Vintage American flag overlaid with stripes assembled from vintage ads, illustrations, cartoons, and photographs featuring mammies; authentic Civil War-era fabrics; vintage feedsack patchwork strips, crazy quilt remnants, embroidered ribbon, tobacco insert felt; and dolls made from Aunt Jemima advertisements.

 45” x 75”

The mammy was a pervasive stereotype constructed in the wake of the Civil War, the most enduring image from the days of Jim Crow. The mammy caricature was used to romanticize the Antebellum South, harkening back to an imaginary time when Black Americans---and black women in particular---accepted their life of servitude with gratitude, a falsehood that permeated American culture for decades.