Coon-Chicken Inn

A blatant example of the pervasive racial attitudes of many Americans in the mid-20th century.

This hideously offensive placemat was published around 1948 to promote the three locations of the Coon Chicken Inn – Salt Lake City (the original), Portland, and Seattle. The restaurant’s advertising leverages popular contemporary racist caricatures of an African-American, presumably to highlight the ‘Southern’ style of the food on offer. The three building outlines (note the entryway) are connected by U.S. 99 and an unnamed route, both highlighted in red. Scattered vignettes, many of which feature the ‘mascot’, highlight local recreation, industry, and culture in a similar style to other pictorial maps of the era.

The visual difference in the treatment of Native Americans (some labeled as ‘Injuns’) and African Americans is notable. The blackface has also been applied to a sharply dressed porter’s body, holding a sign proudly encouraging the audience to ‘Take Me Home As a Souvenir.’ According to the Jim Crow Museum,

“The Coon Chicken Inn was a highly successful restaurant chain from the late 1920s through the 1950s. A grinning, grotesque head of a bald Black man with a porter’s cap and winking eye formed a restaurant’s entryway. The door was through the middle of his mouth. The restaurants sold southern fried Coon Chicken sandwiches, chicken pie, livers — and hamburgers, seafood, chili, cakes, and assorted sandwiches. When possible, Black people were used as waiters, waitresses, and cooks.”

Undated, but most likely published between 1942 (completion of the Grand Coulee Dam) and 1949, the closure of the Seattle and Portland branches.

Sources: Jim Crow Museum; Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project; Burgers in Blackface