Anna Short Harrington
Anna Short Harrington | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1897 Near Wallace, Marlboro County, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | 1955 Syracuse, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Model |
| Known for | Representation of the Aunt Jemima brand |
Anna Short Harrington (1897–1955) was an American model recognized as one of several African-American women employed to represent the corporate brand "Aunt Jemima".
Biography
Harrington was born in 1897 near Wallace, located in Marlboro County, South Carolina, into a family of sharecroppers working on the Pegues Place plantation. She was raised in Bennettsville, South Carolina, where she became a mother to three daughters and two sons. After a decade of marriage, her spouse Weldon Harrington left the household.
In 1927, she relocated northward to Nedrow, New York, taking employment as a domestic worker and reunited with her children the following year in Syracuse. Harrington prepared meals for fraternity organizations at Syracuse University. In 1935, Quaker Oats discovered her while she was cooking pancakes at the New York State Fair near Syracuse.
An advertisement published in November 1935 in Woman's Home Companion emphasized her Southern accent as an important promotional feature. Her final documented public engagement occurred at the 1954 Post-Standard Home Show. Harrington passed away in Syracuse in 1955 at the age of 58 and was interred at Oakwood Cemetery.
Benefiting financially from her modeling career, Harrington acquired a 22-room residence with an additional bungalow in the backyard on Monroe Street within Syracuse’s segregated 15th Ward, an area then regarded as a slum. She leased numerous rooms individually as separate living spaces. The house was demolished during the 1960s amid urban renewal efforts and the development of Interstate 81.
Lawsuit
On August 5, 2014, Anna Short Harrington’s descendants initiated a multi-billion dollar legal action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Quaker Oats, PepsiCo, Pinnacle Foods, and Hillshire Brands. The complaint claimed these corporations did not provide Harrington or her heirs with an "equitable fair share of royalties" related to the pancake mix and syrup brand that featured her image and recipes. This lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice and without permission to amend on February 18, 2015.