Inspired by the recent acquisition of a vintage black and white negative, today's post gives a medley of Aunt Jemima photos when the character worked at her namesake Disneyland restaurant, Aunt Jemima's Kitchen.
Here are two winter 1956 images of her from my collection:
All three of these are from the original location, which had a thatched roof and was located where the River Belle Terrace is today.
From the Radio Years website comes this 1955 shot of Aylene Lewis who portrayed Aunt Jemima:
Another shot of Aunt Jemima in front of the newly constructed Southern Plantation-style building for her restaurant, circa September 1962:
And from January 1964:
Although Aylene Lewis did perform at Disneyland, none of these women look like her (at least in my opinion). Like any other "character" in the Park, Aunt Jemima most likely had a number of ladies play the role.
See more photos at my main website.
4 comments:
Wow-- these are exceptional rarities. How many years was Aunt Jemima at Disneyland? She was apparently still there during the summer of 1970. A "to do" list of Magic Kingdom revolutionary acts was distributed by the Yippies before their invasion of August '70; one act would be the liberation of Aunt Jemima from Frontierland.
Wow! Good catch on the Yippie "To Do" list. Well looking at Dave's larger site it says, Aunt Jemima sponsored until 1970, and "she" appeared until the late 1960's. http://davelandweb.com/frontierland/auntjemima.html
On the site you can see photos of the old sponsored "Pancake Toss" on Main Street.
I personally love how they attempted to theme the building to both Adventureland and Frontierland with the grass thatching. Similar, but not as stark as the old Plaza Pavilion for both Main Street and Adventurland.
Always your pal,
Amazon Belle
Matthew - thanks for stepping in so quickly with the answers! You are awesome!
YOU are awesome Dave!
Always you pal,
Matt McNabb
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