Racist Caricature Menu from Mammy’s Shanty Restaurant, Atlanta, Georgia, ca. 1940s–50s

Item Details

Original printed menu from Mammy’s Shanty, a restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, dating to the mid-20th century. This artifact is a striking example of segregation-era commercial ephemera, featuring pervasive racist caricatures and dialect text intended to romanticize the “Old South” while commodifying Black stereotypes for white patrons.

The illustrated wrappers depict an exaggerated “mammy” figure and a grinning child eating watermelon, along with plantation and cabin scenes. The interior pages continue the theme with stereotyped “pickaninny” illustrations and menu items such as the “Plantation Fruit Plate,” “Cotton Pickin’ Special,” “Topsy Treat,” and “Little Eva” (names referencing slavery, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and minstrel traditions). The rear cover carries verse written in faux dialect beside further caricatures.

Mammy’s Shanty was one of several Southern restaurants in a chain marketed as offering the “World’s Best Apple Pie,” along with affiliated locations such as Pickaninny Coffee Shop (Atlanta), Wedgewood Inn, and Johnston’s Coffee Shop in Florida. The piece reflects how normalized racist iconography was in advertising and dining culture during the Jim Crow era.

A vivid, unsettling example of American racialized advertising ephemera—valuable for those studying segregation-era popular culture, restaurant history, and the visual legacy of racism in everyday life.

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