Science History Institute

What are the different kinds of concerns that shaped U.S. policies about nutrition, for example, school lunch programs? Who got to make decisions in this history? Who would you like to learn more about? We will work on these questions in this annotation activity. 

Read through the list of people who attended the 1971 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health in Appendix F (linked below as additional resources). What groups of stakeholders stand out on this list? Are there any surprises? What people or organizations would you like to learn more about? Write down your groups, surprises, and questions to this cover image using the text tool below. You can use different color highlights to indicate your groupings.

Identifying a Cast of Characters

In Super Sandwich, players buy foods with different nutritional values. The goal is to buy enough foods to provide the Recommend Dietary Allowance (RDA) of protein; calcium; iron; and vitamins A, B, and C, as set by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1973. The first player to hit those RDAs, without going over the recommended daily calories, wins. As you explore the game's actions and rules, what do you think they tell you about the ways in which "health advice" was communicated to the public, especially to younger people, at this time? What is important about food and activity, according to this game? Are there ways you think about food and activity that aren't represented by this game? 

Super Sandwich

“Results of an Experiment to Determine If Corn Can Use Ammonia Nitrogen,” July 26, 1927. Travis P. Hignett Collection of Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory Photographs, Box 2. Science History Institute. Philadelphia. https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/pg15bd92c.

Vitamins, Pesticides, and Fertilizers

This slideshow is about childhood nutritional concerns. Pages from the 1916 USDA Farmers' Bulletin explored in this activity show how children came to be defined nutritionally—therefore, biologically—as a special category of human beings.

Food for Young Children

An observer and operator outside a human calorimeter, ca. 1910 (Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library) 

Thinking About Food

Who has made decisions about the way people eat in the United States? Do they reflect different levels of economic or governmental power? Who would you like to know more about?

School Lunches

By 1943, nutrition scientists were talking about seven food groups. This poster was produced by the War Food Administration at the height of U.S. involvement in World War II. Its purpose? To make U.S. civilians, soldiers, and future soldiers strong by helping them mix and match foods to meet nutritional guidelines. For this annotation activity, think about the War Food Administration tried to communicate cutting-edge research to the U.S. public. Using the paint tool, circle the words or images that make an argument for why the country's residents should eat in a particular way. What research, do you think, might have given government officials these ideas? Who do you think the War Food Administration was targeting with this poster, and why? (Courtesy of UNT Libraries Government Documents Department, 

The Basic 7

In the 1700s and 1800s, scientists in Europe and the United States were using new laboratory practices to understand food. The goal was to understand how to efficiently feed large numbers of armed forces and growing populations of people living in cities and working in new factories. The title page of this 1821 British book captures the scientific spirit of the time. Using the highlight tool, choose a color (by clicking on the white square) and underline the words on this page that seem like they come out of the laboratory. Using a different color, underline the words that sound like they belong in the kitchen. Why do you associate some words with science, and others with cooking? How do you define "science"? How do you define "cooking"? Does your thinking about these categories change when you relate them to one another? 

A New Scientific Approach to Food 

. "Mrs. Brown," the narrator says here, "learns how to prepare meals from reading, and from television, and the radio. There is a great deal to learn." 

As you watch this short film, focus on the media being used to communicate federal nutritional standards to U.S. citizens. Why bother making a film if people like Mrs. Brown already had the Basic 7 diagram (literally) in their hands? What additional messages is this film trying to get across? For example, why do you think the clock is shown so often?

Foundation Foods

In 1980, the U.S. government issued its first Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They reflected growing concern over the 1970s not only of people having enough food to eat, but about people having too much of the "wrong" foods to eat, like fats, sugars, and salts. Across this resource kit, we've examined similar ways in which scientists and the government communicated recommendations for how U.S. residents should eat.  

Food packaging is another way in which messages about food are communicated to eaters. In this reflection, we'll bring together everything we've learned about food science, nutritional policy, feeding kids, and communicating with the public.  Your job: find a food package somewhere in your place of learning and analyze it. Places to look include your lunchbox, a friend's lunchbox, a vending machine, your cupboards, your classroom snack stash, and/or the school cafeteria. Once you've found a package to analyze, do your best to answer the questions on the handout below. 

Food Packaging Project 

How have food policy decisions been made throughout U.S. history? When has the federal government taken responsibility for nutritional health and why? How has nutrition science benefitted from such interest, and what have scientists contributed to the public understanding of food and health in return? This resource kit explores these questions, offers a unique perspective on twentieth-century U.S. history, and introduces audiences to the history of science.

Educator Resources Supplement I (Timeline).pdf

Educator Overview Template_The Science and Politics of Food.pdf

The Science and Politics of Food

Civics and Government

Social Studies

U.S. History

The Act stated, "it is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress, as a measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the National's children and to encourage domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food, by assisting the States, through grants-in-aid and other means, in providing an adequate supply of foods and other facilities for the establishment, maintenance, operation, and expansion of nonprofit school-lunch programs." (Courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum)

Science and technology continued to boost farm outputs in the middle of the 20th century, celebrated in artforms ranging from watercolors to comic books. But fears for farmers’ incomes prevailed over concerns for nutrition in the creation of the National School Lunch Act. The authors of the legislation—senators Richard Russell of Georgia and Allen Ellender of Louisiana—insisted the work of feeding school children remain with the USDA. And the Act required schools to use agricultural surpluses when possible. It received the support of farm lobbying organizations including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cooperative Milk Producers Federation.

Published by The National Fertilizer Association in 1951, The Conquest of Hunger was a public service comic strip that celebrated the use of synthetic fertilizers.

This comic calls Native Americans "Indians" and depicts Middle Eastern peoples in stereotypically inaccurate ways.

The Conquest of Hunger (1951)

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_2_7gelylz_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_3_yhs8c2s_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_4_zl80cqo_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_5_9fh0kr1_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_6_451crmq_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_7_yjakks2_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_8_93h2a50_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_9_tiszqly_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_10_3qsyfh4_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_11_m29tpm6_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_12_md5q802_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_13_ulrluik_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_14_r4krrpf_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_15_1lu2rs2_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_16_q7fe8es_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_17_3ens7z7_download_medium.jpeg

the_conquest_of_wkhj76n_18_6zui1t1_download_medium.jpeg

The Conquest of Hunger: Featuring Prosper Plenty and His Magical Chemicals

Commercial efforts to produce frozen foods began in the 1920s, but their products struggled to find a market. Consumers complained of the poor taste, smell, and appearance of frozen foods. The USDA’s Western Regional Research Laboratory in California began studying these products in 1948. They wanted to know the range of temperatures that frozen foods could tolerate (and for what lengths of time), while still retaining their quality. A new analytical technique helped in these time-temperature tolerance studies. Gas chromatography—a procedure that separates and identifies the parts of a mixture—allowed the researchers to identify and quantify the components that produce poor tastes and smells. Because of this work, sales of frozen foods rose from $500 million in 1950 to more than $6 billion by 1966. They became popular not only in homes, but in institutions such as schools and hospitals. 

Beckman Instruments entered the gas chromatograph business in 1956 with the acquisition of the successful Watts Manufacturing Company. Later that year, Beckman Instruments produced its first gas chromatograph, the GC-1, which was intended for laboratory use. Shortly after, Beckman Instruments produced a line of gas chromatographs for industrial use, which offered both automation and customization. These instruments were used by the petroleum industry and in the fight against air pollution.

beckman_model_gcm_nc580m70f_0_hh63sw16t_download_full.jpeg

Beckman Model GCM Gas Chromatograph

The Western Regional Research Laboratory was one of four established by the USDA in 1938 to identify new uses and markets for the country’s agricultural products. In the 1950s, declining potato consumption led researchers at the Eastern Regional Research Laboratory in Pennsylvania to search for ways to make potatoes more convenient, and to extend their shelf life. They developed a process for cooking, cooling, and drying potatoes into potato flakes . . . or instant mashed potatoes. The researchers also identified chemical additives that prevented browning and rubbery textures. Both the time-temperature tolerance studies on frozen foods and dehydration processes for potatoes have been named National Historic Chemical Landmarks by the American Chemical Society. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress) 

The federal school lunch program was publicly and politically popular. But it was slow to spread into all schools. Fearing too much federal intervention in public education—as well as possible threats to segregation in the South—the Act’s authors left administration of school food programs to state and local authorities. These authorities decided where to distribute surplus foods and which schools participated; this perpetuated existing racial inequalities. Many schools, especially in cities, lacked the facilities they would need to serve school lunches. And the USDA did not enforce the Act’s mandate that poor students must receive free or lower cost meals. By the end of the 1950s, the program was feeding just a third of the students in U.S. schools.

But as the civil rights movement grew from the late ’50s through the ’60s, the inequalities of the program and small reach drew scrutiny from activists and politicians. In 1964, President Johnson launched a War on Poverty. This included the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, and the creation of a permanent food stamp program. And in 1966, Congress passed the Child Nutrition Act, which provided funds for free lunches and established a school breakfast program. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress) 

In 1969, President Richard Nixon convened a meeting of nutritionists, activists, members of industry, government officials, and others to discuss the persistent challenge of hunger in the United States. The White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health was organized by Jean Mayer, a chemist who studied the impact of hunger on the body. The Conference made almost 2,000 recommendations for expanding access to food. Many were adopted. In May 1970, the government doubled the number of children eligible for free school lunches. Federal spending on food relief, including school lunches, increased from $500 million in 1969 to $8 billion in 1975. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration)

Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

The Science and Politics of Food

School Lunches

Guiding Question

In 1946, President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act.