“Mammy and Modernity: Narratives of the Faithful Slave in the Early-Twentieth-Century U.S.” Presentation by Professor Micki McElya

Sponsored by Department of Africana Studies and The School of Art at the University of Tennessee Date: Monday, October 2, 2006 Time: 2:30-3:30 p.m. Place: 1210 McClung Tower & Plaza About the Scholar: Assistant ProfessorDepartment of American StudiesUniversity of Alabama If you want to learn more about this topic Professor McElya has a book forthcoming from Harvard University Press, 2007 entitled Clinging to Mammy. Experience: Dr. McElya's presentation entitled “Mammy and Modernity: Narratives of the Faithful Slave in the Early-Twentieth-Century U.S. ” began with her introduction by a professor in the Africana Studies department of UT. He described a week of events including slide shows and photography exhibits pertaining to Afro-Americans and the Diaspora. The photography show he described is one I will write about in another entry that I viewed both at the UC and the Downtown Gallery. Dr. McElya began by giving some background information about the roles many slaves played in the eyes of many in the 19th and into the 20th centuries as the "faithful slave." She narrows down examining the idea of the "faithful slave" by looking only at the mammy figure and how she was thought of or even referred to like one of the family. She raised two issues with this train of thought pointing out that it separates the female slave from her own family and ignores the fact that many of them were actually biologically family. Next, she began to look at the fiction of the mammy character, describing where the narrative began. She showed the example of the character in Gone With the Wind made in 1939, where a black actress was told to play the role and then rewarded for her execution. Then she began discussing her primary example of a created mammy figure, Aunt Jemima. In 1893, the World's Fair in Chicago featured the first "just add water" pancake mix. It was here that Nancy Green, an African American woman, was paid to play the role of Aunt Jemima at their stand where she would cook the pancakes, sing, and tell stories about happy memories of life as a slave on a plantation in the south and how she came up with her pancake recipe, promoting Mammy just as much as the pancakes. Her narrative spread across the country and stories were even published about her life and the many great things her pancakes did for the country, such as feeding hungry soldiers. Dr. McElya went on to describe later World's Fairs, like the one in Atlanta, where there might not have been a woman playing Mammy, but there were other clear divides and evidence of the "faithful slave ideology." At this fair there was a "Negro Building," which was located in what believed to be the exotic and less civilized area of the fair (contrasting with the technological inventions.) Inside the "Negro Building" two figures were exhibited, one representing the past and one the future. The figure of the past was one of a mammy figure and Frederick Douglas represented the future. Dr. McElya discussed the idea of Mammy representing the past, although she never really existed in the sense that is most well known, and she also points out the problem of the woman figure being left in the past while the Afro-American people depend on the black male figure to prosper in the future. Dr. McElya's talk was very interesting, and I might even buy her book next year. One problem I did have with her presentation is that sometimes it did not flow very well from one idea to the next making it hard to follow. She always brought me back into it, but I think because the subject matter is so complex, it was hard to stick to the point without bringing in many other facts or ideas. All in all, it was well thought out and she asked many great questions, not afraid to delve even deeper into these difficult and sensitive issue.