In 1889, Charles Rutt and Chris Underwood founded the Pearl Milling Company.
They created the first ready-mixed pancake flour. Charles Rutt chose Aunt Jemima as advertising’s first living trademark.
The product was originally named ‘Self-Rising Pancake Flour’ and sold in bags. In the fall of 1889 Rutt was inspired to rename the mix after attending a minstrel show during which a popular song titled ‘Old Aunt Jemima’ was performed by men in blackface, one of whom was depicting a slave mammy of plantation South.
In 1890 Aunt Jemima Manufacturing Company replaced Pearl Milling Company. Chris Underwood’s brother Bert was responsible for registering the Aunt Jemima trademark.
The Pearl Company had been in financial trouble and their owners were forced, in 1893 to sell their new pancake formula to a larger corporation owned by R.G Davis of Chicago.
Davis promoted both product and image; in the same year the company hired 59 year-old Nancy Green, and African American woman who was a cook for a Chicago judge, to dress in gingham, apron and head bandana to demonstrate their new Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix.
The Davis Company prospered and by 1910, the name of Aunt Jemima was known in all 48 states and had attained such popularity that many people tried to infringe on the trademark rights.
In 1914, the image of Aunt Jemima was so popular that the company was renamed the Aunt Jemima Mill Company.
In 1926 Aunt Jemima Mills Company was sold to Quaker Oats Company for over four million dollars. The image of ‘Aunt Jemima’ remained on the packages.
History of Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix
