In this essay I aim to explore the evolution of branding for Pearl Milling Company, known for its controversial past rooted in racial stereotyping. I will outline how and why the company deliberately used the ‘mammy’ archetype to its advantage, and the dire consequences this has on black female identity. In doing so, I will reference literature analyzing this archetype to better explain it, as well as provide some statistical data to show the socioeconomic differences between blacks and whites in 19th Century America to support my claims.
Pearl Milling Company, formerly known as Aunt Jemima, was founded by two white men named Chris Rutt and Charles Underwood in 1889 (Snouwert). The name Aunt Jemima supposedly originates from a blackface performance show Rutt was inspired by, that featured the minstrelsy song “Old Aunt Jemima” (Aunt Jemima Pancakes). The actor that played Aunt Jemima in this show “wore an apron and a kerchief” (Aunt Jemima Pancakes), details that Rutt appropriated and used for the logo of his brand. This logo would soon become one of the most controversial yet “longest continually running logos and trademarks in the history of American advertising” (Aunt Jemima Pancakes). It depicts an elderly black woman portrayed to fit the stereotypical ‘mammy’ image, popular in mainstream white America from the time of slavery through the Jim Crow era (Pilgrim). The dictionary definition of mammy is "a Black woman serving as a nurse to white children especially formerly in the southern U.S" (Merriam-Webster), but the implied meaning of the word holds a darker connotation. It is a sort of caricature built by white supremacist thought processes that intended to devalue the black female identity. According to Professor of Sociology David Pilgrim:
The caricature portrayed an obese, coarse, maternal figure. She had great love for her white "family," but often treated her own family with disdain. Although she had children, sometimes many, she was completely desexualized. She "belonged" to the white family, though it was rarely stated. […] She was a faithful worker. She had no black friends; the white family was her entire world. Obviously, the mammy caricature was more myth than accurate portrayal (Pilgrim).
This mold of the black identity was made for the white identity and was the only way they would accept anyone of a darker skin colour, if they proved their inferiority by surrendering to, and happily serving the whites. The logo and branding of Aunt Jemima played off of this sentiment, and the fact that it was so popular reflects the ignorance of society with regards to racial identity and equality in the late 1800’s.
The target audience for this product at the time of it’s founding were white households. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Black households were not emancipated enough to have disposable income to splurge on ready-made pancake mix, as most worked labor intensive jobs. For example, the occupational distribution of whites in Proprietor/Manager/Official jobs was 6.9% whereas of blacks it was a mere 0.8% (Maloney). This is juxtaposed by 11% of whites in farm labourer jobs and close to 23% of blacks in the same field (Maloney). We see this reflected in the branding of Aunt Jemima and this explains why a black identity would be misused and made unrelatable for black consumers, as it advertises solely to a white population. It sells white families the fantasy of having a black servant in an era where slavery had just been abolished. Funnily enough, the mammy archetype advertised is far from the reality of black women in white households. According to Patricia Turner (1994), Professor of African American and African Studies, before the Civil War only very wealthy whites could afford the luxury of "utilizing the (black) women as house servants rather than as field hands" (p. 44). Moreover, house servants were usually mixed raced, skinny (blacks were not given much food), and young (fewer than 10 percent of black women lived beyond fifty years) (Turner). This brings up the question of why the depiction of the mammy is so different from what actual black house maids were like. David Pilgrim answers this in the most lucid way in The Mammy Caricature;
The mammy caricature was deliberately constructed to suggest ugliness. Mammy was portrayed as dark-skinned, often pitch black, in a society that regarded black skin as ugly, tainted. She was obese, sometimes morbidly overweight. Moreover, she was often portrayed as old, or at least middle-aged. The attempt was to desexualize mammy. The implicit assumption was this: No reasonable white man would choose a fat, elderly black woman instead of the idealized white woman. The black mammy was portrayed as lacking all sexual and sensual qualities. The de-eroticism of mammy meant that the white wife -- and by extension, the white family, was safe (Pilgrim).
With the founding of The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in 1909 and the Civil Rights Movement between 1954 and 1968, we see dialogue surrounding racial discrimination being encouraged by those who wish to create a more accepting and diverse society. The popular mindset is shifting from accepting and participating in racist thought processes to questioning these thought processes. In 1925 Quaker Oats takes over the Aunt Jemima brand, and tries rebranding it in a way that tackles these shifting mindsets to remain politically correct, yet to preserve the brand identity of mammy culture.
We see slight design changes throughout the evolution of the logo that reflect the changing values of society- or rather, white society. The character of the ‘mammy’ in the logo starts adapting to modern aesthetics, for a society that once called curves beautiful but now has ‘skinny’ as the definition of beauty. The character in the logo went from a dark-complexioned plump woman wearing a handkerchief to a less-dark and less-plump woman with pearl earrings and a lace collar. These stylistic changes mirror changes in society, but by no means reflect a society open to equality and diversity. The difference in skin color of the character in the logo shows white preference for, and acceptance of, a lighter skin color. The target audience for this product remains the same- white households- but this audience is now questioning the racist stereotype that this brand appropriates. We see how Quaker Oats- a large commercial body- rebrands in a deceivingly clever manner, making superficial changes instead of tackling it’s deep-rooted racism. The ability of consumers to buy into this marketing, and to continue supporting a brand that appropriates black culture shows the ignorance of society with regards to race and racial stereotypes.
As part of the branding evolution, the company also commissioned multiple women to take on the role of Aunt Jemima in real life. Nancy Green was the first of many to take on this role and become somewhat of a living trademark, and was recruited in 1890 as the characters original incarnation. Her background of being a plantation slave worker (“Nancy Green, the original 'aunt jemima' born”) was used to the advantage of the company, and they hired her to sell the illusion of a happy mammy alongside selling the pancake mix (“Nancy Green, the original 'aunt jemima' born”). According to Sam Roberts from the New York Times she would;
Flip flapjacks in a flour barrel-shaped pavilion 16 feet in diameter while singing spirituals and other obligatory tunes and waxing rhapsodic about antebellum plantation servitude under benevolent white masters (Roberts).
In my opinion, this intensifies the harmful effect of the Aunt Jemima branding for the black female identity. Aunt Jemima goes from being an image on a box to a living breathing embodiment of the mammy archetype. One of the most dangerous aspects of mammy culture is the acceptance of only positive emotional expression of black female individuals. The perpetuation of this archetype creates a toxic environment for black women as it invalidates any feelings or emotions that aren’t happy, such as anger, sadness, frustration, or just about any other negative emotion that makes someone human. It creates a society that only accepts black females if they conform to emotions linked to the mammy stereotype of being accommodating, self-less and submissive. The false representation of black femininity impacts black women in all areas of life, but especially in career development. The following paragraph is from a research paper on how the mammy archetype affects attitudes toward black female professors in higher education:
The Mammy trope permeates the walls of higher education in ways that leave Black female professors feeling disrespected, not acknowledged, and questioning their own intellectual ability. The ways in which students, faculty, and staff interact with Black female faculty members is termed accordingly as “Mammy moments.” [These] are the overt and covert behaviors, attitudes, preconceived notions, and stereotypes that are held on, over, and against Black female professors. […] Black female professors are presented and represented as lacking the skills, knowledge, and capabilities to be a critically component and credible college professor (Howard-Baptiste).
The Aunt Jemima logo and brand name finally phased out this year, in 2021, with a slow transition into the new name Pearl Milling Company and an illustrated logo of an old mill. In response to this change, the brands chief marketing officer Kristen Kroepfl replied, "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" (Valinsky). Personally, I don’t think stylistic changes of adding pearl earrings count as deracializing a brand identity. I think the brand tried holding onto the Aunt Jemima identity for as long as they possibly could without being boycotted by the public. They saw what worked for them, and prioritized sales over the fight for racial equality. 2021 is the year of uprising, with Black Lives Matter protests and the George Floyd incident that brought light to unjust police brutality against people of color. This incident is what sparked a change in branding for Aunt Jemima, but if the sociopolitical environment of this era was not in favor of racial equality, I do not think the company would have taken steps to move away from misusing and misrepresenting black female identity.
To conclude, the Aunt Jemima branding evolution reflects racist mindsets prevalent throughout the last two centuries, and shows us how advertising is influenced and controlled by popular social values. It also highlights the power of design in shaping societal values, giving us more of a reason to pay more close attention to it. Most importantly, this example shows us the consequences of misusing and appropriating cultural identities, an issue we as a design community have just begun to tackle.
Citations:
Snouwert, J. (2020, June 17). Aunt Jemima's logo has changed 6 times, and its history is rooted in racial stereotypes and slavery — check out how the brand started and evolved over 130 years. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/aunt-jemima-history-logo-changed-6-times-rooted-racial-stereotypes-2020-6
Nancy Green, the original 'aunt jemima' born. African American Registry. (1834, November 17). Retrieved December 8, 2021, from https://aaregistry.org/story/nancy-green-the-original-aunt-jemima/
Aunt Jemima Pancakes, a story. African American Registry. (1899, November 1). Retrieved December 8, 2021, from https://aaregistry.org/story/aunt-jemima-pancakes-sold-in-stores/.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Mammy. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved December 8, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mammy
Maloney, T. N. (n.d.). African Americans in the Twentieth Century. Economic History net. Retrieved December 8, 2021, from https://eh.net/encyclopedia/african-americans-in-the-twentieth-century/
Valinsky, J. (2020, June 17). The aunt jemima brand, acknowledging its racist past, will be retired. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/business/aunt-jemima-logo-change/index.html.
Roberts, S. (2020, July 17). Overlooked no more: Nancy Green, the ‘real aunt jemima. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/obituaries/nancy-green-aunt-jemima-overlooked.html.
Howard-Baptiste, S.D. Arctic Space, Lonely Place: “Mammy Moments” in Higher Education. Urban Rev 46, 764–782 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-014-0298-1
Pilgrim, D. (2002, July). The Mammy Caricature. Ferris State University- Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/mammies/
Turner, P. A. (1994). Ceramic uncles & celluloid mammies: Black images and their influence on culture. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1994.
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