Slave in a box : the strange career of Aunt Jemima / M. M. Manring.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Manring, M. M., 1962-

Contributor:

Joanna Banks Collection of African American Books (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

American South series

The American South series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jemima, Aunt.

Jemima.

Advertising--Social aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Advertising.

Advertising--Social aspects.

Stereotypes (Social psychology) in advertising.

African American women in advertising.

United States.

History.

African American women in advertising--United States.

Stereotypes (Social psychology) in advertising--United States.

Quaker Oats Company.

Penn Provenance:

Banks, Joanna (donor) (Banks Collection copy)

Physical Description:

ix pages, 3 unnumbered pages 210 pages, 2 unnumbered pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, 1998.

Summary:

The figure of the mammy occupies a central place in the lore of the Old South and has long been used to illustrate 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. The author traces the evolution of the mammy from her roots in 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". The reader learns 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. Hercontinued 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.

Contents:

Cracking Jokes in the Confederate Supermarket

Someone's in the Kitchen: Mammies, Mothers, and Others

From Minstrel Shows to the World's Fair: The Birth of Aunt Jemima

They Were What They Are: James Webb Young and the Reconstruction of American Advertising

The Old South, the Absent Mistress, and the Slave in a Box

The Secret of the Bandanna: The Mammy in Contemporary Society.

Notes:

"First published February 1998. Second paperback printing June 1998."

"Jacket art: Detail from 'At the World's Far in '93, Aunt Jemima Was a Sensation,' Ladies Home Journal ..."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-206) and index.

Local Notes:

Kislak Center Banks Collection copy presented to the Penn Libraries in 2018 by Joanna Banks.

Banks Collection copy is "Second paperback printing June 1998".

Banks Collection copy has stamp of "Smithsonian Libaries", call number written on title page and pasted on spine and bar code on back cover.

ISBN:

0813917824

0813918111

OCLC:

37451829