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The American South Series
Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima
The figure of the mammy occupies a central place in the lore of the Old South and has long been used to ullustrate distinct social phenomena, including racial oppression and class identity. In the early twentieth century, the mammy became immortalized as Aunt Jemima, the spokesperson for a line of ready-mixed breakfast products. Although Aunt Jemima has undergone many makeovers over the years, she apparently has not lost her commercial appeal; her face graces more than forty food products nationwide and she still resonates in some form for millions of Americans.
In Slave in a Box, M.M. Manring addresses the vexing question of why the troubling figure of Aunt Jemima has endured in American culture. Manring traces the evolution of the mammy from her roots in the Old South slave reality and mythology, through reinterpretations during Reconstruction and in minstrel shows and turn-of-the-century advertisements, to Aunt Jemima's symbolic role in the Civil Rights movement and her present incarnation as a "working grandmother." We learn how advertising entrepreneur James Webb Young, aided by celebrated illustrator N.C. Wyeth, skillfully tapped into nostalgic 1920s perceptions of the South as a culture of white leisure and black labor. Aunt Jemima's ready-mixed products offered middle-class housewives the next best thing to a black servant: a "slave in a box" that conjured up romantic images of not only the food but also the social hierarchy of the plantation South.
The initial success of the Aunt Jemima brand, Manring reveals, was based on a variety of factors, from lingering attempts to reunite the country after the Civil War to marketing strategies around World War I. Her continued appeal in the late twentieth century is a more complex and disturbing phenomenon we may never fully understand. Manring suggests that by documenting Aunt Jemima's fascinating evolution, however, we can learn important lessons about our collective cultural identity.
In Slave in a Box, M.M. Manring addresses the vexing question of why the troubling figure of Aunt Jemima has endured in American culture. Manring traces the evolution of the mammy from her roots in the Old South slave reality and mythology, through reinterpretations during Reconstruction and in minstrel shows and turn-of-the-century advertisements, to Aunt Jemima's symbolic role in the Civil Rights movement and her present incarnation as a "working grandmother." We learn how advertising entrepreneur James Webb Young, aided by celebrated illustrator N.C. Wyeth, skillfully tapped into nostalgic 1920s perceptions of the South as a culture of white leisure and black labor. Aunt Jemima's ready-mixed products offered middle-class housewives the next best thing to a black servant: a "slave in a box" that conjured up romantic images of not only the food but also the social hierarchy of the plantation South.
The initial success of the Aunt Jemima brand, Manring reveals, was based on a variety of factors, from lingering attempts to reunite the country after the Civil War to marketing strategies around World War I. Her continued appeal in the late twentieth century is a more complex and disturbing phenomenon we may never fully understand. Manring suggests that by documenting Aunt Jemima's fascinating evolution, however, we can learn important lessons about our collective cultural identity.
224 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 5, 2021
Great monograph about Aunt Jemima. (I read this for an article I published.) Definitely more catered towards a scholarly audience but this book helped me to unpack A LOT of racism in my understanding of historical media and advertisements. (Spoiler: it’s intertwined in everything) For especially that reason, I would recommend this book to anyone who is on an anti-racism journey and also likes advertising history.
June 6, 2024
I thought this was going to be more of a memoir but it read more like a textbook on racism imbedded in advertising in the US which was interesting but not the kind of book I was looking for ya know
November 13, 2023
In Slave in a Box, M. M. Manring introduces the reader to the real circumstances behind the caricature of an antebellum mammy on a pancake box. Aunt Jemima was a marketing idea for the Pearl Milling Company from St. Joseph, Missouri. A minstrel show spurred the idea, and the woman behind the picture on the box was the real-life Nancy Green, a formerly enslaved cook, nanny, and activist. She agreed to portray Aunt Jemima and even performed for the milling company at the Chicago World's Fair. Over time, the real story of Nancy was melded into the fictional character and story that the Pearl Milling company's ad exec created.
Manring details the usage of the Aunt Jemima character in advertising throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, its racist implications, and the protests demanding her remove her from packaging and advertising. The book was published before the actual removal of Aunt Jemima's likeness, and I'd be curious if this book had any sway in that ultimate decision.
This a very well-researched look at advertising in the 19th and 20th centuries and using stereotypes to promote a product.
Manring details the usage of the Aunt Jemima character in advertising throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, its racist implications, and the protests demanding her remove her from packaging and advertising. The book was published before the actual removal of Aunt Jemima's likeness, and I'd be curious if this book had any sway in that ultimate decision.
This a very well-researched look at advertising in the 19th and 20th centuries and using stereotypes to promote a product.
October 2, 2015
Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima by M. M. Manning relates the product and marketing history of Aunt Jemima pancake mix. The controversy of the recognizable figure of Aunt Jemima re-ignited in the news not too long ago, but most people have no idea that the model for the character had no connection with the recipe. Spoiler alert: The pancake mix recipe was actually created by…a WHITE MALE!! This is a story that people need to read to get the backstory.
This was a very interesting look at an iconic (good or bad) advertising campaign. I thought more detail would have been appropriate in some places, and more illustrations would be welcome. It was interesting to see how the advertising gurus felt about their target audiences...not good. I admit that I purchase Aunt Jemima products; they're good, I know my family likes them, and they're easy to use. If the company divorced the product from the name AND the picture, I would have no idea what I was purchasing. It is a sticky situation.
This was a very interesting look at an iconic (good or bad) advertising campaign. I thought more detail would have been appropriate in some places, and more illustrations would be welcome. It was interesting to see how the advertising gurus felt about their target audiences...not good. I admit that I purchase Aunt Jemima products; they're good, I know my family likes them, and they're easy to use. If the company divorced the product from the name AND the picture, I would have no idea what I was purchasing. It is a sticky situation.
December 28, 2022
One of the most necessary histories that details the exploitation and use of the racist Mammy caricature and the construction of a cereal company's way of selling a Black woman to white housewives who wouldn't find her "threatening." Much more than just a history of how Aunt Jemima was constructed as a product to sell to white buyers.
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February 28, 2025this might be the first book ive actually read cover to cover for college
February 27, 2021
Fact: Two men purchase a bankrupt flour mill. Purpose: "To create an amazing new self-rising pancake flour to the households of America." (p. 60)
Fact: Urbanization and rail transportation coupled with industrialized packaging went to the head of the creation of national brands available anywhere there were railways to move them. Mad Ave was born and that was coincident with Aunt Jemima Pancake mix.
WHO IS AUNT JEMIMA? Was there an Aunt Jemima? Is the story of Aunt Jemima's life as the MadMen of the early 20th Century fiction or based in fact?
TRUTH? MYTH? A MIX OF BOTH? I can just imagine how Samantha Stevens might react to Darren's latest campaign to sell Aunt Jemima as a venerable way of life in the Old South.
FACTS and COINCIDENCE MEET one night when he wanders into a blackface minstrel show featuring a large white man in blackface and drag, singing about the life of a slave on a plantation only to be transformed into the fat, cantankerous and sassy cook ruling the kitchen and everyone in it. The perfect Mammy of their dreams.
The story is most fascinating as it weaves the growth of advertising and branding along with the success of the pancake mix and how the madmen undertook the creation of an imaginary hero to her master at the plantation, a Rebel general and his attache who are lost in cross-fire of Yankees and the selfless gift of the "magic" formula to the flour men for a few dollars!
The racism, the Jim Crow attitude the disgusting misogyny portrayed in advertising's depiction of family life and heads of households in America is insidious and tuns a light on how Americans have been brainwashed and how easily led consumers can be.
Where's Endora when you need her to straighten out Dobbin? Or was he Durwood?
Fact: Urbanization and rail transportation coupled with industrialized packaging went to the head of the creation of national brands available anywhere there were railways to move them. Mad Ave was born and that was coincident with Aunt Jemima Pancake mix.
WHO IS AUNT JEMIMA? Was there an Aunt Jemima? Is the story of Aunt Jemima's life as the MadMen of the early 20th Century fiction or based in fact?
TRUTH? MYTH? A MIX OF BOTH? I can just imagine how Samantha Stevens might react to Darren's latest campaign to sell Aunt Jemima as a venerable way of life in the Old South.
FACTS and COINCIDENCE MEET one night when he wanders into a blackface minstrel show featuring a large white man in blackface and drag, singing about the life of a slave on a plantation only to be transformed into the fat, cantankerous and sassy cook ruling the kitchen and everyone in it. The perfect Mammy of their dreams.
The story is most fascinating as it weaves the growth of advertising and branding along with the success of the pancake mix and how the madmen undertook the creation of an imaginary hero to her master at the plantation, a Rebel general and his attache who are lost in cross-fire of Yankees and the selfless gift of the "magic" formula to the flour men for a few dollars!
The racism, the Jim Crow attitude the disgusting misogyny portrayed in advertising's depiction of family life and heads of households in America is insidious and tuns a light on how Americans have been brainwashed and how easily led consumers can be.
Where's Endora when you need her to straighten out Dobbin? Or was he Durwood?
July 29, 2023
The first Aunt Jemima was a fat white man in blackface, wearing women's clothes. He/she appeared in minstrel shows at the end of the 1800s. The character was appropriated as the trademark of a new pancake mix by the white owners of a St. Joseph, MO, outfit called "Pearl Milling Company." The pancake mix and Aunt Jemima later became the property of Quaker Oats. Their advertising campaigns were so successful that, even today, some people believe as truth the fictional story of a real black woman named Aunt Jemima inventing the pancake mix and selling it to the St. Joseph company. Many people think Nancy Green, a former slave who was living in Chicago and who was one of the first women hired to portray the fictional character, actually WAS Aunt Jemima. Therefore, they are upset that her "legacy" has been "erased" by Quaker Oats. (This book was written BEFORE Quaker Oats changed the name of the product to "Pearl Milling Company.") I wish the book had delved deeper into the Aunt Jemima advertising campaigns, as well as those of other products with racist beginnings (Uncle Ben's, Cream of Wheat, etc.), but it did a pretty good job. Oh, yes, according to the book, African Americans were never terribly impressed with Aunt Jemima and her story as a submissive black person in the days of slavery.
July 13, 2020
Aunt Jemima has been around so long and I have never thought about her history. I am so glad I read this informative book. It gives perspective on this racially charged figure. Mr. Manring answers all the "w" questions from journalism class. He covers both sides of the controversy and shows why this well-known figure is such a lightning rod.
August 13, 2019
Interesting but repetitive and limited in scope ...
January 16, 2022
I learned so much from Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemina. Next time somebody tries to say that the Aunt Jemima brand isn't racist, I'm going to send them a link to this book.
March 26, 2024
Nacy Green you deserve justice
April 1, 2024
A phenomenal exploration of how the Mammy figure operates within the coded legacy of Aunt Jemima through the character’s origins in blackface drag into its legacy of marketing campaigns.
September 11, 2011
This was the 1st book on "My Summer Reading List".It was an in-depth explanation as to how an African-American woman of the South became an "icon" from Civil War times to present day_as it is STILL on the shelves of grocery stores TODAY!Bottomline,slave_(aka Mammy)_"Slave in a Box" was to reassure the white women of the times(after the Civil War)that they still had a slave in their kitchen to prepare their PANCAKES!
A book YOU should rush out to get or purchase online & READ,immediately!It was called at that time & still TODAY_MARKETING!
A book YOU should rush out to get or purchase online & READ,immediately!It was called at that time & still TODAY_MARKETING!
February 10, 2014
This is a really interesting book--analyzing a product we all know (and some love)--Aunt Jemima.
One of the pitfalls, I found in this book, was the lengthy ramblings on topics that didn't necessarily add to (or subtract from) the study. One example being the in depth look at packaging and paper bags. How boring!
One of the pitfalls, I found in this book, was the lengthy ramblings on topics that didn't necessarily add to (or subtract from) the study. One example being the in depth look at packaging and paper bags. How boring!
May 11, 2014
I don't think I would've read this if not for my History of Mass Comm class, but it's actually a really good read. I learned so much about the importance of imagery, nostalgia and fable in advertising.
January 5, 2008
Aunt Jemima was a real person! Sort of. The history of the marketing campaign, mammies, and more.
March 26, 2008
It's the history of Aunt Jemima. Wow...who knew that she was supposed to be a slave. OK, I guess I should have guessed, but she looks so nice and professional on the box now.
November 14, 2011
great historical read
August 13, 2014
A very throughout provoking and intriguing look at advertising, race, gender, and culture in the South. Will change the way you think when you're at the grocery store.
Want to read
December 12, 2016#UnderstandingOpression
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews