This article is about the food products brand formerly known as Aunt Jemima. For the vaudeville performer using the Aunt Jemima stage bannock mix, see Tess Gardella. American breakfast brand for pancake mix, syrup, and other breakfast food products.

1889 by the Pearl Milling Company and was advertised as the first ready-mix cooking product. Nancy Green portrayed the Aunt Jemima character at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, one of the first Black corporate models in the United States. Aunt Jemima is modeled after, and has been a famous example of, the “Mammy” archetype in the Southern United States. Rutt’s recipe from November 1, 1889, on display at Patee House museum in St. Rutt and his friend Charles G. Underwood bought a small flour mill at 214 North 2nd St. To distinguish their pancake mix, in fall 1889 Rutt appropriated the Aunt Jemima name and image from lithographed posters seen at a vaudeville house in St.

However, Rutt and Underwood could not raise enough capital and quickly ran out of money. The brand became successful enough that the Davis Milling Company was renamed Aunt Jemima Mills in February 1914. In 1915, the well-known Aunt Jemima brand was the basis for a trademark law ruling that set a new precedent. The Quaker Oats Company purchased the Aunt Jemima Mills Company in 1926, and formally registered the Aunt Jemima trademark in April 1937.

It became one of the longest continually running logos and trademarks in the history of American advertising. Quaker Oats introduced Aunt Jemima syrup in 1966. This was followed by Aunt Jemima Butter Lite syrup in 1985 and Butter Rich syrup in 1991. Aunt Jemima branded frozen foods were licensed out to Aurora Foods in 1996, which was absorbed into Pinnacle Foods in 2004.

The earliest advertising was based upon a vaudeville parody, and remained a caricature for many years. Quaker Oats commissioned Haddon Sundblom, a nationally known commercial artist, to paint a portrait of an obese actress named Anna Robinson, and the Aunt Jemima package was redesigned around the new likeness. Jaffee, a freelance artist from the Bronx, New York, also designed one of the images of Aunt Jemima used by Quaker Oats to market the product into the mid-20th century. Just as the formula for the mix changed several times over the years, so did the Aunt Jemima image. In 1968, the face of Aunt Jemima became a composited creation. She was slimmed down from her previous appearance, depicting a more “svelte” look, wearing a white collar, and geometric print “headband” still resembling her previous kerchief.