of the man who worked at P&G who developed the process of mashing up potatoes, molding them into chips, and putting them in a can.

Seriously.

(he's a third cousin of mine)