Annica [ a Black house slave in Mississippi] got a letter form her mammy which detected her in a lie. O! that negroes were more truthful. -Entry, dated January 25, 1855, in Eliza L. Magurder's personal diary.
mammy...2a: a Negro woman serving as a nurse to white children esp. formerly in the Southern states...b: A Negro woman-often taken to be offensive.
An Afro-American woman, when asked what she thought of the word, responded unhesitatingly, "I wouldn't want to be called one." It might be sound policy for LC catalogers to first query Black LC staffers before elevating antebellum plantation slang to primary head status.
Remedy: Substitute CHILD-NURSES, AFRO-AMERICAN, with an "xx" for NURSES AND NURSING as well as CHILDREN-CARE AND HYGIENE, cancelling all the "Mammy" referents.
