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Records of the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture 1900-1959

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Twenty small children or 18 larger ones are served at a table. Children who bring their lunch from home may sit at the ends of the tables. Great variation is found in the rates at which the children eat, but the majority of them clean their plates (encouraged by principal and teachers.)
Two mothers work as volunteer "checkers" at East Silver Spring, Md., Elementary School. Here Mrs. Marion Dieste takes the money from her daughter, Judith, who is having the regular Type "A" lunch. Mrs. Dieste keeps track of the various types of lunches the children buy, jotting down the information on a record sheet.
Children at the Liberty Township Consolidated School near Port Allegany, McKean County, Pa., with a group from the Brooklyn School, a rural school 2 miles away, enjoy a hot nutritious lunch served, under the Federal-State school lunch program, around tables seating 50 to 75 children, in the school basement. Mrs. Edith Cordell (left), a trained dietitian, directs the program. Mothers of the pupils take turns assisting her in preparing and serving the lunches.
Children from Brooklyn School, a rural school 2 miles away, come every day for the hot nutritious lunch served under the Federal-State school lunch program at the Liberty Township Consolidated School near Port Allegany, McKean County, Pa. At the request of the parents in the township, the school board provides transportation by bus between the two schools at noon.
Country children clean up the plates of hot nutritious food served to them under the Federal-State School Lunch Program in which their school - the Liberty Township Consolidates School, near Port Allegany, McKean County, Pa. - participate.
Food Distribution Administration type "A" complete lunch consisting of cottage cheese, carrot sticks, plums, bread and butter, milk. Meets 1/3 to 1/2 of day's food requirements.
Many Amish children enjoy a nutritious noonday meal under the Federal-State School Lunch program at the Union Township Consolidated School, Belleville, Mifflin County, Pa.
Modern cafeteria.
Mrs. Eleanor Sheaffer, home economics instructor in the Belleville, Mifflin County, Pa., schools, sometimes helps prepare the lunches served under the Federal-State Lunch program in the Union Township Consolidated School.
Pupils at the Union Township Consolidated School, Belleville, Mifflin County, Pa., get a well-planned nutritious noonday meal, under the Federal-State School Lunch Program. Several children of Amish families (small girl leading the line; older girl serving the buns) enjoy these lunches.
The Basic Seven - Revised Sept. 1946
Cafeteria scene with elementary age children having soup and milk for lunch.
Child Nutrition, Puerto Rico
Children of white migrant farm workers get a nutritious lunch at the school maintained for the at the Osceola Farm Labor Supply Center near Belle Glade, Florida, operated by the Office of Labor, War Food Administration.
Jerry Thain
Nursery School, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
Rio Piedras Puerto Rico Nursery School
School lunch at Cayey, Puerto Rico - Gov. Tugwell inspects school lunchroom.
School Lunch - Puerto Rico
Vegetables for 35,000 workers at a large aircraft plant near Baltimore, Md., are carefully cooked so that they will retain their vitamins in large steam kettles.
A member of the food service class practices what she has learned about cooking liver as she does her part in preparing lunch. The Margaret Murray Washington Vocational High School in Washington, D.C., is one of more than 30,000 schools taking part in the School Lunch Program, sponsored by the U. S. Department of Agriculture to help growing children in different parts of the country get a hot nutritious midday meal and at the same time help farmers by providing an additional marker for produce when such a market is needed. A complete meal - the "Type A" lunch - is served at "Margaret Murray Washington" to children from nearby elementary schools who come over for lunch. High school may buy this complete tray lunch or, if they prefer, food from the cafeteria counter to supplement lunches brought from home. Under the guidance of their teacher, Mrs. Mercedes Wilson, the girls in the food service class plan the menus for each day and, with the assistance of two paid workers, put into daily practice what they learn in class.
"Educators and pupils increasingly appreciate the value of a well-balanced lunch at midday."
Forty pounds of utility grade meat are cooked at "Margaret Washington" each day for the reimbursable lunch program. Here's one of the two paid workers. The rest of the job of feeding 300 youngsters daily is done by Margaret Washington students studying cafeteria service.
Potatoes are on the menu every day at Tifereth Jerusalem, a Jewish parochial school, on New York City's Lower East Side. The boys eat their hot nutritious noonday meal, with boiled potatoes and other vegetables.
The Pittsboro, Chatham County, N.C., school has a well-organized school lunch plan. Sarah Mann, a high school girl, sells 5-cent meal tickets to grammar school children, among whom are Bobby Gunter, Lewis Boone, Larry Mann, Tommy Brooks, Emil Thomas, Elwood Whitaker, Eddil London Cooper, Margaret Ellen Strowd.
The Pittsboro, Chatham County, N. C., School serves hot, nutritious mid-day meals to its students in the school lunch room. Ernest Lassiter raises his hand to show the high school girl acting as waitress that he wants another hot biscuit. The children pay 5 cents for this meal, consisting of cheese, black-eye peas, creamed potatoes, egg, tangerine, and milk, besides the biscuits.
Vegetable stew, supplemented by a sandwich with a peanut butter, egg, or cheese filling makes a satisfying and nutritious school lunch when it's served with milk and fruit. Schools receiving reimbursement from the War Food Admin. agree to offer lunches to all the pupils enrolled, whether they can afford to pay or not.
Logan, W.Va. - August 1944 Miner's child eating supper.
Through a cooperative agreement between the Federal Government and the State of Illinois, these children receive milk, free, at the Guardian Angel Nursery, 4500 McDonnell St., Chicago, Ill. Here Sister Humiliata pours the milk for her small charges.
Schoolchildren eating lunch brought from home. Rockbridge County, Va.
Boy eating his school lunch.
Cafeteria worker ladling food into bowls from a large pot.
Children eating school lunch in a cafeteria filled with trestle tables.
Lone worker serving approximately 50 children in a cafeteria filled with trestle tables.
More than 3,200 schools, in every county in Illinois, had lunches like this in 1941. The Public Aid Commission of that State supplied more than 5,000 tons of food for 155,000 schoolchildren.
Schoolchildren eating their lunch brought from home. Rockbridge County, Virginia. United States Department of Agriculture Office of Information.
School children enjoying a hot school lunch. Rockbridge, Virginia.
Schoolchildren filing in the lunch building for a hot school lunch. Rockbridge County, Virginia.
Schoolchildren having a well-planned nutritious lunch sponsored by the home demonstration club and surplus commodities. East Lexington, Va.
School children washing their hands before having their lunch. East Lexington, Va.
The cook, who with 2 helpers, prepares and serves school lunch to 150 students. Mountain View School, Rockbridge County, Va.
The principal of the rural school and farmwoman, who is the leading spirit in the school lunch project, check over the supplies that they have on hand. Rockbridge Co., Va.
The U. S. Department of Agriculture helps the Illinois Public Aid Commission in providing free lunches in this Chicago, Illinois, public school.
Waynesville Indiana District School - Boy and flies eating lunch. Room was filled with flies.
Home Economics class at a junior college near Washington, D.C.
Miss Mary Logan, nutrition worker at USDA records the weight of a rat living on an adequate diet. The way laboratory rats respond to various diets is a guide to the way human beings will respond to the right food.
Schoolchildren eating lunch. Eva Mae Thompson in right foreground. Waynesville District School - Waynesville, Indiana
Schoolchildren in a large industrial city give thanks for the free school lunch prepared from surplus foods bought by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and turned over to local agencies for distribution to schools in low-income areas.