Session Abstract

The question of what to feed a hungry child has never been as straightforward as it may seem.  In times of scarcity as well as plenty, this choice, made by parents, the state, and children themselves has been consistently shaped by a myriad of cultural, social, and political factors.  Drawing on archival documents and performance-based sources, this panel examines how the emergence of specific eating habits and nutritive values for children in the twentieth century cannot be taken for granted, but rather, resulted from a complex series of conflicts and negotiations. 

            The great potential that children held as “citizens of tomorrow” consistently heightened the stakes in debates about food for children while giving those speaking on behalf of them a powerful and ideological weapon.  This panel interrogates the process, throughout the twentieth century, in which certain ways of eating and specific food items were elevated as the nutritive gold standard for all North American children.

            Twentieth century consumer culture, the food industry, and agricultural policy all had a fundamental impact on children’s eating habits, their parents’ food choices, and the development of long-term understandings about what types of foods were appropriate and desirable.

            Speaking to the theme of “Lives, Places, Stories” we explore one of the central aspects of the everyday lived experience: food.  Our papers focus on specific food environments: the classroom, the protest, and the cafeteria.  These were spaces not only for eating and learning about food but also sites for the emergence of new “food stories” – understandings of what food was and should be.  The malleability of children’s habits made successful control and manipulation of these food-environments paramount. 

            Dr. Andrew P. Haley’s project examines the way that children navigated food choices, oscillating between the advice being proscribed to them in their home economics classes and the appeals of popular eating culture and the food industry.  In doing so, he raises important questions about the potential power of nutrition education, but also its frequent futility.  Dr. Ann Folino White explores how throughout the Great Depression the politically divisive issue of food waste was protested by articulating American children’s need for and entitlement to specific foods.  Focusing on the promotional performances of the Agricultural Adjustment Act and protests produced in opposition to this legislation, White emphasizes how children’s hunger was pitted against capitalism by mobilizing popular understandings of milk as a “sacred commodity”. 

Camille Bégin draws on the Federal Writers’ Project’s (FWP) America Eats archive to examine the pressure placed on women as family food providers during the Great Depression and early 1940s.  Bégin explores the way that home cooking was elevated in part as a response to home economics and industrial food production.  Dr. Tracey Deutsch will serve as chair and discussant, enriching the discussion with her knowledge of food systems.