Lincoln test-fired muskets and repeating rifles on the grassy expanses around the White House, now known as the Ellipse and the National Mall.

Abraham Lincoln's log cabin “rail-splitter” provenance was well known, and it helped make him hugely popular with average voters hungry for a new political hero. Despite his lack of family pedigree, fortune, or schooling, Lincoln made a career of being underestimated, overcompensating with a brilliant, active intellect. The farmboy turned president especially loved innovations and inventions. Lincoln is the only U.S. president to win a patent – No. 6469, issued in May 1849 for a “Method of Buoying Vessels Over Shoals.”

Lincoln’s natural interest in things mechanical would come to be tested — and celebrated — in the Civil War. The North’s huge advantage in men and technology was only as good as the tools of war that Lincoln’s Bureau of Ordnance was able to place into those men’s hands.

The president took a particular interest in rifles and ammunition as well. Infantry warfare was quickly making the transition from the smoothbore muskets that won the Revolutionary War to “rifled” weapons that were more accurate, with greater range and firepower. While the smoothbores could still be effective in close quarters, inventors and arms manufacturers sought ways to increase the distance and speed with which soldiers could fight more effectively.

One such inventor was Christopher Miner Spence of Connecticut. Spencer learned the machinist’s trade as a 14-year-old apprentice at a silk manufacturing company and later worked at the Samuel Colt factory in Hartford, where he learned how to make fire-arms. The Colt factory was famous for pistols and other sidearms, but Spencer became convinced of the feasibility of designing a breech-loaded repeating rifle that could be reloaded easily and rapidly.

Christopher Miner Spencer, Magazine Gun, U.S. patent number 27,393, March 6, 1860

A Spencer Model 1860 repeating rifle.

At the time, a single-shot, muzzle-loaded gun could be fired perhaps three times a minute by an experienced rifleman. Spencer conceived of loading the weapon instead through the rifle breech (thus eliminating the need for ramming the round down the barrel), and created a magazine capable of storing seven shells, which could be sequentially spring-loaded and fired by simply cocking and replacing the trigger-guard lever. The “Spencer Repeating Rifle” was capable of firing 15 to 20 rounds a minute. Though his was not the first breech-loaded weapon, his improvements to the existing art justified a government patent, which he received in 1860.

Christopher Miner Spencer

Spencer’s first government order, in mid-1861, was 700 rifles to the Union Navy. His financial partner Charles Cheney was able to secure for Spencer an audience with the Navy’s director of ordnance, John Dahlgren, in June 1861, through the assistance of Cheney’s friend Gideon Welles, the secretary of the Navy. During two days of rigorous testing (including burying the rifle in sand, and immersing it overnight in saltwater), the Spencer rifle fired successfully over 250 times, reportedly with only one misfire.

Spencer’s company had early production and financing problems — he was, after all, an inventor and not a businessman — and was unable to meet even the modest Navy Department order in a timely fashion. But the real roadblock to wider military acceptance and development of the Spencer rifle was the Department of War Chief of Ordnance, Gen. James Ripley, who dismissed the Spencer and similar breechloaders as just “newfangled gimcracks,” and he refused to authorize their purchase.

After two years of personally demonstrating the Spencer to Army and Navy commanders in the field, including General Ulysses S. Grant (who reportedly pronounced it “the best breechloading arms available”), Spencer finally decided to take his case to the top. Again with Cheney’s aid, Spencer was able to secure a meeting with President Lincoln.

Security not being quite what it is today, Spencer recalled in his memoirs that:

on August 17, 1863, I arrived at the White House with the rifle in hand, and was immediately ushered into the executive room, where I found the President alone. After a brief introduction, I took the rifle from its cloth case and handed it to him. Examining it carefully, and handling it as one familiar with firearms, Mr. Lincoln requested me to take it apart ‘and show the inwardness of the thing.’ The separate parts were soon laid on the table before him. It was the simplicity of the gun which appealed to President Lincoln, and he was greatly impressed with the fact that all that was needed to take it apart was a screw driver. With this implement he bared the vitals of the gun and replaced them so that the gun was ready to shoot in a few minutes.

Impressed with its design, the president invited Spencer to meet him the next day to test the weapon himself.

Lincoln’s personal participation in the procurement process was not always supported by his appointees. Even Welles, one of the president’s fiercest and most loyal defenders, complained in his personal diary that the president was too involved in ordnance procurement. When Lincoln championed a new type of gunpowder to Dahlgren, Welles confided in his diary that he “cautioned [Dahlgren], as I have had occasion to do repeatedly, against encouraging the President in these well-intentioned but irregular proceedings. He assures me he does restrain the President as far as respect will permit, but his ‘restraints’ are impotent, valueless. He is no check on the President, who has a propensity to engage in matters of this kind and is liable to be constantly imposed upon by sharpers and adventurers. Finding the heads of Departments opposed to these schemes, the President goes often behind them, as in this instance; and subordinates, flattered by his notice, encourage him.”

True to form, Lincoln prepared to personally test the Spencer. At the appointed time on August 18, Spencer arrived at the White House and accompanied the president, his son Robert and an official from the Navy Department, who carried the rifle, target, and ammunition, for a short walk to the Mall, near the site of the unfinished Washington Monument. Lincoln stopped by the War Department on the way and his son Robert invited War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton to accompany the party for the test, but the secretary declined due to the press of business. “They do pretty much as they have a mind to over there,” mused the president philosophically. So, minus the hard-working secretary of war, the president’s party proceeded to the Mall to try out the Spencer Repeater.

This was not Lincoln’s only trip to the makeshift shooting range near the White House. One of his private secretaries, William O. Stoddard, recalled accompanying Lincoln on similar occasions: “On the grounds near the Potomac, south of the White House, was a huge pile of old lumber, not to be damaged by balls, and a good many mornings I have been out there with the President, by the previous appointment, to try such rifles as were sent in. There was no danger of hitting anyone, and the President, who was a very good shot, enjoyed the relaxation very much.” Another secretary, John Hay, reported that on these excursions Lincoln “used to quote with much merriment the solemn dictum of one rural inventor that ‘a gun ought not to rekyle; if it rekyled at all, it ought to rekyle a little forrid.’”

On this occasion though, the President was all business. Spencer recalled:

The target was a board about six inches wide and three feet high, with a black spot on each end, about forty yards away. The rifle contained seven cartridges. Mr. Lincoln’s first shot was about five inches low, but the next shot hit the bull’s-eye and the other five were close around it. ‘Now,’ said Mr. Lincoln, ‘we will see the inventor try it.’ The board was reversed and I fired at the other bull’s-eye, beating the President a little. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘you are younger than I am and have a better eye and a steadier nerve.’

At the conclusion of the day’s shooting, Spencer was presented with the half of the target used by the president as a souvenir of his visit, which many years later he donated to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois. The president meanwhile must have enjoyed the outing, and the uncommonly pleasant August weather, as he went out again the next day with his “Spencer” for another hour’s shooting with Hay.

Inscription on Lincoln Target Board. 7 consecutive shots made by the President of the United States with Spencer at a distance of forty yards, Washington D.C. August 18, 1863.

For Christopher Spencer and his fledgling company, the time spent at target practice with the president was well worth it. Less than a month after their meeting, the incorrigible and aging General Ripley was forcibly retired from active duty by Secretary Stanton, and assigned to be inspector of forts in New England. The Bureau of Ordnance soon after placed additional orders for the Spencer Repeaters, and by the end of the Civil War, some 85,000 of them (both rifles and carbines) had been put in service. (Rifle-like weapons with a barrel length of less than 20 inches are typically considered to be carbines. Weapons with barrels greater than 20 inches are usually called rifles unless specifically called carbines by the manufacturer.)

Spencer Model 1863 Carbine repeating rifle.

And only a month after Spencer’s outing with Lincoln, the Spencers proved their mettle. At the Battle of Chickamauga, a Union brigade under Col. John Wilder, all equipped with Spencers, held off and virtually destroyed a much larger Confederate regiment of Gen. John Bell Hood as it breached the Union lines and threatened to collapse the entire northern flank of the Union line’s southern branch.

The Spencer Repeater had only one stain on its record. In April 1865, less than two weeks after Lincoln’s assassination, Union soldiers searched for and surrounded a fugitive from justice in the Virginia countryside. As he lay dying in a barn on Garrett’s Farm, John Wilkes Booth was found armed with a large bowie knife, two pistols – and a Spencer carbine.

Jed Morrison, New York Times

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

A Replica Lincoln Statue is Removed in Boston, Massachusetts. The Original Statue Remains in Washington D.C.

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In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

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A replica of a controversial statue of Abraham Lincoln standing over a newly emancipated Black man—the figure modeled on Archer Alexander, the last man recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act—has been removed from Park Square in Boston, Massachusetts. The original statue in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood at Lincoln Park was also criticized over the summer during demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.

Officials placed the statue under police guard and surrounded it with protective barriers after a group of demonstrators tore down a statue of former Confederate Albert Pike a few blocks away and threatened to do the same with the Lincoln statue.

The statue by Thomas Ball depicts a shirtless Black man, on his knees, in front of a clothed and standing Abraham Lincoln. Ball called his artwork "Emancipation Group." On the one hand, Lincoln holds a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, while the other arm is stretched over the Black man. Ball intended it to look like the man was rising to freedom, but to many, it seems like he is bowing down or supplicating to Abraham Lincoln.

Archer Alexander, who modeled for Ball, was not initially freed by Lincoln but by his actions. He escaped his bondage in the middle of the night in 1861 and repeatedly evaded capture by his former enslavers.

A statue of Abraham Lincoln and a formerly enslaved negro man has been taken down in Park Square in Boston, Massachusett, after an intense debate and a petition to remove the work.

Boston Museum founder Moses Kimball donated the bronze recasting of the original Ball statue in Washington, D.C., to Boston in 1879. The replica will be temporarily stored while the city figures out "a new publicly accessible location (i.e., a museum) where it could be better explained."

The Emancipation statue was driven away on a flatbed truck after it was removed from its location in Park Square in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 29, 2020.

The Emancipation Memorial statue was commissioned and paid for by a group of Black Americans, many formerly enslaved. But the group did not have a say in the statue's design; that distinction went to an all-White committee and the artist, Ball, who was White.

The original statue was dedicated on April 14, 1876, the 11th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination, before a crowd of 25,000 that included then-President Ulysses S. Grant. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke at the unveiling, noting that the "Great Emancipator," Lincoln was reluctant to free enslaved people. When he did so, it applied only to enslaved people in Confederate states, and enslaved people in most Union states were not freed until December 1865.

Days after the unveiling, Douglass was the first to criticize the monument and suggest an additional memorial be placed in the same park to better represent negroes, in a letter to the editor of the National Republican Newspaper.

The letter below, written by Frederick Douglass in 1876, was published in the National Republican Newspaper just days after the monument ceremony in Washington, D.C.

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A Suggestion.

To the Editors of the National Republican:

Sir, 

Admirable as is the monument by Mr. Ball in Lincoln Park, it does not, as it seems to me, tell the whole truth, and perhaps no one monument could be made to tell the entire truth of any subject which it might be designed to illustrate. The act of breaking the negro's chains was the act of Abraham Lincoln and is beautifully expressed in this monument. 

But the act by which the negro was made a citizen of the United States and invested with the elective franchise was pre-eminently the act of President Ulysses S. Grant, and this is nowhere seen in the Lincoln monument. The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude. What I want to know before I die is a monument representing the negro, not the couchant (body resting on the legs/knees and the head raised) on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man. There is room in Lincoln Park for another monument, and I throw out this suggestion so that it may be taken up and acted upon.

Frederick Douglass                   

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Story about Aunt Jemima and the Illinois Aunt Jemima's Kitchen Restaurants.

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In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

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The first Aunt Jemima's Pancake House began at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, on August 17, 1955. It was located on New Orleans Street in Frontierland and featured indoor and outdoor patio seating.

AUNT JEMIMA'S KITCHEN IN SKOKIE 

Aunt Jemima's Kitchen Restaurant at 4700 Dempster Street, Skokie, Illinois, opened on Sunday, November 13, 1960. The two black hostesses were dressed as Aunt Jemima, with an apron and kerchief on her head, and would greet and seat you. They had a lot of different kinds of pancake syrups to use, with 37 types of pancakes. On each table in their three dining rooms, the Cotillion Room, the Fireside Room, and the Garden Room, a syrup tray held 6 different varieties.

Looking at the Garden Room from the Cotillion Room. You can see the variety of pancake syrups raised above the table in the forefront. The Fireside Room is in the distance, where you see the fireplace on the west wall.

The Cotillion room was carpeted and the decor featured large walnut tables and cane back chairs; hurricane lamps mounted on the walls and set in antique gold frames. Bright watercolor paintings hung on the wall.

The Garden room featured a New Orleans type motif with a sunken garden. it had artificial bushes and small palm leaf bushes and candy cane striped leather seats.

The Fireside room had plank oak floors and paneled walls; burled oak tables; bucket seat chairs; a natural fireplace and a display of Hudson Bay firearms.

Aunt Jemima's Kitchen, 801 Rand Road (just North of Central), in Mount Prospect. The Grand Opening was on Thursday, August 30, 1962.

Aunt Jemima's Kitchen, 4343 North Harlem Avenue, in Norridge. The Grand Opening was on Sunday, September 16, 1962.

Aunt Jemima's Kitchen, Edgewater Beach Hotel, 5555 N Sheridan Road, at Berwyn Avenue, in Chicago. The Grand Opening was on Thursday, October 6, 1966. It only lasted until the hotel closed in 1967.

Aunt Jemima's Kitchen, 1016 Dixie Highway, in Chicago Heights. Opening date unknown.

Each restaurant had a seating capacity of 180 people.

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Aunt Jemima's Kitchen Paper Plate.

When Aunt Jemima's Kitchen closed its doors in 1968 or 1969, a restaurant called The Bum Steer moved in for a very short time. Next, the Gold Coin Restaurant opened, and then the Barnum & Bagel Restaurant. After 33 years at 3910 Dempster Street, Pita Inn razed the old restaurant and built a new building on the property at 4710 Dempster Street, opening on Wednesday, June 3, 2015.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COMPANY

In 1889, Chris Rutt and Charles Underwood of the Pearl Milling Company in St. Joseph, Missouri, developed Aunt Jemima, the first pancake-ready mix. The initial owners soon went bankrupt and sold their company to Randolph Truett (R.T.) Davis Milling Company in 1890. 

R.T. Davis Milling Company hired Nancy Green to portray "Aunt Jemima" and tour the country promoting her brand. Due to the character's popularity, R.T. Davis Milling Company fabricated a backstory through the booklet "Life of Aunt Jemima: The Most Famous Colored Woman in the World." (The entire booklet is presented below as a footnote.)

Nancy Green as Aunt Jemima.

The image of Aunt Jemima was so popular that the company was renamed in 1914 to the Aunt Jemima Mills Company. 

The Quaker Oats Company purchased the Aunt Jemima Mills Company in 1926.

The Quaker Oats Company 1926 Aunt Jemima Buckwheat, Corn & Wheat Flour wholesale package label. 12-3½lb packages.

The advertising planners decided to bring the Aunt Jemima character back to life for the Chicago Century of Progress World's Fair in 1933-34. They hired Anna Robinson, described as a large, gregarious woman with the face of an angel. She traveled the country promoting Aunt Jemima until she died in 1951. Quaker's first registration of the Aunt Jemima trademark occurred in April 1937. 

From 1955 until the late 1960s, Aylene Lewis was hired to portray Aunt Jemima at the Aunt Jemima Kitchen restaurant established in the newly opened Disneyland in California. 

THE HISTORY OF AUNT JEMIMA

The first Aunt Jemima, Nancy Green, was born a slave in Kentucky. She was a renowned "storyteller" and was discovered by Charles Rutt and Charles Underwood in 1890, who were searching for a "Mammy" archetype to promote the first-ever box product they named the "Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix." 

In 1889, the creators of Aunt Jemima, Charles Rutt and Charles Underwood, sold the company to Randolph Truett Davis Milling Company, who soon found Nancy Green in Chicago. The previous owners had already agreed upon her 'look' of a bandana and apron. R.T. Davis combined the Aunt Jemima look with a catchy tune from the Vaudeville circuit to make the Aunt Jemima brand.

Aunt Jemima's Lullaby, by S.H. Speck, 1896.

NOTE: This song was created at a time when

dialect and racial stereotypes were

regularly used as entertainment.

Green's identity was first uncovered at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. She cooked the pancakes, sang songs, and told stories of the Old South. Her charismatic personality helped establish the hugely successful pancake mix. So many people were interested in the Aunt Jemima exhibit that police were called for crowd control. Green was given an award for showmanship at the exposition. As a result of her dedication, Aunt Jemima received 50,000 orders for pancake mix. Because she excelled at promoting their product at the Exposition, Green was signed by Rutt and Underwood to an exclusive contract that gave her the sole right to portray the character of "Aunt Jemima" for the rest of her life. Green's new career allowed her the financial freedom to support her family and also to work as an activist for negro causes and anti-poverty programs.

Nancy Green died on August 30, 1923, in Chicago, when a car collided with a laundry truck and "hurtled" onto the sidewalk where she was standing under the 46th Street elevated 'L' tracks. She is buried in a pauper's grave near a wall in the northeast quadrant of Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery. After 97 years, a headstone was laid on Mrs. Green's grave in June of 2020.

After Green's passing, the owner of Aunt Jemima, R.T. Davis Milling Company, experienced financial issues, and the brand was sold to Quaker Oats two years later. As for the image of Aunt Jemima, Nancy Green was followed by Anna Robinson, whose image was changed to a painted portrait on the mix's packaging. Next was Chicago blues singer and actress Edith Wilson. She was the first Aunt Jemima to appear in television commercials. 

After Wilson, there was Ethel Ernestine Harper, a former school teacher and actress. The fourth Aunt Jemima was Rosie Hall, an advertising employee at Quaker Oats, until she discovered their need for a new Aunt Jemima. After she died, Hall's grave was declared a historical landmark. 

Next, there was Aylene Lewis. She first appeared as Aunt Jemima at the opening of Aunt Jemima's Restaurant at Disneyland in 1955. In 1970, Disneyland ended its contract with the Quaker Oats Company and renamed its Aunt Jemima Restaurant to "Magnolia Tree Terrace," then changed names again in 1971 to "River Belle Terrace."

CLICK TO VIEW A READABLE-SIZE PLACEMAT

Ann Short Harrington was The last woman known to publicly appear as Aunt Jemima. Harrington would make television appearances as the brand spokesperson in the New York area.

THE RACIST AUNT JEMIMA CARICATURE

The Name: "Aunt Jemima" comes from a popular minstrel song called "Old Aunt Jemima" from the late 19th century. This song perpetuated harmful stereotypes about Black women, portraying them as happy, submissive figures who were content with their lot in life, often associated with serving food.

The Brand Image: The Aunt Jemima brand image was initially based on a caricature of a "mammy," a racist stereotype of Black women from the American South in a headscarf and bandana, further reinforcing these negative stereotypes. This caricature perpetuated harmful and inaccurate portrayals of Black people.

Real People Portraying the Image: While the brand image itself was harmful, several Black women were hired throughout history to portray Aunt Jemima in advertising and promotions.

Therefore, it's important to distinguish between the problematic brand image and the real people who were associated with it.

Nancy Green is often considered the first person to portray Aunt Jemima. She was a former enslaved woman hired in 1893 to represent the brand at the World's Columbian Exposition. While Green was paid for her participation, she didn't create the character or control its portrayal.

It's crucial to remember that Green and other women who followed her were exploited by the brand to reinforce a harmful stereotype. They did not endorse the racist caricature they were forced to embody.

The Aunt Jemima brand was retired due to its racist roots in 2020. The pancake mix and syrup are now sold under "Pearl Milling Company."

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM is the introduction of present-day ideals and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. I believe presentism is a form of cultural bias, and it creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. I'm well aware that historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present articles that are fact-based and well researched, without interjecting any of my personal opinions.

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Because of the Aunt Jemima character's popularity, R.T. Davis Milling Company fabricated this backstory through the booklet "Life of Aunt Jemima: The Most Famous Colored Woman in the World."

Cover of "Life of Aunt Jemima: The Most Famous Colored Woman in the World," 1895.

Near the junction of the Red River with the Mississippi, in Louisiana, on the left bank of the "Father of Waters," stands a small log cabin, differing but little from the negro cabins so plentiful in the Southern States. It is now old and dilapidated; the wind whistles through crannies between the logs, birds have built their nests under the eaves, and tropical vegetation has overgrown the once-trim little garden. Passengers on the river steamers always look at this cabin with more than ordinary interest. It is one of the "sights" of that section of the country, for it was long the home and abiding place of Aunt Jemima, the celebrated colored cook, whose fame has since extended to the very bounds of civilization.

The cabin is located on what is known as the Old Higbee Plantation, one of the finest in the South before the war, famed for its beauty and the warm hospitality of its owner. Rosebank, for so it was called, was a splendid type of an old plantation home—where the latch-string was always out to the weary traveler, and the elaborate courtesy of its owner showed to the best advantage amid the refined surroundings of his happy home.

Aunt Jemigia was born on this plantation. As a bit of pickaninny she chased the butterflies in the field and found new happiness in the dawn of each coming day. The fields and woods were her playgrounds—Nature was her servant and spread most bounteous gifts before her—and the happy little pickaninny soon grew to be a bright young girl, untutored in the ways of worldly knowledge, but wise in the laws and limitations of Nature. Health was her guide. None knew its value better. To her, happiness meant perfect health and perfect cooking, an infallible prescription that cured all ills. In the very simplicity of her ideas lay their great value and thoroughness. It is not surprising, then, that Aunt Jemima, at an early age, was noted as a cook, unsurpassed in preparing certain dishes, which she prepared in a manner that showed a surprising knowledge of the properties and possibilities of their wholesome ingredients. Jemima was at this time a perfect type of handsome and vivacious negro girl, just bordering on womanhood, and her mistress, Mrs. Higbee, speedily discovered that she was a household jewel and prized her for her kindness and nobility of character, as well as for her cooking.

Aunt Jemima was the first to discover that the three great cereals'—wheat, corn, and rice—could be so combined in pancakes that the beneficial properties and flavor of each could be retained. The knowledge of assimilative flavors—how to produce them by the proper combination of nutritive elements—made her famous as a natural cook—her fame soon spread beyond the vicinity of her home—and Aunt Jemima's pancakes became a celebrity in that neighborhood. Who is there who would not admire this uneducated negro woman, who knew nothing of artificial flavoring extracts or chemical solutions calculated to tempt the palate, yet could prepare the most tempting dishes from the most simple and healthful materials? Not satisfied with the mere ability to cook, Aunt Jemima, with a perspicacity seldom met within her race, carefully analyzed the different properties of the cereal and other foods she prepared, and it is a well-known fact that not one of her many recipes has ever been improved upon.

Aunt Jemima had no more education than others in her class. Many have claimed that she had at least a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry and botany, for her recipes have always shown familiarity with physical and chemical laws that were little short of marvelous for an uneducated person. It has been proven, nevertheless, that her skill was a natural gift.

The illustration is a correct likeness of Aunt Jemima at the Governor's Mansion, as Col. Higbee's dwelling was known during the period before the war. She cooked for many of the most famous people of this continent and Europe. The illustration shows the famous cook bringing in a plate of Aunt Jemima's pancakes, somewhat like the griddle cakes typical in the South. However, the ingredients in her cakes were so combined as to make them digestible and in some manner, Aunt Jemima produced a flavor to her pancakes that no other person could imitate. When the Colonel went to the field and his family moved to New Orleans, Aunt Jemima returned to her home in the plantation cabin whence they had taken her.

Among the notable incidents in her experience might be named the meals served by Aunt Jemima to the leaders of the Confederacy near the close of the war, when those gallant men, harassed and pursued, surrounded on all sides by the Union troops, deprived of almost the necessaries of life, found in Aunt Jemima—the ex-slave—a friend indeed. Many were the frugal meals served at her little cabin, for the gunboats had destroyed the planter's mansion long ago. The illustration on page 9 is a truthful representation of Aunt Jemima serving meals to some of the prominent leaders of the Confederacy. There was nothing very elaborate about those meals, but Aunt Jemima's cooking always liked, tasted like home cooking to the tired and weary generals, to whom her pancakes alone made up for the loss of luxuries.

Aunt Jemima's fame as a cook was accidentally revealed to the outer world several years ago. The handsome river steamer "Robert E. Lee" was en route to New Orleans.

In the main cabin sat a party of choice spirits composed of Southerners and Northerners. Among them was a man who had won fame during the Civil War in the Confederate army and won the double stars of a general before the conflict ended. The conversation drifted into a discussion of famous dinners, how they could best enjoy them, and what the courses should comprise. Finally, the old ex-general said: "You may talk about your big dinners, but the best meal I ever ate in my life was at a negro cabin not far from where we are now. It was prepared by a slave called Aunt Jemima. The meal consisted solely of pancakes, but I tell you, gentlemen, that no banquet ever spread tasted half as good as that 'one-course' re-past did; and, by the way, if I am not mistaken, we are nearing the point now; we stop for wood near where the cabin is located. We will step out there if you want to taste the best food combination ever made. She is probably still living in the old cabin she occupied during the war."

The rest of the party eagerly accepted the invitation, and when the steamer had tied up at the landing, the party, seven in number, led by the ex-general, filed down the gang-plank and started for Aunt Jemima's cabin. She was found residing in the very same place she did during the war and welcomed her visitors with all the courtesy of the antebellum darkey. It took her but a minute to prepare a batch of her famous pancakes, and without a dissenting voice, the party declared the cakes the most delicious they had ever tasted; several of the gentlemen made her tempting offers for her recipe, but all were refused. A representative of the R. T. Davis Milling Company of St. Joseph, Missouri, was at the party. He was on his way to New Orleans to prepare for some heavy shipments of the celebrated R. T. Davis Milling Company No. 10 Flour, which the firm was sent to that city. He made a mental note of the location of Aunt Jemima's cabin and, on returning to the steamer, notified the firm of his discovery.

When he reached New Orleans, a reply awaited him, instructing him to secure the recipe, if possible. He followed the instructions to the letter, but when the firm saw the size of the draft demanded, the senior member protested strongly. Subsequent developments showed that the agent had not been mistaken in the value of the much-prized recipe.

It is said that nothing created so much of a stir among the negroes of Louisiana in that year, 1886, as the sale of Aunt Jemima's Pancake Flour recipe to the representative of the R. T. Davis Milling Company. One of the particular stipulations of this sale was that the money should be paid in Gold, as Aunt Jemima and her father and mother (who are represented in the picture) could not understand why United States banknotes were any better than Confederate money, which they knew, to their sorrow, was worth very little after the war was over. Another condition of the sale was that Aunt Jemima was to be taken into employment by the firm to supervise the mixing of the ingredients that make up the pancake flour. She is now considered the most valued employee of the firm.

No exhibit of a food product created so much of a stir at the Chicago World's Fair, held in 1893, as that of the R.T. Davis Milling Company of St. Joseph, Missouri. It had been known to interested persons that this firm would make an effort to secure the medal and diploma for their Royal No. 10 Flour and their Aunt Jemima Pancake Flour, which they had been making for some time and now have a wonderful sale. Their exhibit was remarkable in many ways. It consisted, first, of a huge barrel, the largest ever constructed in the world. This barrel was 12 feet across the end, 24 feet long, and 16 feet in diameter in the center.

R.T. Davis Milling Company and Aunt Jemima at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

Inside were an office and parlor beautifully fitted up for the reception of visitors and the use of R.T. Davis Milling Company officers. Around the room were the different medals and diplomas won by this Flour in all portions of the world at various exhibitions. A few feet away from the barrel, however,d commanding the wonder and admiration of all visitors to the agricultural hall, was the most remarkable and successful exhibition of the food product. This display was neither more nor less than the original Aunt Jemima herself, making pancakes from Aunt Jemima Flour, each package of which bears her portrait. It can be imagined that it did not take the visitors to the World's Fair, especially those from the South, long to learn of this attraction. The consequence was that, at times, the crowd was so great around this exhibit that the assistance of special police had to be secured to keep it moving, as it often blockaded seriously that portion of the building. 

The World's Fair Committee on awards did not hesitate to bestow the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Medallion and a parchment certificate for the excellence of the Aunt Jemima Pancake Flour from R.T. Davis Milling Company. 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens Medallion was the only award given in competition for the 1893 World's Fair.

It had been surmised by the competing millers that the R.T. Davis Milling Company would carry off the first premium. Still, no one was prepared for the sweeping language of the award given them—a medal for every line they exhibited.

Over 50,000 orders for packages of Aunt Jemima's Pancake Flour were received at the booth alone. These orders came from Europe, Canada, and all parts of the United States.

It will be interesting for everybody to know that this matchless preparation. Aunt Jemima's Pancake Flour combines the great food triumvirate, Wheat, Corn and Rice. It is now kept in stock by almost every grocer in the land, and much of its phenomenal success is due to the guarantee that is given with every package, as follows: 

''Buy a package of Genuine Aunt Jemima's Self-Rising Pancake Flour, and if you do not find it makes the best cakes you ever ate, return the empty box to your grocer, leave your name, and the grocer will refund the money and charge it to us."

If your grocer does not keep it, tell him the trade is supplied by all wholesale grocers.

MANUFACTURED BY R.T. DAVIS MILLING COMPANY,

ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI 

U. S. A.

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.