Pink Collar Workers: Lillian Harris Dean

Lillian Harris Dean, aka Pigfoot Mary (c. 1870-1929) embodies the promise of the American dream. She became one of Harlem’s most successful food vendors by selling pigs’ feet.

This month, we’re bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed! We’ll be talking about Pink Collar Workers: women who revolutionized jobs that have traditionally been called "women's work." Through their lives, they created a more just and humane world for us today.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello. For Wondermedia Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this is Wamanica.
This August, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica
episodes you might have missed. All month, we'll be talking
about pink collar workers. These women revolutionized jobs that have
traditionally been called women's work. Through their lives, they created
a more just and humane world for us today. With that,

(00:22):
here's one of our favorite episodes.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hi, I'm Kia Demon. I'm a Floridabourne chef, writer, host,
and recipe developer. I served as an executive chef of
a New York City restaurant at the age of twenty
four and became Cherrybomb Magazine's first culinary director at twenty five.
I've been named one of sixteen chefs changing Black Food
in America by The New York Times and Forbes thirty

(00:48):
Under thirty in Food and Beverage. In twenty twenty one.
I found it Kiathi's The People, a budding mutual aid
effort focusing on food apartheide in Brooklyn. I'll be your
guest host for this month of America. This month, we're
talking about taste makers. We're celebrating the black chefs cooks
and food historians who created new food ways and preserved

(01:10):
important culinary stories of the past. Today, we're talking about
a woman who embodies the promise of the American dream.
She became one of Harlem's most successful food vendors by
selling pigs feet. Let's talk about Lillian Harristein. Lillian Harris

(01:35):
was born in the Mississippi Delta sometime between eighteen seventy
and eighteen seventy three. We don't know much about her
early life, but we do know three things. She loved
pigs feet. She was the oldest of a handful of siblings,
and her dream was to have enough money to buy

(01:55):
a place to live when she got old. But she
was still just a kid. Lilian decided that the Mississippi
Delta was not where she would turn her dream into reality,
so she left and drifted between the northern cities for
about fifteen years. In nineteen oh one, Lillian landed in
New York City. She took a job as a maid,

(02:16):
but it didn't last for long. After all, it was
just a means to an end. At this time, many
African Americans made their living as street food vendors. It
didn't take long for Lilian to join the movement, and
one week as a maid, she made five dollars. She
used each dollar strategically, a few dollars for used baby carriage,

(02:40):
a little bit for a large tin pot, and the
rest for pigs feet. With these items, Lilian began her
journey to financial prosperity. She cooked the pigs feet in
a pot over charcoal, stole, put the pot in the
baby carriage, and hit the streets. Every day, Lilian would

(03:01):
park herself on a corner near Columbus Circle and sell
pigs feet from sunrise to sunset, almost like the original
food truck. The pig's feet were an instant success. Black
Southerners who had migrated north longed for those culinary staple
from their roots, but the pig's feet were not exactly
a delicacy. They didn't have a ton of meat, nor

(03:24):
were they particularly juicy, but they reminded African Americans of
home and a place that felt so foreign. Lilian's success
came with financial gains and a new name, pigfoot Mary.
After a couple of years, pigfoot Mary upgraded from a
baby carriage to a portable stove and relocated to Amsterdam.

(03:46):
Avenue between sixty first and sixty second Street. Here business boomed.
People would lie on the block. She sold more than
one hundred pigs feet a day during the week, and
more than three hundred on Saturdays. But pigfoot Mary didn't
go on to spending spree with this influx of cash.

(04:07):
She lived modestly and saved all the money she made. Eventually,
pigfoot Mary married newspaper stand owner John Dean. The story
is that John proposed after trying one of her pigs feet.
They ended up selling their wares side by side. Pigfoot

(04:28):
Mary added hogmalls, chitlins, and corn on the cop to
the menu. These smells and tastes of home gave her
customers a sense of belonging. It grounded them in a
new place and connected them to the culture they left behind.
She also made a name for herself among the artists, writers,
and entrepreneurs that flocked to the cultural hub of the

(04:49):
Harlem Renaissance. And once again, she was frugal with the
money she made. Eventually, that frugality paid off. With her
husband's encouragement, pigfoot Mary entered the real estate business. She
was able to purchase a five story apartment building in
Harlem for about forty two thousand dollars. She rented to

(05:11):
anyone who needed a place to stay. Six years later,
she sold it for seventy two thousand dollars. But that
wasn't her only property. As she made more money, she
bought more buildings. Pigfoot Mary couldn't read or write, but
she knew how to cook and she was financially savvy. Today,
some of the buildings she once owned look a little different.

(05:34):
They now housed the Harlem Hospital, a Salvation Army location
in Saint Mark, the Evangelist Church. In nineteen twenty three,
Pigfoot Mary took some time to travel around the West Coast.
Shortly after she retired there. Pigfoot Mary died on July sixteenth,
nineteen twenty nine, in Los Angeles. Her net worth of

(05:57):
three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars would have been
more than six million dollars today.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Thanks for listening to this best of Episodeablemnica. For more information,
find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast Special
Thanks to lose Kaplan, my favorite sister and co creator.
Join us tomorrow for another one of our favorite episodes.
Honoring pink collar workers. Talk to you, then