Dive Brief:
- A second family has joined a $2 billion lawsuit against PepsiCo-owned Quaker Oats over the images used on Aunt Jemima pancake mixes and syrups in the years after the Civil War.
- The newest plaintiffs in the case say they are the descendants of Nancy Green, who was born a slave and later reportedly became a model for the images of the Aunt Jemima character.
- The lawsuit was first filed in August by a great grandson of Anna Short Harrington, who worked as a spokeswoman for the brand a half-century after Green's image first appeared.
Dive Insight:
The claims of this suit are a little hard to parse. Essentially the families are arguing that their ancestors played a bigger role in the development of Aunt Jemima than simply being models or spokeswomen, and that they were not adequately compensated for their work.
But as we noted before, the history of Aunt Jemima is a complex one. The character of Aunt Jemima first appeared in minstrel shows as early as 1875, and an image based on that character first appeared on pancake mixes in 1889. Or, as Quaker Oats felt obliged to point out in a response to the lawsuit in September, the image of Aunt Jemima "is neither based on, nor meant to depict any one person."