How "Aunt Jemima" Got Her Name (The 19th century song "Old Aunt Jemima")

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post provides information and text examples of the 19th century American song "Old Aunt Jemima".

This post serves as a companion to http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/10/19th-century-20th-century-examples-of.html. That post provides information and examples of the song "Aunt Jemima's Plaster" (also known as "Sheepskin and Beeswax".)

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners

Thanks to all those who collected these songs. Thanks also to all who are quoted in this page.

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MEANING OF THE NAME "JEMIMA" AND "PLASTER"
The female name "Jemima" means "dove" in Hebrew and "little dove" in Arabic.

In the 19th century the title "Aunt" was used in the United States for elderly Black women in place of the title "Mrs." since "Mrs" was reserved for White women only.
INFORMATION & EXAMPLES OF "OLD AUNT JEMIMA"
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Aunt_Jemima
"Old Aunt Jemima" was a popular American song composed by African American comedian, songwriter and minstrel show performer Billy Kersands (c. 1842–1915). The Old Aunt Jemima song was the inspiration for the Aunt Jemima brand of pancakes, as well as several characters in film, television and on radio named "Aunt Jemima".

Kersands wrote his first version of "Old Aunt Jemima" in 1875. It was to become Kersands' most popular song. Robert Toll claimed that Kersands had performed this song over 2000 times by 1877.[1] There were at least 3 different sets of "Old Aunt Jemima" lyrics by 1889.[2]

Often "Old Aunt Jemima" would be sung while a man in drag playing the part of Aunt Jemima performed on stage. It was not uncommon for the Aunt Jemima character to be played by a white man in blackface.[2][3]

Other minstrels incorporated Aunt Jemima into their acts, so Aunt Jemima became a common figure in minstrelsy. Other songs about Aunt Jemima were composed, such as "Aunt Jemima Song" and "Aunt Jemima's Picnic Day".[2]

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From http://black-face.com/billy-kersands.htm
..."Billy Kersands was the most popular minstrel star and the highest paid black entertainer of the era, earning as much as one hundred dollars a week---a lot of money in the 1870s and 1880s. Kersands was a comedian who enjoyed entertaining the public. But his real forte was dancing. He was credited as being the first dancer to introduce the "soft-shoe" dance, and the "buck and wing." He was also instrumental in introducing the African-American "clog-dance."

Perhaps the most enduring “mammy” icon is Aunt Jemima. Billy Kersands, a black minstrel performer, wrote the song “Aunt Jemima” for a white minstrel artist in 1875. The song was performed in 1889 with a man named Chris Rutt in the audience. Rutt, seeing an opportunity for commercializing the Aunt Jemima character, went on to trademark the name and sold it to The Davis Company. Davis eventually hired a former enslaved woman named Nancy Green to sell their company’s pancakes at the Chicago Exposition in 1893. The "mammy" icon of Aunt Jemima has lived far beyond the minstrel song.

"He began entertaining in the South, probably before the Civil War and remained a working entertainer for more than 60 years, most of them spent in minstrelsy.

Kersands' popularity with Southern black audiences was unsurpassed, and he demonstrated that a nineteenth-century black entertainer could become rich and famous...

So successful was Billy that he and [his wife] Louise [toured for their minstrel company's performances] throughout the heartland of the USA in their private railway car, and they and their company were booked in Europe during much of the 1907-09 period, which included a command performance for Queen Victoria."...

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TEXT EXAMPLES OF "AUNT JEMIMA"
These examples are presented in chronological order based on the example's collection or original publication.

Example #1:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Aunt_Jemima

[Note this page indicates that Billy Kersands composed "Aunt Jemina" as early as 1875. However, this may not be the earliest version of that song.]

"OLD AUNT JEMIMA
One version of "Old Aunt Jemima" began with a stanza expressing dissatisfaction with the dullness of worship services in white churches, such as a complaint about the length of the prayers. The song ended with the following two stanzas:

The monkey dressed in soldier clothes,
Old Aunt Jemima, etc.
Went out in the woods for to drill some crows,
Old etc.
The jay bird hung on a swinging limb.
Old etc.
I up with a stone and hit him on the shin.
Old etc.

Oh, Carline, oh, Carline,
Can't you dance the bee line
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!

The bullfrog married the tadpole's sister,
Old etc.
He smacked his lips and then he kissed her,
Old etc.
She says if you love me as I love you,
Old etc.
No knife can cut out love in two.
Old etc.

Some variants of the song substituted "pea-vine" for "bee line". Another version included the verse:

My old missus promise me,

Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!

When she died she-d set me free,

Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!

She lived so long her head got bald,

Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!

She swore she would not die at all,

Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh![2]

Sterling Stuckey [cultural historian and author of the 1988 book Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America] maintains that Kersands did not write all of these lyrics, but adapted many of them from "slave songs" (such as field hollers and work songs).[2]"
-snip-
Here's a comment (from the Mudcat folk music forum discussion thread whose link is given below) about the "My old massa promised me/when I die, he'll set me free" verse:
"The 'promised me' verse in various forms appears in minstrel songs as early as 1845.
Massa and misse promised me
When they died they'd set me free
Massa and misse dead and gone
Here's old Sambo hillin' up corn."

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Example #2:
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=128733 "Lyr Add: Old Aunt Jemima & Aunt Jemima's Plaster" [hereafter known as Mudcat: Aunt Jemima"], posted by Q, 10 Apr 10 - 04:30 PM

"OLD AUNT JEMIMA
(Words and music James Grace, 1876)

1
I went to de church de other night,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
To hear de colored folks sing and pray,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
Old Pomp got tight, and Dinah walk along,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
And made old Gumbo sing a song,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!

Chorus
Car'line, Car'line, can't you dance de peavine,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!

2
Dar was a bullfrog dressed in soldier clothes
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
He went out to drill dem crows,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
But de bullfrog he made such a mighty splutter,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
Dat I up wid my foot and kicked him in de water,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
3
I carried a hen coop on my knee,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
I thought I heard a chicken sneeze,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
'Twas nothing but a rooster saying his prayers,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!
He gave out a hymn, such a getting up stairs,
Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!

Many verses, often floaters, linked by 'Old Aunt Jemima, oh! oh! oh!, sung by various minstrel groups.

Verses above by James Grace, for banlo [sic] accompaniment by George C. Dobson.
Sheet music 1876, John F. Perry & Co., Boston.
American Memory."
-snip-
Notice that although documentation now credits the first version of this minstrel song to African American entertainer Billy Kersands, various White men, inluding James Grace, copyrighted versions of that song.

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AUNT JEMIMA
From Thomas W. Talley [editor], Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise And Otherwise, originally published in 1922, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27195/27195-h/27195-h.htm The Project Gutenberg EBook of Talley's Negro Folk Rhymes [p. 107]

OLD AUNT JEMIMA
OLE Aunt Jemima grow so tall,
Dat she couldn' see de groun'.
She stumped her toe, an' down she fell
From de Blackwoods clean to town.

W'en Aunt Jemima git in town,
An' see dem "tony" ways,
She natchully faint an' back she fell
To de Backwoods whar she stays.
-snip-
This version documents the disdain that city African Americans had for country African Americans. "Tony" here means "citified", "snobbish", "snotty".

Similar attitudes of disdain for rural Americans is reflected in White depictions of "hillbillies". Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2011/10/shared-steroptypes-for-hillbillies.html for the pancocojams post "The Shared Steroptypes For Hillbillies & African Americans".

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Example #4
From Mudcat: Aunt Jemima, posted by Joe Offer, 14 Apr 10 - 03:51 AM

Margaret MacArthur sang it to the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

AUNT JEMIMA

Aunt Jemina climb a tree
She had a stick to boost her,
There she sat a-shelling corn
For our old bob tailed rooster.

CHORUS
Humpty Doodle skiddlebing
Humpty Doodle Daddy,
Humpty Doodle skiddlebing
Wax for Torttle-addy

Corn cobs will twist your hair
Cart wheels around you,
Fiery dragons scare you off
And mortar pestles pound you.
CHORUS

Aunt Jemima's dead and gone
It's hard to tell the story,
They put the plaster on her back
And threw her up to glory.
CHORUS

Sheepskin, bees wax
Makes the sticky plaster,
The more we try to pull it off,
The harder it sticks the faster.
CHORUS

Tune: Yankee Doodle Dandy
From the singing of Mrs. Austin Nichols, Guilford, Vermont; verses three and four from Jean Chase, Putney, Vermont.

Source:
Album notes from Folksongs of Vermont, a Folkways LP by Margaret MacArthur.
-snip-
Notice that this example includes a verse of the "Aunt Jemima's Plaster" song.

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RELATED LINK
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/06/rush-limbaughs-calling-african.html to read about the African American practice of insulting certain attitudes and behaviors by calling women an "Aunt Jemima" (meaning a female "Uncle Tom").

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