Lloyd Olivia Lloyd History 387 – Professor Ross May 8, 2014 Lunchbox Liberalism: How the United States Government Found a Place in Popular Culture In the long view, no nation is any healthier than its children or more prosperous than its farmers; and in the National School Lunch Act, the Congress has contributed immeasurably both to the welfare to our farmers and the health of our children.1 On June 4, 1946, President Truman announced the implementation of a permanent National School Lunch Program, just a year after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) death. Truman touted the program as sign of Congress’ “great wisdom” and success in helping American boys and girls.2 Ultimately, however, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) allowed the government to regulate the contents of children’s lunchboxes in the interest of bolstering the agricultural industry rather than serving the health interests of the children it fed. During FDR’s presidency, the central question of U.S. politics was not if the government should aid people, but how to do so. Ideally, FDR wanted to kill two birds with one stone using school lunches: pay poor farmers and feed hungry children. Under FDR, the school lunch program never pursued a clear goal because there was no simple way to satisfy the divergent interests of each group. Impoverished American farmers sought an outlet for the surplus goods they had produced during the Great Depression (1929-1940s). Meanwhile, fueled by the novel findings of nutrition scientists, parents and educators wanted to furnish 1 2 “Truman Approves School Lunch Bill,” New York Times, June 5, 1946, 17. “Truman Approves School Lunch Bill.” 1 Lloyd 2 wholesome lunches for American schoolchildren who could not afford to eat or did not know the proper things to eat. The Grassroots Movements of School Feeding Women who had grown up in the Progressive Era (1880-1930) drove the initial development of a school lunch program. As Susan Levine argues, children became part of an ideological project for American women looking to propagate the knowledge they acquired from cooking, cleaning, and raising children.3 Through their involvement in social work and the promotion of school lunches, women drew attention to the demand for welfare programs, specifically those that benefitted young children. These women played an integral role in creating a new definition of liberalism. As part of “their belief in the interconnectedness of society, and thus in the need to protect individuals,”4 Progressive-era women were compelled to provide lunches not only for their own children, but also for the children in their communities who could not afford lunches. The growth of home economics in conjunction with the burgeoning field of nutrition science provided women a clear purpose: to feed hungry American schoolchildren. However, when federal laws were established to necessitate children’s attendance in schools, an influx of “a cosmopolitan group” of students complicated the motivations behind school feeding.5 Women’s groups, religious organizations, Susan Levine, School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 18. 4 Alan Brinkley, The End Of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York: Random House, Inc., 1995), 9. 5 Committee A. Growth and Development, Nutrition, Preliminary Report of Division III, White House Conference on Child Health and Protection (Washington, D.C., 1930), 387. 3 Lloyd 3 and teachers often worked together to feed children who came from poor families, but “nutrition science fed the notion that social inequality was due to cultural habit rather than economic condition.”6 Home economists believed that their duty went beyond providing nutritious meals; their responsibility also included assimilating children who came from diverse backgrounds. Children from immigrant families might prefer different food types, or have a hard time understanding how to prepare meals.7 Some women even went so far as to transform school cafeterias into kitchens where they could foster positive nutrition habits by teaching young girls to cook nutrient-rich meals. These original lunch-ladies hoped they could have a ripple effect: unbalanced diets would be ameliorated, children would learn good manners, perform better in school, and bring valuable lessons about what to eat and how to eat it, home to their families.8 While mid-day meals could help unify students in the lunchroom, the start of World War I (1914-1918) demanded cooperation on a larger front. It was not uncommon to hear that unemployment and skyrocketing food prices forced mothers to find manual labor jobs even after recent childbirth.9 Social workers surveying homes were dismayed to find that “the weight of the young children was ten or fifteen pounds under normal because of the lack of milk… the family has been Levine, School Lunch Politics, 17. Velma Phillips and Laura Howell, “Racial and Other Differences in Dietary Customs,” Journal of Home Economics 12, no. 9 (September 1920): 397. 8 Dora S. Lewis and Phyllis Sprague, “A Survey of School Lunchrooms,” Journal of Home Economics 28, no. 9 (November 1936): 600–604; Lucy H. Gillett, How Can Our Work in Foods Be Made More Vital to the Health of the Child! / ([Baltimore,, 1920), 387, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015076758435. 9 “Find East Side Children Lack Milk: Col. Roosevelt, Leading Party of Charity Workers, Visits Homes of Poor,” New York Times, January 17, 1918. 6 7 Lloyd 4 able to buy only one quart of milk a day. Three quarts are needed for the children.”10 The strength of the nation suddenly depended on the proper feeding of its children.11 In wartime, youths often make up the bulk of the fighting force. Though mothers are especially protective of their children, it makes sense that they would be particularly interested in their children’s health during a war. Schools rarely had the resources to provide lunches themselves, but progressives – home economists, nutrition scientists, and doctors alike – agreed that making sure children were fed and cared for “from the end of infancy to adolescence” was a responsibility that “in the interest of the economy, the State cannot afford to neglect.”12 In the effort to sustain a war overseas, the government invested in nutrition science to learn about the proper intake of vitamins and nutrients.13 Equipped with data on the vast numbers of malnourished children, liberals shifted the impetus for nutrition education once again, spreading the message “that anyone – rich or poor – could suffer from malnutrition.”14 However, it was not until the Depression that the government took an interest in school feeding specifically. New Deal Liberalism and Agricultural Crisis The Depression catapulted the world into a state of disarray, leaving Americans exhausted, hungry, poor, and desperate for any intervention that would Ibid. Levine, School Lunch Politics, 24. 12 “The School Child,” The British Medical Journal 2, no. 2921 (December 23, 1916): 875. 13 Levine, School Lunch Politics, 24. 14 Ibid. 10 11 Lloyd 5 improve their lives.15 At first, non-profits such as The American Red Cross promoted community well-being, coordinated hot meals for the increasing number of children coming to school underfed.16 However, in his inaugural address, Roosevelt ambitiously promised to secure popular demand “for work and reasonable security,” assuring that “popular welfare depends on granting what the great mass of the people want and need.”17 New Deal policies revolved around the basic tenet that the government should be responsible for regulating capitalism, protecting the liberties of individuals Americans.18 With the promise of a New Deal, FDR established the government as a pillar of support. New Deal liberals believed that reforming the economy required a combination of agricultural reform, increased employment opportunities, and the expansion of welfare programs.19 FDR oversaw the creation of two federal agencies that sought to address the needs of hungry students, unemployed people, and farmers. The Surplus Marketing Administration (SMA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) eventually became instrumental in creating a national school lunch program.20 Incidentally, the involvement of the federal government in the agricultural sector provided a convenient source of food for government-assistance programs. FDR opposed the idea of trickle down economics, and did not believe that the profits of industrial monopolies would “leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to Paul L. Benjamin, “The Family Society and the Depression,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 160 (March 1, 1932): 135. 16 Herman M. Southworth, “The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surplus Disposal” (The Bureau of Agricultural Economics - United States Department of Agriculture, October 1941), 14. 17 Arthur Krock, “Pledges Self to ‘New Deal,’” New York Times, July 3, 1932. 18 Brinkley, The End Of Reform, 6–7. 19 Levine, School Lunch Politics, 43. 20 Southworth, “The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surplus Disposal,” 15. 15 Lloyd 6 the small business man.”21 As the Depression left many Americans unemployed and without money to spend, people could only afford to purchase the bare minimum. Without a market for farm products, a rapid fall in prices ensued. Within the first four years of the stock market crash, farm prices fell 51 percent.22 To compensate for the profits they were losing to low crop prices, farmers increased productivity. Rather than solving the problem, this resulted in a surplus of crops. Though farmers resisted decreasing the acreage of their farms as per the request of government officials, Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) in 1933.23 The AAA allowed the government to set a price for commodities.24 The government allotted money to farmers who agreed to production quotas and devoted less acreage to commodity crops. With the AAA, FDR’s administration provided farmers some relief, but the act did not immediately solve the problem of how to remove commodity goods from the market. One aspect of the AAA that incurred particular hostility from farmers was that to receive government subsidies, the producers had to limit the quantities of certain commodities on the market.25 To compensate farmers who had to destroy crops and livestock (namely hogs) that had already been produced so that they would not reach the market, food processors Franklin Roosevelt, “Text of Roosevelt’s Acceptance Address,” The Washington Post, July 2, 1932. Robert J. Samuelson, “Great Depression,” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, Library of Economics and Liberty, 1993, <http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/GreatDepression.html>. 23 Adam D. Sheingate, The Rise of the Agricultural Welfare State: Institutions and Interest Group Power in the United States, France, and Japan (Princeton University Press, 2003), 108. 24 Hearing before the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry on Agricultural Adjustment Relief Plan, 72nd Cong., 2nd Sess. (Jan. 25-28, 30 - Feb. 4, 6, 1933), H..R. 13991 25 Ibid. 21 22 Lloyd 7 were required to pay a heavy tax.26 However, in 1935, Congress modified the AAA, freeing up surplus goods to be distributed to needy recipients, like hungry schoolchildren. Though FDR hesitated at first to commit fully to massive welfare programs, he realized that relief and recovery were only temporary measures. As Frances Perkins announced in one of many Roosevelt administration radio broadcasts, the U.S. would build on a European model of social insurance that equated liberty with security: “to maintain a healthy economy and thriving production, we need to maintain the standard of living of the lower income groups in our population who constitute 90 per cent of our purchasing power.”27 New Deal policies like social security and the AAA were premised upon economic inequality. Essentially, the unveiling of Social Security validated the idea that Americans had a right to be protected in circumstances out of their control. Though it was the people who had a collective duty to their fellow citizens to protect everyone, it was the government that facilitated new programs to level the playing field. Individuals with more resources had to cede some of their wealth to augment the purchasing power, as well as the basic rights, of individuals who were less privileged.28 The adjustments made to the AAA in 1935 cemented the government’s role in mediating between the agricultural industry and school lunch programs. The Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendments provided the government’s U.S. “Committee Urges Hog Process Tax - Corn Belt Group Asks for Levy to Discourage Marketing Heavier Animals,” New York Times, July 26, 1933; See Brinkley, The End Of Reform, 18, who notes that the AAA was ruled unconstitutional 2 years later. 27 Frances Perkins, “Social Insurance For U.S.,” National Radio Address, February 25, 1935, Social Security Administration, http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/perkinsradio.html. 28 Brinkley, The End Of Reform, 10. 26 Lloyd 8 Department of Agriculture (USDA) more authority over the production and distribution of commodity farm goods. According to Section 32 of the AAA Amendments, the Secretary of Agriculture could “encourage the domestic consumption of such commodities or products by diverting them, by the payments of such benefits or indemnities or by other means, from the normal channels of trade and commerce” using “30 per centum of the gross receipts from duties” collected each fiscal year. The Secretary of Agriculture could use his or her discretion to allocate surplus farm goods. Diverting subsidized commodities to malnourished school children unable to afford lunches seemed like the perfect way to promote consumption outside normal channels. A caveat to Section 32 of the AAA amendments: only certain foods were subsidized.29 The need to create a recipient for surplus crops that the government purchased from farmers drove FDR’s interest in developing school lunches. Schools could hardly generate meal plans or accommodate the needs of their students when “what foods are provided at any time and how much of them depend on the current purchase programs of the [Surplus Marketing Administration], and these programs are planned primarily to meet farmers’ needs.”30 As a result, school cafeterias depended on a limited variety of commodities that the agricultural industry was paid to produce. Schools received the donation of surplus crops with the understanding that everything they received had to be converted into a free hot meal for students who qualified, and that the surplus food they received did not 29 30 Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendments, 74nd Cong., 1nd Sess. (August 12, 1935): HR 8492. Southworth, “The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surplus Disposal,” 19. Lloyd 9 detract from the amount of food the schools would normally purchase.31 If the provision of a subsidy did not feed more children than a school was normally capable of, "a subsidy…must be reflected in lower prices to the children, higher quality of menus, higher quality of service, or a reduction of funds provided by the sponsors.”32 In four of the first five years of the program, “butter, dry skim milk, dried prunes, and wheat flour” comprised the top commodities.33 Problematically, given the lack of variety of commodities the SMA supplied, lunchroom administrators found it difficult to craft meals that were nutritious and appealing. Labor For School Lunches In the wake of the Depression, home economists proclaimed a greater need for government to endorse school lunches. The scope of departments and agencies created in the early stages of emergency relief varied widely, but FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, was particularly influential in bringing children’s nutrition issues to the forefront. She decried the fact that in Manhattan schoolchildren, the malnutrition rate had increased “from 16 per cent in 1929 to 29 percent in 1932.”34 In a national address, Perkins called for the collaboration of private and government agencies in upholding elevated standards for child health. She exhorted “the people of America” to act on behalf of the children, who she did not want to “waste away.”35 Though the Depression revealed glaring inequalities, Perkins was adamant that “the Ibid., 44. Herman M. Southworth, “The Economics of Public Measures to Subsidize Food Consumption,” Journal of Farm Economics 27, no. 1 (February 1, 1945): 58, doi:10.2307/1232262. 33 Southworth, “The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surplus Disposal,” 21. 34 Frances Perkins, “For Child Health: A National Call,” New York Times, October 1, 1933. 35 Ibid. 31 32 Lloyd 10 intelligence, organizing ability, sympathy and driving force of our people will rally to the call for the child health recovery campaign and see it carried to a successful conclusion.”36 That driving force would come from largely from the work of Americans employed by FDR’s Works Progress Administration, created in 1935.37 The WPA gave Americans down on their luck an opportunity to earn a living wage, working on projects that benefitted the public good. “School lunch programs offered etiquette and hygiene along with hot meals. Penasco, New Mexico.” Photo by John Collier. Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress. In Levine, “School Lunch Politics,” 43. Though piecemeal state funding aided volunteer efforts throughout the Depression, FDR’s New Deal formed federal relief agencies aimed directly at feeding children. American officials committed to providing school lunches as a way to resolve agricultural crises, but they hoped the gesture would serve as a symbol of Ibid. Ellen S. Woodward, “The Works Progress Administration School Lunch Project,” Journal of Home Economics 28, no. 9 (November 1936): 592. 36 37 Lloyd 11 government strength and authority. Ideally, people would latch on to the concept that school lunches were just “one way of rescuing children from a misfortune that has befallen them through no fault of their own, and, at the same time…saving society the costs of letting them grow up under the handicap that malnutrition poses.”38 The methods employed to remedy agricultural woes did not always satisfy the goals of child welfare activists and mothers who valued the health of their children above all.39 Yet, they had learned from experience that they lacked the political agency and the funding necessary to provide nutrition education and healthy, affordable meals on a large scale. New Deal policies secured the support of women who pioneered school lunches. In the public eye, the federal government seemed to vindicate the efforts of liberal activists, mobilized funding from “boards of education, county supervisors, departments of public welfare, or other public, taxsupported agencies” for school lunch programs in almost every state.40 While men dominated the world of politics, the WPA brought women paychecks, the opportunity to advise the implementation of new school lunch programs, and to oversee nutritional standards in existing programs.41 Southworth, “The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surplus Disposal,” 8. Levine, School Lunch Politics, 72. 40 Ellen S. Woodward, “The Works Progress Administration School Lunch Project,” 592. 41 Levine, School Lunch Politics, 42. 38 39 Lloyd 12 “Every Child Needs a Good School Lunch” poster, NWDNS-44-PA-735, in Levine, School Lunch Politics, 62. World War Two and the Emergence of A National School Lunch Program Though the adjustments to the AAA provided some surplus goods to school lunch programs, the onset of World War II (1939-1942) precipitated massive government spending, particularly for school lunch programs. As the country geared up for a war fought abroad as well as on the home front, nutritionists continued a narrative they had used during WWI: “We all know that our national health will one day depend upon the mental and physical health of the boys and girls of today. The school lunch program is an effective plan which can be an enormously important contributing factor in achieving that health."42 As surplus was no longer the problem, the attendees of a National Nutrition Conference recommended “School Lunch Plan Urged on Senators: Miss Gosselin and Others Say Federal Service Offers Big Dividends in Health,” New York Times, May 5, 1944. 42 Lloyd 13 improving school lunches, as well as overall dietary habits, “through the united efforts of agriculture, economics, public health, nutritional science, industry, and education.”43 The trend was toward more government funding for food programs and research on the ideal diet. The war effort signaled the end of gradual spending efforts, and committed the government to massive fiscal projects. Southworth, “The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surplus Disposal,” 1941, 27 The federal government’s commitment to providing one small meal a day in schools represented a transition in liberalism that promoted federal intervention in the economy, but entrusted federal dollars to Americans to do with it as they saw fit.44 The federal government controlled what food it made available to schools, but left the actual implementation of school programs “in the hands of local groups, who “The National Nutrition Conference,” Public Health Reports (1896-1970) 56, no. 24 (June 13, 1941): 1233–55. 44 Brinkley, The End Of Reform, 7. 43 Lloyd 14 are best able to adapt projects to local needs and conditions.”45 People began to expect their schools to provide food to students. A National Nutrition Conference in 1941 resulted in the coupling of two government agencies, the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation and the Farm Marketing Administration. The collective power of these two federal agencies was able to provide “ingredients in the spring of 1941 for the school lunches of some 4,411,000 children.”46 Teachers noticed an immediate improvement in their students, whose focus improved, energy levels rose, and physical ailments diminished.47 The government poured federal money into school lunches as part of a broader plan to save agribusiness and command a firm grasp on the economy. However, the program gained popularity among those who saw previously starving students thrive with the provision of the right nutrients. By the end of World War II, Americans not only supported federal spending for a national school lunch program, but they proposed providing free lunches to those born into unfortunate circumstances was a national duty: The only real solution to low purchasing power is to find some way of maintaining a high rate of industrial activity, full employment, a high national income, and a fairly even distribution of income to all groups of the population…There is a good deal of difference of opinion as to how far the Government should be responsible for managing the economy in such a way as to maintain full employment…We can, and should, build upon the pre-war experience with school lunches, distribution of food to relief families, and the Food Stamp Plan. These programs accomplished a great deal before the war– Southworth, “The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surplus Disposal,” 9. Richard Osborn Cummings, The American and His Food, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1941). 47 Ellen S. Woodward, “The Works Progress Administration School Lunch Project,” 594. 45 46 Lloyd 15 both as a means of improving diets and as a means of expanding the market for farm products.48 Just after President Truman took office, Congress passed the National School Lunch Act, which permanently allocated $75,000,000 annually to the official National School Lunch Program.49 The NSLP asserted the government’s strength, wealth, and organization. For the inaugural three years of the program, all federal subsidies had to be matched by state funds, with the federal contribution declining over time, until the states paid three dollars for every one federal dollar. The funding would vary state-by-state, to ensure that states with the least tax-payer dollars and the highest school enrollment received larger subsidies.50 Finally, a unified plan had come to fruition. The creation of the NSLP in 1946 garnered support from home economists and child-welfare advocates, mostly moms and teachers who knew that federal aid could feed and educate a nation full of children who they could only reach on a local level.51 As Brinkley argues, FDR played an essential role in creating a political climate in which “no dream was too extravagant, no proposal too outlandish.”52 Farmers, teachers, parents, and politicians alike could all see the benefit in the NSLP. Like other New Deal programs, school lunches acted as a salve for many economic, health, and social Frederick V. Waugh, “What Shall We Do with Surplus Foods?,” Journal of Marketing 10, no. 3 (January 1, 1946): 255, doi:10.2307/1245256. 49 “Truman Approves School Lunch Bill.” 50 Ibid. 51 Levine, School Lunch Politics, 72. 52 Brinkley argues that “New Dealers” were not really one type of liberal, but a group of intellectuals whose ideas changed over the course of FDR’s two terms. Given that there was no obvious solution to fixing the economy, FDR was open to an array of different possibilities. The “New Deal” shifted the idea of liberalism from an old “laissez-fare” model, which is actually more akin to today’s conception of “conservatism,” to a stance “that government must play an active role in the economy.” Brinkley, The End Of Reform. 48 Lloyd 16 problems the nation faced in the wake of the Great Depression. Though the emergence of the NSLP developed ad hoc, the program ultimately favored the success of agribusiness rather than the provision of nutritious meals and holistic education to the students it purported to help. Lloyd 17 Works Cited Newspapers The New York Times (1919-1946) The Washington Post (1932) Primary Sources A. Government Documents Agricultural Adjustment Act Amendments, 1935. Agricultural Adjustment Relief Plan. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1933. Committee A. Growth and Development. Nutrition, Preliminary Report of Division III. White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. Washington, D.C., 1930. Southworth, Herman M. “The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surplus Disposal.” The Bureau of Agricultural Economics - United States Department of Agriculture, October 1941. B. Publications Benjamin, Paul L. “The Family Society and the Depression.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 160 (March 1, 1932): 135–43. Cummings, Richard Osborn. The American and His Food. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1941. Gillett, Lucy H. How Can Our Work in Foods Be Made More Vital to the Health of the Child! (Baltimore, 1920). http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015076758435. Lewis, Dora S., and Phyllis Sprague. “A Survey of School Lunchrooms.” Journal of Home Economics 28, no. 9 (November 1936): 600–604. Perkins, Frances. “Social Insurance For U.S.” National Radio Address, February 25, 1935. Social Security Administration. Accessed April 25, 2014. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/perkinsradio.html. Phillips, Velma, and Laura Howell. “Racial and Other Differences in Dietary Customs.” Journal of Home Economics 12, no. 9 (September 1920): 397. Lloyd 18 Southworth, Herman M. “The Economics of Public Measures to Subsidize Food Consumption.” Journal of Farm Economics 27, no. 1 (February 1, 1945): 38– 66. Accessed May 6, 2014. doi:10.2307/1232262. “The National Nutrition Conference.” Public Health Reports (1896-1970) 56, no. 24 (June 13, 1941): 1233–55. “The School Child.” The British Medical Journal 2, no. 2921 (December 23, 1916): 875–76. Waugh, Frederick V. “What Shall We Do with Surplus Foods?” Journal of Marketing 10, no. 3 (January 1, 1946): 253–57. Accessed May 4, 2014. doi:10.2307/1245256. Woodward, Ellen S. “The Works Progress Administration School Lunch Project.” Journal of Home Economics 28, no. 9 (November 1936): 592–96. Secondary Sources Brinkley, Alan. The End Of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War. New York: Random House, Inc., 1995. Levine, Susan. School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Samuelson, Robert J. “Great Depression.” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Library of Economics and Liberty, 1993. Accessed April 15, 2014. <http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/GreatDepression.html>. Sheingate, Adam D. The Rise of the Agricultural Welfare State: Institutions and Interest Group Power in the United States, France, and Japan. Princeton University Press, 2003.