With much current debate today over Southern culinary history and the idea of giving adequate credit to forgotten black cooks, it's always a pleasure to rediscover and make known again the contributions of specific women, and men, who preserved our great regional Southern foodways from the 19th century and before. Here is a brief cameo of one such forgotten man.
Kentuckian James E. "Jim" Tinker was born at the time of the Centennial of the birth of our 16th President, a child of Edwardian America, coming into this world on 5 February 1909 and leaving a much changed society some 60 years later on 4 June 1969. Jim was a bit of a pioneer in the 2nd quarter of the 20th century, working as a professional African-American cook in an oft overlooked era of history prior to the Civil Rights Movement.
I might need to make a subtle distinction here in my focus. Please understand there were countless thousands of black Southerners working as domestic cooks and in restaurants throughout each state. I don't mean to belittle their contribution, but some rose up out of their ranks due to advanced skill, culinary heritage, and even entrepreneurism, to stand out for special attention, yet have been basically forgotten because of the time they lived in, and more importantly and sadly because of their race. These are forgotten Black trail blazers, special people with special abilities and characters who ventured out against the social adversities of their age to become a bit bigger than life, and society at large, may have planned for them.
Jim Tinker certainly fits that description. He was no mere domestic, and certainly not just a basic fry cook and dish washer working for a white family. He was the nucleus of a special and historic food-centered destination, one of a handful of black chefs toward the middle of the 20th century excelling within, and escaping beyond, the boundaries set for them.
Jim was the one-man food service team at the old Nancy Lincoln Inn near the Lincoln Birthplace in LaRue County, Kentucky. His talents in the kitchen are best remembered in connection with the Howell family, where they operated a restaurant in the first days of the famed historic site and National Historic Park. Early tourists to south central Kentucky, coming to see the Lincoln Shrine, found ample good country fare prepared by Tinker just steps away from the Memorial Building at the heart of the "Cradle of Emancipation."
Yes, there is immense irony here. A man of color, descended from slavery, toiling for a prominent white family on the very grounds, and within sight, of the humble spot where Lincoln had been born just over a century before, the man who had been influenced from infancy by the slavery he beheld here and ultimately ended the institution in America. While Jim Tinker couldn't have realized the full impact, the thoughts of his personal and direct ties to the "Great Emancipator" had to have crossed his mind on a daily basis. Had only Jim known the greater historic irony of that little cabin, that in the years after Lincoln's birth it had been relegated to use as a slave dwelling, becoming a poignant symbol of the attainment of Freedom, one wonders his thoughts then.
That story of slavery and the Lincoln Birthplace must be saved for another time.
Kentuckian James E. "Jim" Tinker was born at the time of the Centennial of the birth of our 16th President, a child of Edwardian America, coming into this world on 5 February 1909 and leaving a much changed society some 60 years later on 4 June 1969. Jim was a bit of a pioneer in the 2nd quarter of the 20th century, working as a professional African-American cook in an oft overlooked era of history prior to the Civil Rights Movement.
I might need to make a subtle distinction here in my focus. Please understand there were countless thousands of black Southerners working as domestic cooks and in restaurants throughout each state. I don't mean to belittle their contribution, but some rose up out of their ranks due to advanced skill, culinary heritage, and even entrepreneurism, to stand out for special attention, yet have been basically forgotten because of the time they lived in, and more importantly and sadly because of their race. These are forgotten Black trail blazers, special people with special abilities and characters who ventured out against the social adversities of their age to become a bit bigger than life, and society at large, may have planned for them.
Jim Tinker certainly fits that description. He was no mere domestic, and certainly not just a basic fry cook and dish washer working for a white family. He was the nucleus of a special and historic food-centered destination, one of a handful of black chefs toward the middle of the 20th century excelling within, and escaping beyond, the boundaries set for them.
Jim was the one-man food service team at the old Nancy Lincoln Inn near the Lincoln Birthplace in LaRue County, Kentucky. His talents in the kitchen are best remembered in connection with the Howell family, where they operated a restaurant in the first days of the famed historic site and National Historic Park. Early tourists to south central Kentucky, coming to see the Lincoln Shrine, found ample good country fare prepared by Tinker just steps away from the Memorial Building at the heart of the "Cradle of Emancipation."
Yes, there is immense irony here. A man of color, descended from slavery, toiling for a prominent white family on the very grounds, and within sight, of the humble spot where Lincoln had been born just over a century before, the man who had been influenced from infancy by the slavery he beheld here and ultimately ended the institution in America. While Jim Tinker couldn't have realized the full impact, the thoughts of his personal and direct ties to the "Great Emancipator" had to have crossed his mind on a daily basis. Had only Jim known the greater historic irony of that little cabin, that in the years after Lincoln's birth it had been relegated to use as a slave dwelling, becoming a poignant symbol of the attainment of Freedom, one wonders his thoughts then.
That story of slavery and the Lincoln Birthplace must be saved for another time.
Jim Tinker was as well a local veteran of the 2nd World War, and a member of Hodgenville's black First Baptist Church. (One must chuckle at things in the South. Constituted and always known as "First" Baptist, the African-American congregation found competition with the neighboring white congregation in town during the 20th century when they changed their name to First Baptist as well after over a century!)
He wasn't alone in his vocation, as that era of the 1920s onward gave many a Black man and woman employment in servicing the virgin tourism industry. America was on the road, developing a love affair with their cars and travel. Still enamored by US history, people swarmed the historic sites of the country. And where travelers went, food had to be served. Families like the Howells were quick to seize the opportunity to profit from this mobile class of American tourists, with similar inns, lodges, and camp sites springing up all along tourists routes like parallel Highways 31-West and 31-East as motorists made their way south to destinations like the Lincoln Birthplace and nearby Mammoth Cave.
Jim apparently descended from former slaves of either Ralph Tinker or his son, Houghton Tinker. His father appears to have been (John) Lewis Tinker, born a slave here in 1860, while his mother was Molly Hughes, born during Reconstruction in 1872. An older brother, Arthur "Blue" Tinker, had been born 3 Feb. 1907. I feel Lewis Tinker was a son of Berry Tinker (b. 1848), but additional genealogical research is certainly warranted to trace this family's complete slavery era ancestry.
Like many slaves immediately after the Civil War, Berry Tinker became a puppet of the Freedman's Bureau, who "contracted" him back to his old master, Houghton H. Tinker, on 1st January 1866. Berry, and likely his brothers Robert and Bush, accepted an obligation to sharecrop for Houghton, placing them right back in the same plantation setting they seemingly had been freed from, thanks to the oversight of the United States. Berry died the 6th April, 1923, in the same county in which he had been born a slave. Free at death, but freedom in life somewhat questionable.
Photo Courtesy the Collection of Carl Howell Jr.
He wasn't alone in his vocation, as that era of the 1920s onward gave many a Black man and woman employment in servicing the virgin tourism industry. America was on the road, developing a love affair with their cars and travel. Still enamored by US history, people swarmed the historic sites of the country. And where travelers went, food had to be served. Families like the Howells were quick to seize the opportunity to profit from this mobile class of American tourists, with similar inns, lodges, and camp sites springing up all along tourists routes like parallel Highways 31-West and 31-East as motorists made their way south to destinations like the Lincoln Birthplace and nearby Mammoth Cave.
Jim apparently descended from former slaves of either Ralph Tinker or his son, Houghton Tinker. His father appears to have been (John) Lewis Tinker, born a slave here in 1860, while his mother was Molly Hughes, born during Reconstruction in 1872. An older brother, Arthur "Blue" Tinker, had been born 3 Feb. 1907. I feel Lewis Tinker was a son of Berry Tinker (b. 1848), but additional genealogical research is certainly warranted to trace this family's complete slavery era ancestry.
Like many slaves immediately after the Civil War, Berry Tinker became a puppet of the Freedman's Bureau, who "contracted" him back to his old master, Houghton H. Tinker, on 1st January 1866. Berry, and likely his brothers Robert and Bush, accepted an obligation to sharecrop for Houghton, placing them right back in the same plantation setting they seemingly had been freed from, thanks to the oversight of the United States. Berry died the 6th April, 1923, in the same county in which he had been born a slave. Free at death, but freedom in life somewhat questionable.
Photo Courtesy the Collection of Carl Howell Jr.
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