National School Lunch Program,â 8. According to one study, 25% of the schools and 60% of the children served by the new surplus disposal program were in rural communities in the South and mountain states, and most were in elementary schools. âSchool Lunch in Country and City,â USDA Farmersâ Bulletin No. 1899 (Washington, D.C. 1942), 8.
36. Southworth and Klayman, âThe School Lunch Program,â 42â14.
37. Don Paarlberg, Farm and Food Policy: Issues of the 1980s (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1980), 104. Paarlberg says that the significance of government purchases on prices for specialty crops like prunes and pears was measurable, but for most other commodities, including meat, there was little impact. The program, he claims, âwas a charade, and all the principals knew it.â He argues that government programs meant to alleviate the surplus actually aggravated it by boosting prices and stimulating production (103â4).
38. Poppendieck, Breadlines, 225. Also see Harvey Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 78.
39. House Hearings, 1945, p. 3. Testimony of Marvin Jones.
40. Senate Hearings, 1944, p. 14.
41. Senate Hearings, 1944, p. 84.
42. House Hearings, 1945, pp. 109â10.
43. Southworth and Klayman, âThe School Lunch Program,â 19.
44. Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Home Economics, Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture, 1941 (Washington, D.C., 1941), 5. Thanks to Carolyn Goldstein for this reference.
45. Southworth and Klayman, âThe School Lunch Program,â 16. Also see Richard Osborn Cummings, The American and His Food, 202. Surplus food also went to parochial schools.
46. See Robyn Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890â1935 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), also Cummings, The American and His Food, 201, 216. He points out that dietetics emerged out of nutrition and home economics and became a special organization within the American Home Economics Association specializing in food, nutrition, and institutional management. According to one source, the BHE research on diets and consumption provided FDR with the source of his often quoted observation that âone-third of our nation is ill-fed, ill-housed and ill-clothed.â See Jacqueline L. Dupont, âReflections: Hazel Katherine Stiebeling (1896â1989),â Nutrition Reviews, October 2002.
47. Gunderson, âThe National School Lunch Program,â 9, and Southworth and Klayman, âThe School Lunch Program,â 16, 36â38. Also see Cummings, The American and His Food, 202. This figure is probably exaggerated. Baldwin, Poverty and Politics, estimates that in 1939, 82% of the departmentâs total employees worked outside Washington. This included the Farm Security Administration and the Soil Conservation Service in addition to the Extension Service (239).
48. Press release, October 19, 1943, USDA History Collection, Series 1, Subseries 2, Documentary Files, Section iv, Distribution of Products, Box 1.2/9, and Nutrition Standards and Civilian Food Supply, 1943â46, Office of War Information, Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library.
49. âPublicâs Aid Asked on School Lunches,â NYT, April 17, 1944.
50. House Hearings, 1945, p. 53.
51. Senate Hearings, 1944, p. 150. Also see testimony of Mrs. Grace Gosselin, United Neighborhood Houses of New York; âThe need is more obvious today because such large numbers of women are at war work and, therefore, must find another way to provide an adequate and good midday meal for their childrenâ (156).
52. Senate Hearings, 1944, p. 187.
53. Richard Russell to President Roosevelt, July 22, 1942; Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Russell, August 18, 1943, and October 1, 1942; Richard Russell Collection, Series IX B, Box 44, Richard B. Russell Library for