Weekend mornings sometimes mean a more, special breakfast beyond grabbing a bowl of cereal or oatmeal, because there’s more time to prepare it. Growing up, in our house, it often meant pancakes and all the trimmings. Yum! Even now, occasionally, I will get out the skillet and make them. If I don’t make them from scratch, I use Aunt Jemima’s® Pancake Mix because I actually prefer it over other brands; and I can also find it in specialty grocery stores, here in London
Like most people, I rarely think about the origins of a brand, if it pre-dates me; but in researching Aunt Jemima‘s® beginnings, I have found that its roots are quite controversial. I recall when the brand ‘had a makeover’ in the late 1980s, but I don’t think I realized just how far it had evolved from its launch, in the previous century.
Created in 1889, the inspiration for the Aunt Jemima® brand came from a character in a racially-derogatory minstrel show song, written in 1875. The creators of Aunt Jemima® Pancake Mix were not good businessmen, so had to sell the brand and the formula to the R.T. Davis Milling Company in 1890.
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| First Aunt Jemima ad |
That same year, R.T. Davis hired freed slave, Nancy Green, to ‘be’ Aunt Jemima®. Born in Montgomery County , Kentucky Nancy Nancy Chicago She
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| Nancy Green as Aunt Jemima |
In 1926, The Quaker Oats Company purchased the brand, and finally hired Anna Robinson to be the next Aunt Jemima®, to play her as part of the promotion at The Chicago World’s Fair, in 1933. The brand’s first slogan (launched at The World’s Fair) carried the mammy archetype further, being, “I’se in Town, Honey!”
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| Anna Robinson as Aunt Jemima |
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| First ad, with new slogan |
For two, more decades, the stereotype continued, with its advertising; and ‘live Aunts’ being blues singer, Edith Wilson, actress Ethel Ernestine Harper, Quaker employee, Rosie Hall, and actress, Aylene Lewis, who was the last Aunt, playing her, until the 1960s.
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| Another ad perpetuating the mammy stereotype |
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| Yet another... |
Beginning in the mid-1950s, African-American consumers began criticizing the mammy stereotype being portrayed; and the term, Aunt Jemima® became synonymous with the term, Uncle Tom (a subservient, Black man, derived from the protagonist in the novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin). But the brand was selling strongly and had expanded into other products, such as syrup; so, Quaker Oats did not see the merit in changing the iconic brand.
In fact, Quaker Oats remained resolute for almost thirty-five more years. As late as 1986, an ‘offended Oprah Winfrey refused to act in a Saturday Night Live sketch depicting Quaker Oats laying off Aunt Jemima®; she proposed a skit about the ensuing argument instead.'
Finally, in 1989, to mark the brand’s 100th birthday, Quaker Oats bowed to consumer pressure and gave Aunt Jemima® her latest makeover. In an attempt to “make her look more like a working mother,” according to a Quaker Oats spokesperson, she was slimmed down, her hair was styled and greyed a bit and her outfit changed to a white blouse and pearl earrings.
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| Aunt Jemima's 1989 Makeover |
Unsurprisingly, when you review Aunt Jemima’s® history on the company website (click here), none of the controversy is mentioned, and none of the old logos or packaging are depicted.
As a branding & marketing communications professional, I don’t see Quaker Oats ever completely abandoning a representation for Aunt Jemima® because the legacy and brand equity are now too strong; but I am very pleased that she is no longer a caricature, which evokes negative emotions - especially amongst the African-American community. Hopefully, at least in the Western world, gone are the days when any race should be belittled or humiliated to sell a product.
UPDATE ON JUNE 17, 2020: I am pleased to acknowledge that I was wrong. I never thought Quaker Oats would do it. Following a TikTok calling out Aunt Jemima's racist past, by Singer, Kirby, that went viral, with more than 2m+ views, PEPSICO/ QUAKER OATS announced that the brand will be retired. Power to the people!
Enjoy your breakfast!
Sources: Wikipedia, AuntJemima.com, The History Channel, Google Images, Getty Images, Twitter, TikTok
I've heard about this before... But, wowww...
ReplyDeleteGreat Research
ReplyDeleteGreat blog!
ReplyDeleteI didn't consider any of it a belittlement. I loved the old Aunt Jemima's, she was sweet and fluffy. The "new" 1989 version just looks stuffy
ReplyDeleteNice
ReplyDeleteGood post.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the details are helpful.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in northern Ohio during the 1970s I remember the Aunt Jemima commercials on TV. I also remember Disney's motion picture "Song of the South." Slavery was a bad thing, let's be clear, but you cannot simply sanitize history. The folklore of slaves deserves to be celebrated. They made the best of a horrible, deplorable situation through songs, stories, and games. You don't seem to be as upset about Quaker's exploitation by using a mammy type to hock their pancake flour as you are that the mammy antebellum culture existed at all. From the point of view of a White male child, characters like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Remus made Blacks seem friendly and inviting in a time where I had very limited contact with any. Don't throw the baby out with the bath-water!
ReplyDeleteClearly the name "Aunt Jemima" and the things they had Aunt Jemima saying, like, "I'se in town, Honey!" are stereotypes that come from the need of white people, probably generated by a fear of black anger, to see African Americans as safe when they were servants and were devoted to taking care of white people, as opposed to the stereotype of the black man, oversexed and dangerous when he was not in a subserviant relationship; but if you look at just the older pictures of Aunt Jemima, they are actually pretty nice. It's a picture of a kindly, older woman, not some black-face, condescending characature. (That picture at the top was not actually used.) As someone who is now at grandfather age, I am thinking that they exchanged one sort of stereotype for another. I mean, there are lot of wonderful older women who are a bit overweight, but comfortable with it. Are they stereotypes or just normal older women? The new, non-stereotyped Aunt Jemima, with her fashion and earrings, doesn't look like anyone who would cook pancakes fo the kids. The old Aunt Jemima had a lot in common with the Quaker stereotype on the Quaker Oats box — It seems to me that it was the language that was offensive, not the picture. I don' think we should lose track of the good parts just to get rid of the bad. A lot of us have had grandmothers and older aunts who were fun, comforting to be with, and a bit overweight. That's a good thing and we shouldn't eliminate dipictions older people while getting rid of racial stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteGreat article!
ReplyDeleteUsing ethnic images in advertising have existed for more than a century, pitching everything from butter to rice to breakfast cereal. Some of those images of Aunt Jemima, Rastus, the Cream of Wheat chef Uncle Ben, were created in less enlightened times. These images reinforece a racist undertone thus should envoke sensitivity to the topic in society today.
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