Chris L. Rutt, an editorial writer on the St. Joseph Gazette and Charles G. Underwood in the milling business prepared the first ready-mix food in St. Joseph Mo. which became known as Aunt Jemima Pancake Flour. They had pruchased a flour mill and organized the pearl Milling Company in 1988. They set about to make a self-rising pancake flour working in Rutt's kitchen on Sylvanie Street. The recipe was hard wheat flour, corn flour, phosphate of lime, soda, and a pinch of salt. The first commercial batch of ready-mix was packaged in 1-pound paper sacks with the name, "Self-Rising Pancake Flour.". He arrived at the Aunt Memima when he attended a minstrel show in the Autumn of 1889. The Aunt Jemima comes from the New Orleans style cake-walk tun called Jemima. About 1890 the Aunt Jemima trademark was sold to the R.T. Davis Milling Company. He improved the flavor and texture by adding rice flour and sugar and powdered milk. This meant all the cook had to add was water.?

He hired Nancy Green, an excellent cook, and friendly hospitable black woman to be present at the booth of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. People came into the booth to eat Aunt Memima's pancakes and to hear her songs and stories. They resived over 50,000 orders for pancake flour from this marketing. Because Nancy Green was killed in a car acident in 1923, Anna Robinson, a 350-pound woman was hired in the 1930's as the second Aunt Jemima. She remained on the payroll until her death in 1951. In 1926 Quaker Oats Company purchased the Aunt Jemima Mills.

Updated: Sunday, July 29, 2007.