Chang and Eng Bunker, the so-called original “Siamese Twins,” rose to prominence as nineteenth-century freak show performers, having been taken to the United States from Thailand (then known as Siam) in 1811. Once semi-retired in the 1840s, they ended up owning adjacent plantations and several enslaved laborers in North Carolina. Though often exploited for their physical disability and subjected to utter racialization in the US, they, nonetheless, were able to ascend into the planter class via the financial benefits of slavery.

The Bunker brothers begot 21 children who were reared by enslaved Black nurses. In this family photograph taken in the 1870s, they gather with their wives and children, while the nursemaid remains on the edge of the image.

Due to the deteriorating quality of the photograph, the nursemaid’s face is obscured and strangely translucent, her expression impossible to decipher as she cradles an infant in her arms. While by this time slavery has been officially abolished, this woman had been enslaved to the Bunker family since 1843.

A second image from the Bunker family archive serves as possible evidence of the nursemaid’s decades-long enslavement. This photograph shows an elderly Black woman, alone, staring pensively to the side on a rundown porch. A later added inscription on the back of this image reads:

Born in 1799 this old colored lady lived until 1921 — she was a wedding present to Mr. + Mrs. Eng in 1843 — She was a house nurse to all their children.

The visual afterlives of these nursemaid figures were to be manifested in later images of “mammies.” A crucial instance in their recirculation within the modern imagination of the United States is the character of Mammy, performed by the African-American actress Hattie McDaniel in the film Gone with the Wind (1939). This movie played a fundamental role in the consolidation of the myth of the “Lost Cause,” according to which the Civil War was not fought over the brutal continuation of slavery but rather for the honorable culture of the South. Within this context, Mammie figures were deployed to sublimate the violence of slavery, suggesting that the true bonds between masters and the enslaved were those of gentility and love.

Playing more explicitly into the legally commodified condition of enslaved nursemaids, however, is the early commercialization of the Mammy as a symbol of Americana and white middle class comfort. This form of racial subjugation is evident in the branding of the Pearl Mill Company’s figure of “Aunt Jemima.” Of long endurance, the image was coined in 1889 and used as a logo for the product (despite change of company ownership) until 2020. This figure is a direct descendant of the enslaved Mammy and an important precedent for the Mammy of the “Lost Cause.”

The Bunkers’ ascent to the planter class was made possible by the enslavement of Black people and the illusion of white middle class comfort and safety provided by non-threatening “Mammy” figures. In each of these instances—the Bunkers, the Pearl Milling Company, and Gone with Wind—the figure of the “mammy” has been visually called to signal class status and comfort, even in the face of their marginalization, or precisely because of it. ■

Chang and Eng Bunker, the so-called original “Siamese Twins,” rose to prominence as nineteenth-century freak show performers, having been taken to the United States from Thailand (then known as Siam) in 1811. Once semi-retired in the 1840s, they ended up owning adjacent plantations and several enslaved laborers in North Carolina. Though often exploited for their physical disability and subjected to utter racialization in the US, they, nonetheless, were able to ascend into the planter class via the financial benefits of slavery.

The Bunker brothers begot 21 children who were reared by enslaved Black nurses. In this family photograph taken in the 1870s, they gather with their wives and children, while the nursemaid remains on the edge of the image.

Due to the deteriorating quality of the photograph, the nursemaid’s face is obscured and strangely translucent, her expression impossible to decipher as she cradles an infant in her arms. While by this time slavery has been officially abolished, this woman had been enslaved to the Bunker family since 1843.

A second image from the Bunker family archive serves as possible evidence of the nursemaid’s decades-long enslavement. This photograph shows an elderly Black woman, alone, staring pensively to the side on a rundown porch. A later added inscription on the back of this image reads:

Born in 1799 this old colored lady lived until 1921 — she was a wedding present to Mr. + Mrs. Eng in 1843 — She was a house nurse to all their children.

The visual afterlives of these nursemaid figures were to be manifested in later images of “mammies.” A crucial instance in their recirculation within the modern imagination of the United States is the character of Mammy, performed by the African-American actress Hattie McDaniel in the film Gone with the Wind (1939). This movie played a fundamental role in the consolidation of the myth of the “Lost Cause,” according to which the Civil War was not fought over the brutal continuation of slavery but rather for the honorable culture of the South. Within this context, Mammie figures were deployed to sublimate the violence of slavery, suggesting that the true bonds between masters and the enslaved were those of gentility and love.

Playing more explicitly into the legally commodified condition of enslaved nursemaids, however, is the early commercialization of the Mammy as a symbol of Americana and white middle class comfort. This form of racial subjugation is evident in the branding of the Pearl Mill Company’s figure of “Aunt Jemima.” Of long endurance, the image was coined in 1889 and used as a logo for the product (despite change of company ownership) until 2020. This figure is a direct descendant of the enslaved Mammy and an important precedent for the Mammy of the “Lost Cause.”

The Bunkers’ ascent to the planter class was made possible by the enslavement of Black people and the illusion of white middle class comfort and safety provided by non-threatening “Mammy” figures. In each of these instances—the Bunkers, the Pearl Milling Company, and Gone with Wind—the figure of the “mammy” has been visually called to signal class status and comfort, even in the face of their marginalization, or precisely because of it. ■