What Time Do We Go to Art Mammy Mama

Mammy is the virtually well known and enduring racial extravaganza of African American women. The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University has more than 100 items with the mammy image, including ashtrays, souvenirs, postcards, fishing lures, detergent, artistic prints, toys, candles, and kitchenware. This article examines real mammies, fictional mammies, and commercial mammies.

Real Mammies

From slavery through the Jim Crow era, the mammy image served the political, social, and economic interests of mainstream white America. During slavery, the mammy caricature was posited as proof that blacks -- in this example, blackness women -- were contented, even happy, equally slaves. Her wide grin, hearty laugher, and loyal servitude were offered as prove of the supposed humanity of the establishment of slavery.

This was the mammy caricature, and, like all caricatures, it contained a little truth surrounded past a larger lie. The caricature portrayed an obese, coarse, maternal figure. She had neat love for her white "family," but often treated her ain family with disdain. Although she had children, sometimes many, she was completely desexualized. She "belonged" to the white family, though it was rarely stated. Unlike Sambo, she was a faithful worker. She had no black friends; the white family was her entire globe. Plainly, the mammy caricature was more myth than authentic portrayal.

Catherine Clinton (1982), a historian, claimed that real antebellum mammies were rare

Records do acknowledge the presence of female slaves who served as the "right hand" of plantation mistresses. Yet documents from the planter class during the kickoff fifty years post-obit the American Revolution reveal simply a scattering of such examples. Not until later on Emancipation did black women run white households or occupy in whatsoever significant number the special positions ascribed to them in sociology and fiction. The Mammy was created by white Southerners to redeem the relationship between blackness women and white men inside slave guild in response to the antislavery attack from the North during the ante-bellum period. In the chief records from before the Ceremonious State of war, hard prove for its being but does non appear.(pp. 201-202)

According to Patricia Turner (1994), Professor of African American and African Studies, earlier the Civil War just very wealthy whites could afford the luxury of "utilizing the (blackness) women as house servants rather than as field hands" (p. 44). Moreover, Turner claims that house servants were usually mixed raced, skinny (blacks were not given much food), and immature (fewer than 10 percent of black women lived beyond fifty years). Why were the fictional mammies so different from their real-life counterparts? The respond lies squarely inside the complex sexual relations between blacks and whites.

Abolitionists claimed that one of the many brutal aspects of slavery was that slave owners sexually exploited their female slaves, particularly light-skinned ones who approximated the mainstream definition of female person sexual attractiveness. The mammy caricature was deliberately synthetic to propose ugliness. Mammy was portrayed as night-skinned, ofttimes pitch black, in a society that regarded black skin as ugly, tainted. She was obese, sometimes morbidly overweight. Moreover, she was often portrayed every bit old, or at least middle-aged. The endeavor was to desexualize mammy. The implicit assumption was this: No reasonable white man would choose a fat, elderly blackness 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 past extension, the white family unit, was safe.

The sexual exploitation of blackness women by white men was unfortunately common during the antebellum period, and this was truthful irrespective of the economic human relationship involved; in other words, black women were sexually exploited past rich whites, center class whites, and poor whites. Sexual relations between blacks and whites -- whether consensual or rapes -- were taboo; however they occurred often. All black women and girls, regardless of their physical appearances, were vulnerable to existence sexually assaulted by white men. The mammy caricature tells many lies; in this instance, the prevarication is that white men did not notice black women sexually desirable.

The mammy caricature implied that black women were only fit to be domestic workers; thus, the stereotype became a rationalization for economic bigotry. During the Jim Crow menstruum, approximately 1877 to 1966, America's race-based, race-segregated job economy limited almost blacks to menial, low paying, low status jobs. Black women found themselves forced into one job category, house servant. Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (1987), a biographer of the Civil Rights Movement, described the limited opportunities for black women in the 1950s:

Jobs for clerks in dimestores, cashiers in markets, and telephone operators were numerous, only were not open to black women. A fifty-dollar-a-week worker could employ a black domestic to clean her home, cook the food, launder and iron clothes, and nurse the infant for as trivial equally xx dollars per week. (p. 107)

During slavery merely the very wealthy could afford to "buy" black women and utilise them as "business firm servants," but during Jim Crow fifty-fifty middle class white women could hire blackness domestic workers. These black women were non mammies. Mammy was "black, fat with huge breasts, and head covered with a kerchief to hide her nappy pilus, stiff, kind, loyal, sexless, religious and superstitious" (Christian, 1980, pp. 11-12). She spoke bastardized English language; she did non care about her appearance. She was politically rubber. She was culturally safety. She was, of form, a figment of the white imagination, a cornball yearning for a reality that never had been. The real-life black domestics of the Jim Crow era were poor women denied other opportunities. They performed many of the duties of the fictional mammies, but, unlike the caricature, they were dedicated to their own families, and often resentful of their lowly societal status.

Fictional Mammies

The slavery-era mammy did not want to be gratis. She was also busy serving equally surrogate mother/grandmother to white families. Mammy was so loyal to her white family that she was often willing to gamble her life to defend them. In D. W. Griffith'southward movie The Birth of a Nation (1915) -- based on Thomas Dixon's racist novel The Clansman (1905) -- the mammy defends her white master's home against black and white Marriage soldiers. The bulletin was articulate: Mammy would rather fight than be free. In the famous movie Gone With The Wind (Selznick & Fleming, 1939), the black mammy as well fights blackness soldiers whom she believes to be a threat to the white mistress of the business firm.

Mammy constitute life on vaudeville stages, in novels, in plays, and finally, in films and on tv. White men, wearing black face makeup, did vaudeville skits equally Sambos, Mammies, and other anti-black stereotypes. The standard for mammy depictions was offered by Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 volume, Uncle Tom'due south Cabin. The book'south mammy, Aunt Chloe, is described in this way:

A round, black, shiny face is hers, so glossy equally to suggest the thought that she might have been washed over with the whites of eggs, similar ane of her own tea rusks. Her whole plump countenance beams with satisfaction and contentment from under a well-starched checkered turban, bearing on it; still, if we must confess information technology, a trivial of that tinge of self-consciousness which becomes the first cook of the neighborhood, as Aunt Chloe was universally held and acknowledged to be.(Stowe, 1966, p. 31)

Aunt Chloe was nurturing and protective of "her" white family, but less caring toward her own children. She is the prototypical fictional mammy: cocky-sacrificing, white-identified, fat, asexual, good-humored, a loyal melt, housekeeper and quasi-family member.

During the first half of the 1900s, while black Americans were demanding political, social, and economic advancement, Mammy was increasingly popular in the field of entertainment. The kickoff talking movie was 1927's The Jazz Singer (Crosland) with Al Jolson in blackface singing "Mammy." In 1934 the movie Imitation of Life (Laemmle & Stahl) told the story of a black maid, Aunt Delilah (played by Louise Beavers) who inherited a pancake recipe. This pic mammy gave the valuable recipe to Miss Bea, her dominate. Miss Bea successfully marketed the recipe. She offered Aunt Delilah a 20 percent interest in the pancake company.

"You'll accept your ain car. Your own house," Miss Bea tells Aunt Delilah. Mammy is frightened. "My own house? You gonna send me away, Miss Bea? I can't live with you? Oh, Honey Chile, please don't send me abroad." Aunt Delilah, though she had lived her entire life in poverty, does not desire her ain house. "How I gonna take care of yous and Miss Jessie (Miss Bea's daughter) if I ain't here... I'se your cook. And I want to stay your cook." Regarding the pancake recipe, Aunt Delilah said, "I gives it to y'all, Honey. I makes you a present of it" (Bogle, 1994, p. 57). Aunt Delilah worked to keep the white family stable, only her own family disintegrated -- her self-hating daughter rejected her, then ran abroad from home to "laissez passer for white." Near the movie's decision, Aunt Delilah dies "of a broken heart."

Faux of Life was probably the highlight of Louise Beavers' acting career. Almost all of her characters, before and afterwards the Aunt Delilah role, were mammy or mammy-like. She played hopelessly naive maids in Mae West'due south She Done Him Wrong (Sherman, 1933), and Jean Harlow's Bombshell (Stromberg & Fleming, 1933). She played loyal servants in Made for Each Other (Selznick & Cromwell, 1939), and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (Frank, Panama & Potter, 1948), and several other movies.

Beavers had a weight problem: information technology was a constant battle for her to stay overweight. She oftentimes wore padding to give her the appearance of a mammy. Also, she had been reared in California, and she had to fabricate a southern accent. Moreover, she detested cooking. She was truly a fictional mammy.

Imitation of Life was remade (without the pancake recipe storyline) in 1959 (Hunter & Sirk). Information technology starred Lana Turner equally the white mistress, and Juanita Moore (in an Oscar-nominated All-time Supporting Actress functioning) as the mammy. Information technology was also a tear-jerker.

Hattie McDaniel was another well known mammy portrayer. In her early films, for example The Golden W (Grainger & Howard, 1932), and The Story of Temple Drake (Glazer & Roberts, 1933), she played unobtrusive, weak mammies. However, her function in Judge Priest (Wurtzel & Ford, 1934) signaled the beginning of the sassy, quick-tempered mammies that she popularized. She played the saucy mammy in many movies, including, Music is Magic (Stone & Marshall, 1935), The Little Colonel (DeSylva & Butler, 1935), Alice Adams (Berman & Stevens, 1935), Saratoga (Hyman & Conway, 1937), and The Mad Miss Manton (Wolfson & Jason, 1938). In 1939, she played Scarlett O'Hara's sassy but loyal servant in Gone With the Wind. McDaniel won an Oscar for all-time supporting actress, the first blackness to win an Academy Honor.

Hattie McDaniel was a gifted actress who added depth to the character of mammy; unfortunately, she, like well-nigh all blacks from the 1920s through 1950s, was typecast as a retainer. She was oft criticized by blacks for perpetuating the mammy extravaganza. She responded this fashion: "Why should I complain about making seven 1000 dollars a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making seven dollars a week actually existence i" (Bogle, 1994, p. 82).

Beulah was a idiot box prove, popular from 1950 to 1953, in which a mammy nurtures a white suburban family unit. Hattie McDaniel originated the role for radio; Louise Beavers performed the role on television. The Beulah image resurfaced in the 1980s when Nell Carter, a talented black vocalizer, played a mammy-like office on the situation comedy Gimme a Pause. She was dark-skinned, overweight, sassy, white-identified, and like Aunt Delilah in Imitation of Life, content to live in her white employer's home and nurture the white family.

Commercial Mammies

Mammy was born on the plantation in the imagination of slavery defenders, merely she grew in popularity during the period of Jim Crow. The mainstreaming of Mammy was primarily, merely non exclusively, the result of the fledging advertizing manufacture. The mammy paradigm was used to sell almost whatever household particular, peculiarly breakfast foods, detergents, planters, ashtrays, sewing accessories, and beverages. As early on every bit 1875, Aunt Sally, a Mammy epitome, appeared on cans of baking powder. Later, different Mammy images appeared on Luzianne coffee and cleaners, Fun to Launder detergent, Aunt Dinah molasses, and other products. Mammy represented wholesomeness. You tin can trust the mammy pitchwoman.

Mammy's most successful commercial expression was (and is) Aunt Jemima. In 1889, Charles Rutt, a Missouri newspaper editor, and Charles 1000. Underwood, a mill owner, developed the idea of a self-rising flour that only needed water. He chosen it Aunt Jemima'due south recipe. Rutt borrowed the Aunt Jemima name from a popular vaudeville song that he had heard performed by a team of minstrel performers. The minstrels included a skit with a southern mammy. Rutt decided to use the proper name and the prototype of the mammy-like Aunt Jemima to promote his new pancake mix. Unfortunately for him, he and his partner lacked the necessary capital to effectively promote and market the product. They sold the pancake recipe and the accompanying Aunt Jemima marketing idea to the R.T. Davis Mill Company.

The R.T. Davis Company improved the pancake formula, and, more chiefly, they developed an advertising program to utilize a real person to portray Aunt Jemima. The woman they found to serve as the live model was Nancy Light-green, who was born a slave in Kentucky in 1834. She impersonated Aunt Jemima until her death in 1923. Struggling with profits, R.T. Davis Company fabricated the bold decision to hazard their entire fortune and hereafter on a promotional exhibition at the 1893 Earth'south Exposition in Chicago. The Company constructed the world's largest flour barrel, 24 feet high and 12 feet beyond. Continuing nearly the basket, Nancy Green, dressed as Aunt Jemima, sang songs, cooked pancakes, and told stories about the Old South -- stories which presented the South as a happy place for blacks and whites alike. She was a huge success. She had served tens of thousands of pancakes past the time the off-white ended. Her success established her as a national celebrity. Her epitome was plastered on billboards nationwide, with the caption, "I'se in town, dearest." Green, in her role as Aunt Jemima, fabricated appearances at countless land fairs, flea markets, food shows, and local grocery stores. By the turn of the century, Aunt Jemima, forth with the Armour meat chef, were the two commercial symbols most trusted past American housewives (Sacharow, 1982, p. 82). Past 1910 more than 120 million Aunt Jemima breakfasts were being served annually. The popularity of Aunt Jemima inspired many giveaway and mail-in premiums, including, dolls, breakfast society pins, dishware, and recipe booklets.

The R.T. Davis Mill Company was renamed the Aunt Jemima Mills Company in 1914, and eventually sold to the Quaker Oats Company in 1926. In 1933 Anna Robinson, who weighed 350 pounds, became the second Aunt Jemima. She was much heavier and darker in complexion than was Nancy Dark-green. The third Aunt Jemima was Edith Wilson, who is known primarily for playing the office of Aunt Jemima on radio and boob tube shows betwixt 1948 and 1966. Past the 1960s the Quaker Oats Visitor was the marketplace leader in the frozen food business organisation, and Aunt Jemima was an American icon. In recent years, Aunt Jemima has been given a makeover: her skin is lighter and the handkerchief has been removed from her head. She at present has the appearance of an attractive maid -- non a Jim Crow era mammy.

© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Oct., 2000
Edited 2012

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References

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Bogle, D. (1994). Toms, coons, mulattoes, mammies, and bucks: An interpretive history of Blacks in American films (New 3rd ed.). New York, NY: Continuum.

Clinton, C. (1982). The plantation mistress: Woman's world in the old South. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Christian, B. (1980). Blackness women novelists: The development of a tradition 1892-1976. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press.

Crosland, A. (Director). (1927). The jazz singer [Motion picture]. United states: Warner Bros. Pictures.

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Dixon, T. (1905). The clansman: an historical romance of the Ku Klux Klan. New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap.

Frank, G., & Panama, N. (Producers), & Potter, H. C. (Director). (1948). Mr. Blandings builds his dream house [Motion moving-picture show]. United States: RKO Radio Pictures.

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Turner, P. A. (1994). Ceramic uncles & celluloid mammies: Black images and their influence on civilisation. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1994.

Wolfson, P. J. (Associate Producer), & Jason, Leigh (Director). (1938). The mad Miss Manton [Motion motion-picture show]. Us: RKO Radio Pictures.

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