3/30/2023 0 Comments Lunch bucketsRelief organizations in New York City served up fresh apples, bananas, vegetable soups, and peanut butter sandwiches to children. But people like anthropologist Margaret Mead still pushed for balanced meals. As a result, schools began serving a lot more beef, pork, butter, and other commodities. Department of Agriculture to buy up surplus food from farmers and funnel it into school lunch programs. In the wake of the Great Depression, the federal government authorized the U.S. Surplus farm commodities transformed school lunches in the 1930s. The practice of home economics teachers having girls prepare nutritionally balanced lunches became even more widespread, and these kitchens gradually became professional operations, paving the way for the modern cafeteria-and-kitchen setup. In an editorial, The Journal of Home Economics had worried that parents and community lunch programs, left to their own devices, would let children consume nothing but coffee, potato chips, pickles, and “frankforters.” Schools listened, and many began tracking students’ health and teaching them how to cook. But health experts warned that these meals were nutritionally deficient. By the early '20s, more and more kids were chowing down on stews, boiled meats, creamed vegetables, and bread. The emphasis on providing a “hot lunch” took hold during this era. The 1920s ushered in the hot school lunch. Even with these innovative efforts, there was still concern about hunger and malnutrition amongst America’s schoolchildren. Pinellas County in Florida started a program that served meat-and-potato stew to schoolchildren using ingredients donated by parents. In rural communities, parent-teacher committees pooled their resources. If students had an extra cent, they could spring for an additional side like stewed prunes, rice pudding, or a candied apple. Kids didn’t get much for their money : Pea soup, lentils, or rice and a piece of bread was a common offering. offered programs through groups like the New York School Lunch Committee, which offered three-cent meals. By 1912, more than 40 cities across the U.S. Volunteer organizations became the main source for low-cost and subsidized school lunches. Henry Guttmann/Hulton Archive/Getty Images In the 1910s, volunteer organizations provided school lunches.Ĭhildren eat school lunch in the open air, circa 1910. At Boston’s Trade School for Girls, lunch selections included celery soup with croutons, stuffed tomatoes, apple shortcake, baked beans and brown bread, and cocoa to drink-prepared by the girls as part of their domestic science program. Elementary school children were given crackers, soup, and milk. In cities like Boston and Philadelphia, organizations like the Women's Education and Industrial Union began providing meals for schoolchildren. As more and more parents took jobs in factories and elsewhere outside the home, many children were left without food options. If their teacher was industrious, students might bring ingredients for a communal stew cooked in a kettle. In some rural communities, children would bring food from home to school. The vast majority of children in the early 1900s went home for lunch. Most schoolchildren at lunch at home in the 1900s. Here’s how the midday meal has evolved through the years. In the decades that followed, the forces of business, public health, and politics would transform school lunches into a communal experience filled with adolescent power struggles, branded lunch boxes, and heaping portions of mystery meat. Most children went home for their meal if they had a few cents in their pocket, they bought a less-than-healthy treat from a street vendor. At the turn of the 20th century, school lunch as we know it didn’t exist.
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