Eugenia Duke


Eugenia Thomas Slade Duke created Duke's Mayonnaise in 1917, in Greenville, South Carolina. While it is the third-largest mayonnaise brand in the United States, its popularity was at first largely limited to the South.
In August 1917, she and her daughter Martha began selling sandwiches at YMCA-run Army canteens to help make money for her family. Due to requests from soldiers at nearby Camp Sevier and other customers, she started bottling her mayonnaise around 1923. Unable to keep up with demand, she sold it to C. F. Sauer Company in 1929. She followed Martha to California and opened the Duchess Sandwich Company followed by the Duchess Catering Company.
In 2017, the South Carolina legislature recognized the centennial of Duke's.

Biography

When Duke was 18, she married Harry Cuthbert Duke in 1900 and moved to Greenville. She was active in working towards passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women the right to vote.