History of Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix

Aunt Jemima pancake flour is the first nationally distributed ready-mix food and one of the earliest products to be marketed through personal appearances and advertisements featuring its namesakes.

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

Business history of pancakes in United States

The prototypical American pancakes probably arrived with the earliest English and Dutch settlers, whose pancake traditions dated back to at least the fifteenth century and possibly as far back as prehistoric times.

New Englanders called them flapjacks in honor of the custom of flipping them in the pan with a flick of the wrist.

Pancakes became signature dishes at some casual restaurant chains. In 1889 International House of Pancake was launched in a Los Angeles suburb.

The popularity of pancake restaurants or pancake houses serve packages to suit every taste and time of day, from sweet to savory from breakfast to dinner.

Pancakes became part of fast food breakfast menus in the 1970s, when Jim Delligati, an early MacDonald’s franchisee in Pittsburgh began serving a simple breakfast menu, which included pancakes.

In 1899 Chris L. Rutt and Charles G. Underwood introduced the first ready-mixed commercial food product, which was later renamed Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix.

In the late 1930s, Henri Charpentier, a French chef, brought the recipe for his crepe Suzette with him when he immigrated to the United States.

He is credited with popularizing the French pancake in America. At first they were served with butter, sugar and citrus juice or liqueur. But Americans soon were using maple-flavored syrup and filling them with savory fruits or even chocolate chips.

In 2003 MacDonald’s introduced the McGriddle, which is bacon or a pork sausage wrapped in pancake with syrup.

Later Burger King introduced the Ultimate Breakfast Platter, composed of scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, a biscuits and three pancakes with syrup.
Business history of pancakes in United States

International House of Pancakes

In 1958, one of America’s most well-known breakfast staples opened to public in a Los Angeles suburb.

The restaurant, whose menu was originally focused on pancakes, quickly grew in popularity. Three years later the restaurant began national franchising.

Little did their founder Al Lapin and Jerry Lapin know that their International House of Pancakes (IHOP) would in fact, gain international level.

They built the first blue-roofed International House of Pancakes and turned the business into a $40 million conglomerate by 1970.

In November 2007, International House of Pancakes acquired Applebee’s International, Inc. for $2.1 billion, which included more than 3,250 restaurants.
International House of Pancakes