Anna Short Harrington

Anna Short was born in 1897 in the Wallace area of Marlboro County. The Short family lived on the Pegues Place plantation as sharecroppers.[1] She grew up in Bennettsville, South Carolina, where she had three daughters and two sons.[1][2]

Her husband, Weldon Harrington, left the family after 10 years of marriage.[2] In 1927, she moved north to work as a maid for a family in Nedrow, New York. A year later, she was reunited with her five children in Syracuse, New York.[2][3]

Harrington cooked for various fraternity houses at Syracuse University.[2][3] In 1935, Quaker Oats discovered her cooking pancakes at the New York State Fair in the Syracuse area.[1][2][3]

A November 1935 ad in Woman's Home Companion emphasized her Southern accent and dialect, saying "Let ol Auntie sing in yo' kitchen."[2]

Her last recorded appearance was the 1954 Post-Standard Home Show.[3] She died in Syracuse in 1955 at the age of 58, and was buried at Oakwood Cemetery.[1][2][3]

She made enough money to purchase a 22-room house with a backyard bungalow on Monroe Street, where she rented many of the rooms to boarders.[1][2][3] After her death, her house was demolished to make way for Interstate 81.[1][2]

On August 5, 2014, descendants of Anna Short Harrington filed a lawsuit seeking a multi-billion dollar settlement in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against defendants Quaker Oats and PepsiCo. The suit, which also named as defendants Pinnacle Foods and its former suitor Hillshire Brands, accused the companies of failing to pay Harrington and her heirs an "equitable fair share of royalties" from the pancake mix and syrup brand that uses her likeness and recipes.[4][5] The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice and without leave to amend on February 18, 2015.[6]

Other actress portraying Aunt Jemima:

• Nancy Green
• Ethel Ernestine Harper
• Lillian Richard
• Edith Wilson (singer)

• McQueen, John Troy (2008). The Story of Aunt Jemima. AuthorHouse.