Nancy Green

{{Short description|American model, cook, and activist (1834–1923)}}

{{About||the musician|Nancy Green (cellist)|the Canadian Senator and alpine skier|Nancy Greene}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2020|cs1-dates=ly}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Nancy Green

| image = Aunt Jemima, AB Frost.jpg

| caption = Portrait of Green as Aunt Jemima

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1834|3|4}}

| birth_place = Mount Sterling, Kentucky, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1923|8|30|1834|3|4}}

| death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

| nationality =

| other_names =

| occupation = Nanny, cook, model

| years_active =

| known_for = Aunt Jemima

| notable_works =

}}

Nancy Green (March 4, 1834 – August 30, 1923) was an American former slave, who, as "Aunt Jemima", was one of the first African-American models hired to promote a corporate trademark. The Aunt Jemima recipe was not her recipe, but she became the advertising world's first living trademark.{{cite web |url=https://aaregistry.org/story/nancy-green-the-original-aunt-jemima/ |title=Nancy Green, the original "Aunt Jemima" |website=aaregistry.org |date=2005 |quote=" She was a Black storyteller and one of the first (Black) corporate models in the United States. Nancy Green was born a slave in Montgomery County, Kentucky."|access-date=June 19, 2020}}

== Biography ==

Nancy Hayes (or Hughes) was born enslaved in the Antebellum South on March 4, 1834.

{{cite news |first=Alicestyne |last=Turley |url=https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article243794117.html |title=The real story behind 'Aunt Jemima,' and a woman born enslaved in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky |newspaper=Lexington Herald-Leader |date=June 25, 2020 |access-date=June 25, 2020}} Montgomery County Historical Society oral history places her birth at a farm on Somerset Creek, six miles outside Mount Sterling in Montgomery County, Kentucky. With George Green, she had at least two and as many as four children (one of whom was born in 1862). Local farmers from that area named Green raised tobacco, hay, cattle, and hogs. There were no birth certificates or marriage licenses for enslaved people.

{{cite news |first=Tom |last=Eblen |url=https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/community/article44153517.html |title=New location fitting for black history museum |newspaper=Lexington Herald-Leader |date=February 8, 2012 |access-date=June 22, 2020}}

{{cite news |url=https://www.courier-journal.com/story/money/2014/10/03/pancake-flap-aunt-jemima-heirs-seek-dough/16654599/ |title=Pancake flap: Aunt Jemima heirs seek dough |first=Jere |last=Downs |date=October 7, 2014 |newspaper=Louisville Courier Journal |access-date=June 25, 2020}}{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/obituaries/nancy-green-aunt-jemima-overlooked.html |title=Overlooked No More: Nancy Green, the 'Real Aunt Jemima' |first=Sam |last=Roberts |date=July 18, 2020 |newspaper=New York Times |access-date=2020-07-18}}

Nancy Green has been variously described as a servant, nurse, nanny, housekeeper, and cook for Samuel Johnson Walker and his wife Amanda.

{{cite news |title='Aunt Jemima' of Pancake Fame Is Killed by Auto |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/53739862/nancy-green-1834-1923/ |newspaper=Chicago Daily Tribune |date=September 4, 1923 |page=13 |via = Newspapers.com |access-date=June 19, 2020}} {{Open access}}

{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-aunt-jemima-brand-real-women-20200619-5wkt2euhrbcjdokrh5qvu6r7te-story.html |title=The real stories of the Chicago women who portrayed Aunt Jemima |first=John Mark |last=Hansen |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=June 19, 2020 |access-date=June 22, 2020}}

She also served the family's next generation, again as a nanny and a cook. Walker's two sons later became well known as Chicago Circuit Judge Charles Morehead Walker., and Dr. Samuel J. Walker.

By the end of the American Civil War, Green had already lost her husband and children. She lived in a wood frame shack (still standing as of 2014) behind a grand home on Main Street in Covington, Kentucky.

She moved with the Walkers from Kentucky to Chicago in the early 1870s, before the birth of Samuel's youngest child in 1872.

The Walker family initially settled in a swank residential district near Ashland Avenue and Washington Boulevard called the "Kentucky Colony", then home to many transplanted Kentuckians.

File:Aunt Jemima's Pancake Flour (1894) (ADVERT 407).jpeg

On the recommendation of Judge Walker,

{{cite book |last=Kern-Foxworth |first=Marilyn |title=Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and Rastus: Blacks in advertising, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Public Relations Review |publisher=Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press |year=1994 |url=http://testaae.greenwood.com/doc_print.aspx?fileID=GR5184&chapterID=GR5184-561&path=books/greenwood |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140424192836/http://testaae.greenwood.com/doc_print.aspx?fileID=GR5184&chapterID=GR5184-561&path=books%2Fgreenwood |archive-date=April 24, 2014 |volume=16 (Fall):59}} she was hired by the R.T. Davis Milling Company in St. Joseph, Missouri, to represent "Aunt Jemima", an advertising character named after a song from a minstrel show. According to Maurice M. Manring, the company's search for "A real living black woman, instead of a white man in blackface and drag, would reinforce the product's authenticity and origin as the creation of a real ex-slave."{{cite book |first=Maurice M. |last=Manring |title= Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima |publisher=University of Virginia Press |year=1998 |isbn=0-8139-1811-1 |url-access= registration |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780813918112}} - Article on book: Slave in a Box

At the age of fifty-nine, Green made her debut as Aunt Jemima at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago, beside the "world's largest flour barrel" (twenty-four feet high), where she operated a pancake-cooking display, sang songs, and promoted the product.

{{cite book |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/31544 |title=Black Hunger: Soul Food and America |first=Doris |last=Witt |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8166-4551-0}}

{{Cite book |last=Wallace-Sanders |first=Kimberly |year=2008 |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/185123470 |title=Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory |chapter=Dishing Up Dixie: Recycling the Old South |pages=58–72 |isbn=978-0-472-11614-0 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |location=Ann Arbor |oclc=185123470}}{{cite web |url=https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/diversity/african/1-mammy/index.html |title=Caricatures of African Americans: Mammy |date=November 25, 2012 |publisher=Regnery Publishing |access-date=June 19, 2020 |archive-date=2020-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622062350/https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/diversity/african/1-mammy/index.html |url-status=dead }}

After the Expo, Green was reportedly offered a lifetime contract to adopt the Aunt Jemima moniker and promote the pancake mix; however, she would only choose to serve in the position for twenty years.

{{Cite book|last=McElya |first=Micki |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/433147574 |title=Clinging to mammy: the faithful slave in twentieth-century America |date=2007 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-04079-3 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |oclc=433147574}} This marked the beginning of a major promotional push by the company that included thousands of personal appearances and Aunt Jemima merchandising. She appeared at fairs, festivals, flea markets, food shows, and local grocery stores. Her arrival was heralded by large billboards featuring the caption, "I's in town, honey."

Despite her "lifetime contract", she portrayed the role for no more than twenty years.

She refused to cross the ocean for the 1900 Paris exhibition.

{{cite news |url=https://www.wbez.org/stories/the-fight-to-preserve-the-legacy-of-nancy-green-the-chicago-woman-who-played-the-original-aunt-jemima/52ed36eb-d4f0-4747-ac65-62b4c4150e9f |title=The Fight To Preserve The Legacy Of Nancy Green, The Chicago Woman Who Played The Original 'Aunt Jemima' |publisher=WBEZ |first=Katherine |last=Nagasawa |date=June 19, 2020 |access-date=June 22, 2020}}

She was replaced by Agnes Moodey, deemed by the company to be "a Negress of sixty years".

{{cite news |title="Aunt Jemima" Back: Famous Baker of Hoe Cakes Returns from Her Service in Corn Kitchen of Paris Exposition" |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34504432/aunt-jemima-actress-agnes-moodey/ |newspaper=Independence Daily Reporter |location=Independence, Kansas |date=December 3, 1900 |page=4 |via = Newspapers.com |access-date=June 24, 2020}} {{Open access}} After Green's death other women were hired by Quaker Oats to portray the role of Aunt Jemima, including Lillian Richard.{{cite news |last=Scholosberg |first=Jon |last2=Roberts |first2=Deborah |date=12 August 2020 |title=The untold story of the real 'Aunt Jemima' and the fight to preserve her legacy |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/untold-story-real-aunt-jemima-fight-preserve-legacy/story?id=72293603 |work=ABC News |access-date=29 February 2024}}

In 1910, at age 76, Green was still working as a residential housekeeper according to the census.

Few people were aware of her role as Aunt Jemima. Green lived with nieces and nephews in Chicago's Fuller Park and Grand Boulevard neighborhoods into her old age. At the time of her death, she was living with her great-nephew and his wife.