Times were different back then and it may be well to check your modern sensitivities at the door.
Our story begins before the Civil War, when happy, docile, uneducateed "P" words lived throughout the South in small cabins on plantations. One such "P" word was Jemima. "As a little ["P" word] she chased the butterflies in the field, and found a new happiness in the dawn of each coming day...[She] soon grew to be a bright young girl, untutored in the ways of worldly knowledge, buyt 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 and infallible prescription that cured all ills."
According to this ;promotional booklet about the life of a fictional corporate mascot. at an early age Aunt Jemima was noted as a cook -- unsurpassed in the preparation of certain dishes which she prepared in a manner that showed a surprising knowledge of the properties and possiblities of their wholesome ingredients. This resulted in the discopvry that "the three great cereals -- wheat, corn and rice -- could be so combined in pancakes that the beneficial propertiees and flavor of each could be retained." Soon, Aunt Jemima's pancales "became a celebrity in that neighborhood." Soon she brought her culinary skills to the Governor's Mansion, as the main house on the plantation was known, and cooked "for the most famous people of this continent and Europe." Evidently they liked her pancakes.
Soon came the Civil War, and Aunt Jemima returned to her lowly cabin, and, "at the close of the war., when those gallant men, harassed and pursued, surrounded on all sides by the Union troops, deprived of almost the necessitiees of life, found in Aunt Jemima -- an ex-slave -- a friend indeed." I remain amazed that her pancakes did not turn the tide of the war and that "Dixie" is not our national anthem.
Following the war, when the steamship "Robert E. Lee" passed near her canbin, ome of the passengers -- a noted ex-Confederate general, extolled Jemima's pancakes to such an extent that a group of people travelled to her cabin, where "they were welcomed with all the courtesy of the ante-bellam ["D' word]." One of those people was a representative of the R. T. Davis Mill Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, who wentt away with a solid appreciation of Aunt Jemima's pancakes. Aunt Jemima began selling her ancake mix locally until, in 1866, Aunt Jemima's Pancake Flour recipe was solt to the R. T. Davis Mill Company for a surprisingly large amount of money. One of thee stipul;ations of the sale was that "the money should be paid in Gold, as Aunt Jemima and her father and mother...could not understand why united States bank notes were any better than Confedrate money, which they knew, to their sorrow, was worth very little after the war was over." Ah, the innocence of those uneducated "P" words and "D" words! Another stipoulation was that the R. T. Davis company employ Aunt Jemima sho that she could ensure the high quality of her flour could be maintained. "She is now considered the most valued employee of the firm."
In 1890, the firm produced fives cases of flour a day; in 1895, that amount rose to ten carloads a day, with 36 packages to a case and 300 cases to a car. With the equivalent of 60 pancakes to a package, that amounts to 6,480,000 pancakes, or a breakfast for 2,160,000 people!
A pretty nifty success story for a wholly imaginary and racially-inspired "P' word!
You've comea long way, baby!
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96827&comicpage=&b=i
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