This article is part of the museum's special section on how artists and institutions are adapting to a changing age.
Surrounded by a group of 10th graders, museum educators at the Institute of Science and History in Philadelphia, Alex Assal read aloud from three school lunch menus. She asked her students to raise their hands for the best sound.
One menu included options such as pizza, Caribbean rice salad, and fresh apples. Others included grilled cheese, tomato soup and green beans. The third features cream beef on toast and cream salmon with rolls.
The menu prompted some raised hands – from 1914, Assal revealed. A century ago, butter and cream were considered to be as essential as fruits and vegetables today. Because there was more concern than whether the kids had enough.
The exhibition that attracted students from the Ocolala District School District in Atglen, Pennsylvania was “Lunch: The History of Science in School Food Trays.” We examine how this childhood cornerstone was deeply intertwined with American political, cultural and scientific advances.
From the early school food programs, “What's interesting to us about this topic is that there is always a nutritional and science discourse,” says Jesse Smith, the museum's director of curatorial affairs and digital content.
Smith had no idea how timely the exhibition would be about a month before the 2024 US presidential election. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appointed Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services by President Trump, will promote the removal of processed foods from school lunches. History shows that he is not the first attempt to change what people eat.
“Lunchtime” was developed from the Institute of Science and History's collection of scientific instruments related to food science. Located just below the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed, the small museum and research library teach the history of how science has shaped our everyday lives.
In 1946, President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act, which approved the creation of the National School Lunch Program. Today, according to the Food Research & Action Center, the program reaches approximately 28 million students. Of these, 23.6 million are in poor districts that qualify for free lunches for all.
“We've seen a lot of fun and hard work,” said Lisa Norton, executive director of the Philadelphia School District's food service division. “And we know that there are students that this is the only food they see.”
The exhibition began in the 1800s, and industrialization took people to cities, far from the source of food. The producers cut the corners and mixed chalk with wood shavings, cinnamon and flour.
“The most infamous example was the dairy industry, which routinely added formaldehyde to milk to prevent it from spoiling,” Asal said.
And medical examinations at school revealed that children were severely undernourished. Scurvy was becoming more common.
The University of Mississippi's Institute of Children's Nutrition maintains an archive of photographs, oral history, books and manuscripts, while Jeffrey Boyce, coordinator of the Institute's Archive Services, provides several photos for the exhibit. One shows babies who are given cod liver oil, an old-fashioned treatment for vitamin A and D deficiency, at the age before vitamin fortified cereal.
Philadelphia became one of the first cities to hold school lunch programs, and over the next decades, local programs have spread to movements led primarily by women. The federal government's response to school lunches will come from the National School Lunch Act.
“The National School Lunch Program is the longest-running child health program in US history and has a major impact on nutritional health,” said Andrew R. Ruis, author of “Eating To Learn, Learning To Eat: The School Lunch of School Lunch of School Lunch of United States.” “Studies in the 20s and 30s have overwhelmingly shown that school lunch programs have a major impact on students' health, educational achievement, behavior and attitudes.”
As farmers faced ruin in the wake of the Great Repression, the Department of Agriculture distributed it to US schools and purchased surplus crops as foreign aid. The decades-old partnership came headlines in March when USDA announced plans to cut $1 billion in funding for schools and food banks.
The school lunch program has a wide range of public support, but that has never stopped them from being political football. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement turned its attention to the fact that many poor children were still hungry. The Black Panthers' free breakfast program helped fill the gap and put pressure on politicians.
The exhibition's table, stacked with spam, TV dinners, bagged salads and cheats, explained how military research into preservation produced iconic American cuisine. However, these advances also helped bring nutrition back under the microscope, leading to concerns that young people are consuming too much of the wrong kind of food.
The 1973 board game “Super Sandwich” tried to make nutrition fun. Players competed to gather nutritious foods. Remember the controversy of the 1980s about whether ketchup qualifies as a vegetable? It exploded in a massive battle for school lunch programs under the Reagan administration, further inflamming national debates about the quality of school lunches.
Healthy and hungry children's behavior in 2010, and the children's public health campaign by first lady Michelle Obama, brought about reduced fruit and vegetables, more whole grains, sodium and sugar in the lunch tray. But balancing these regulations with what young people eat is a challenge, said Elizabeth Keegan, coordinator of diet services for the Philadelphia School District, who advised the exhibition. Hover around $3, especially for median lunch prices, according to the School Nutrition Association.
“We always say that schools have to provide a full meal because you pay less for a latte,” said Diane Pratt Hebner, the association's director of media relations.
After the tour, Okolala students reflected on the story of the embarrassment of food wood. They discussed the quality of their school lunches, more variety, more vegetarian and vegan options, and less junk food.
“It made us feel like we should get better food,” Maria Maxie said.
People from a generation that grew up on rectangular pizza may see it differently.
“Eating programs have been completely transformed since I was in school,” said Alesia Hall Campbell, executive director of the Institute for Children's Nutrition. “There are some districts here that actually grow produce and incorporate it into their menu. There's an adamame in the salad bar. They're trying to replicate what kids eat in restaurants and fast food places.
Everyone has memories of school lunches. Boyce remembers the name of the cafeteria woman “the best macaroni and cheese on the planet.” Smith remembers the smell of Salisbury steak and its distinctive cafeteria. For Lewis, the best day of the year was when his Bay Area School had a local ice cream sandwich with oatmeal cookies.
“There have been so many changes, standards have changed, and what is considered healthy has changed,” Keegan said. “But what's not changed is that it's important to feed your children a nutritious diet.”
