The national school lunch program : background and development

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~TION~LSCHOOL LUNCH PROGRLlM
&xkgrourd and Developmenl
FNS-63 - FOOD AND NUTRITION SERVICE - U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUR
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CONTENTS
Page
Early European Experience ---------------------------------- 1
Germany ---- ----------------------------------~-------- 1
France ----------------------------------~--- ------------ 2
England -----------------------------------·------------- 2
Holland _ ----------------------------------------------- 3
Switzerland ---------------------------------------------- 3
Other European cities ------------------------------------- 4
Early Programs in the United States -------------------------- 4
Philadelphia --------------------------------------------- 5
Boston ----------------------------------------------- - -- 5
Milwaukee ---------------------------------------------- - 6
School feeding supported ---------------------------------- 6
New York ----------------------------------------------- 7
Cleveland --------------------------- -------------------- 7
Cincinnati -------------------------------------------~--- 8
St. Louis ------------------------------------------------ 8
Chicago ------------------------------------------------- 9
Los Angeles ---------------------------------------------- 9
Rural schools --------------------------------------------- 9
State Legislation and Programs _________ --------------------- 10
Early Federal Aid _____ ---------------------------- 11
Commodity Donation Program _____ _ __________ --------- 11
W.P.A. assistance ---------------------------------------- 12
N Y.A. assistance _____ -·------------- --------------- ___ _
Effects of World War II ______ ---------------------------
Authorization of Federal funds __
13
13
13
National School Lunch Act Approved __ __ _________ __ _________ 14
Additional commodities authorized ____ ----------------- 16
National School Lunch Act amended _ __ ------------------ 17
Special food assistance to needy schools ________ __________ 17
1962 amendments __________________ ----------------- 17
National School Lunch Week established _ _____ ____________ 18
Authorization to buy dairy products ____ _______ __ ______ ____ 18
..
11
Child Nutrition Act of 1966 -------------------- - -------- ----- 18
Special Milk Program extended ----------------------------- 19
Pilot Breakfast Program ---------------------------------- 19
Nonfood assistance funds ---------------------- ------------ 19
State administrative funds --------------------------------- 19
Centralized school food programs authorized ----------------- 20
1968 amendments ----------------------------------------- 20
Public Concern -------------------------------------- ------- 21
National nutrition status -------------------- -------------- 22
Action demanded ----------------------------------------- 22
Action by the President ----------------------------------- 22
Nutrition, Behavior, and Learning -------------------- -------- 23
Malnutrition a national problem ---------------------------- 24
School Lunch Program a remedy -------------------------- -- 25
Technical Developments in School Food Service ----------------- 25
Engineered foods ----------------------------------------- 25
Equipment and service ------------------------------------ 26
Congressional Action ---------------------------------------- 26
Free and reduced-price lunches ----------------------------- 26
Public Review ----------------------------- --------------- 26
Uniform criteria ----------------------------- ------------ 26
Monthly reports --------- --------------------------------- 27
Section 11 revised ---------------------------------------- 27
Planning for annual expansion ----------------------------- 27
Appropriations ------------------------------------------- 27
Nutrition education and research --------------------------- 28
Special developmental projects -------------- --------------- 28
State Matching Requirement ------------------------------- 28
National Advisory Council ---------------------------------- 28
School Milk Programs -------------------------------------- 29
THE NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM
Background and Development
by Gordon W. Gunderson 1
School food service programs such as we
have in 1971 did not just happen over-night nor
even during the past decade. Preceding today's
programs is a long history of more than a
hundred years of development, of testing and
evaluating, and of constant research to provide
the best in nutrition, nutrition education, and
food service for the nation's millions of children
in school.
EARLY EUROPEAN
EXPERIENCE
Though various efforts at school food serv­ices
were carried on in this country as far back
as the 1890's, some European countries were
operating rather extensive programs a hundred
years before.
In 1790 a combined program of teaching and
feeding hungry, vagrant children was begun in
Munich, Germany, by Benjamin Thompson,
known also as Count Rumford. An American
born physicist and statesman, he spent his
early years in New England. During the Revo­lutionary
War he became distrusted because of
his activities and contacts with royalists, and in
1784 went to England and from there he trav­eled
to Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. While
in Munich he established the Poor People's In­stitute,
involving a program under which poor,
unemployed adults were required to work for
clothing and food by making clothing for the
army The children were also required to work
1 Gordon W. Gunderson, a native of Wiseonsin, was selected in the
fall of 1939 to represent the U.S. Department of Agriculture to
supervise its program in Wiseonsin of distributing donated com­modities
to establish school lunch programs. During World War II
his duties also included the administration of war food programs in
the State.
Upon passage of the National School Lunch Act in 1946 he was
selected to administrate the s<hool lunch program for the Wisconsin
Department of Public Instruction. He also was administrator of the
commodity distribution program for schools, institutions, needy
households, summer camps, and other eligible outlets. The Special
Milk Pro~~:ram was inau~~:urated in 1954 and was added to his super­vision.
Mr. Gunderson retired on December 81, 1969 after servinK over
30 years in the development and expansion of the ochool food service
proarams in Wisconsin.
part time in the forenoon and afternoon. Dur­ing
the hours between their work schedules
they were taught, reading, writing, and arith­metic.
The food served to children and adults con­sisted
mainly of soup made from potatoes, bar­ley,
and peas. Meat was not included in the diet
because of its high cost. Because of a lack of
adequate funding for his projects, Count Rum­ford
was constantly seeking to develop meals
which would provide the best nutrition at the
lowest possible cost.
His assistance in developing public mass
feeding was sought by many countries, and he
established large programs in England, Ger­many,
Scotland, France and Switzerland.
In London, for example, 60,000 persons were
fed daily from Count Rumford's soup kitchen.
Such large operations challenged him to de­velop
more efficient food preparation facilities,
.and he is credited with having invented the
double boiler, kitchen range, baking oven, fire­less
cooker, pressure cooker and drip coffee pot,
all of them being forerunners of the steam
jacketed kettle, compartment steamer, and com­mercial
ovens used so extensively in school food
service programs today.z
Germany
In 1875, needy children were supplied free
text-books, clothing and food by The Philan­thropic
School Society in Hamburg. Similar so­cieties
sprang up in other cities as well. Pri­vately
funded societies for the special purpose
of school feeding were organized later, the "So­ciety
for Feeding Needy School Children" at
Dresden in 1880 being one of the first. How­ever,
these were not as extensive as the school
societies subsidized by the cities.
A departure from the school feeding pro­gram
in Germany was the organization and op­eration
of "Vacation Colonies." Under this pro-
2 Samuel C. Brown, "Count Rumford-Phy\ieU.t ExtraordinaTlJ,"
Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Co., Inc.
1
gram, sickly and weak children from crowded
areas of cities were given a vacation in the
country for a few weeks each summer The pro­grams
were sponsored mostly by teachers and
doctors. The work and accomplishments of the
vacation colonies was discussed at their conven­tion
held in Leipzig in 1:'890.
This was followed by an investigation into
the need for school feeding under the backing
of the government. A report of the investiga­tion
was published in 1896. There were at that
time 79 cities operating school feeding pro­grams.
The report stimulated such widespread
interest that in 1897 a bill was introduced in
the Reichstag which would have provided for
school meals in all cities. The bill was defeated
on the representation that its passage would
cause an influx of people to the cities. Never­theless,
it encouraged expansion of school feed­ing
by local societies subsidized by city govern­ments.
One survey indicated school feeding was
carried on by 239 cities of 10,000 population or
over, and 189 cities reported feeding a total of
111,000 children or about 6 percent of the
school population.
France
A great Frenchman, Victor Hugo, while ex­iled
in Guernsey in 1865, provided the funds
for hot meals for children in a nearby school.
Six years later, "The Society for People's
Kitchens in the Public Schools" was established
in Angers, France. The objective was to fur­nish
meals at school to children who were una­ble
to pay A two-cent charge was made to those
who could pay
In 1849, the battalion of the National Guard
in the second district in Paris turned over a
surplus fund in its treasury to district authori­ties
to form a nucleus for an organization that
was to help poor children get a schooling. In
1862, another di trict adopted the plan, and in
1867 the value of such funding had become so
evident that the school law passed that year
contained a section authorizing· the establish­ment
of school funds in every commune in
France.
The statutes provided for use of the funds
for sharing in medical inspection, school
lunches, provision for holidays, excursions, va-
2
cation schools and whatever special services the
local school authorities might deem essential to
the welfare of the children.
As early as 1867, Victor Duray, then minis­ter
of public instruction, had requested school
officials to give special attention to the nutri­tion
of the children. This resulted in establish­ing
school lunch programs for needy children in
about 464 places.
Paris began school canteens in 1877, provid­ing
meals at public expense for children whose
parents' names were on the Poor Board list.
Two years later, the city council voted to sup­port
the program and canteens were set up in
every school district. Initially, a part of the
support was derived from local sources. How­ever,
the city subsidy was increased from year
to year until the total cost was at city expense.
Teachers supervised the lunch programs but
required extra pay for their services-25 cents
per day
Participation was open to all children, re­gardless
of ability to pay Those who could pay
were charged an amount equal to the cost of the
food. Cost of equipment and labor was not in­cluded.
The anonymity of children receiving
free meals was fully protected through a sys­tem
of lunch ticket sales. Children who could
pay were required to do so, and identical tickets
were given free of charge to the children who
could not pay
In the school year 1908-09, there were 353
canteens in the schools of Paris supplying meals
to 588 schools with 38,531 children participat­ing.
Thirty-two percent of the meals were paid
for, the remaining 68 percent being served free.
The average cost per meal was 3.5 cents and
the average charge per meal to paying students
was 2.9 cents. Outside of Paris, a 1909 report
showed 2,367 canteens in operation in France,
serving lunches to 147,974 children.
England
In England the passage in 1905 of the Educa­tion
(P1·ovision of Meals) Act was the culmina­tion
of the efforts of 365 private, charitable
organizations in attempting to provide meals at
school for needy children, and a reflection of
national concern over the physical condition of
the populace.
Shortly before the close of the Boer War, the
country became aroused over a statement by
Major-General Frederick Maurice that three
out of every five men seeking enlistment in the
army were found to be physically unfit. Shortly
after the statement had been published, the
King appointed The Royal Commission on
Physical Training to study the programs of
physical training in schools and to determine
what ought to be done to improve the national
physique and thus build up the army
The Commission came to the conclusion that
"among the causes which tell against the physi­cal
welfare of the population, the lack of proper
nvurishment is one of the most serious," and
that "the question of the proper and sufficient
feeding of children is one which has the closest
possible connection with any scheme which
may be adopted for their physical and equally
for their mental work." 3 A recommendation
was made for the establishment of school
lunches for which the children would pay a
small fee.
The following year, a new committee was ap­pointed
to determine the reason for the deterio­rating
of the race, if this were actually the
case. Sixty-eight witnesses, including 37 physi­cians,
were consulted. The recommendations of
this committee were the same-a need to pro­vide
adequate meals at school. A third commit­tee
made further studies, and finally a fourth
committee confirmed the reports of previous
commissions and committees and the Provision
of Meals Act was passed by Parliament in De­cember
1905. The Act provided that "When the
local education authority resolve that any of
the children in attendance at any public elemen­tary
school within their area are unable by rea­son
of lack of food to take full advantage of the
education provided them, the local education
authority shall take such steps as they think fit
to provide for such children, under such regula­tions
and conditions as the local education au­thority
may prescribe (including if they so re­solve,
the making of a charge to recover the
cost from the parent or guardian), such food as
the local education authority may consider req­uisite
to enable the said children to take full
• Louise Stevens Bryant, School Feeding: Its History and Practice
at Home and Abroad, Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott
1913, p 22.
advantage of the education provided for them."4
The circular s~nt out to schools by the N a­tiona!
Board of Education concerning the in­tent
of the Act stated, among other things
" and it aims at securing that for this pur­pose
suitable meals shall be available just as
much for those whose parents are in a position
to pay as for those to whom food must be given
free of cost."5
Medical inspection was added to the program
in 1907, and the serving of meals through vaca­tion
periods was authorized in 1914. In 1934
appropriations to the Milk Marketing Board
provided milk to school children free of charge
or at a price of one-half penny per 1/ 3 pint. In
the 1938-39 school year nearly 700,000 British
children received free meals, representing
about 95 percent of the ordinary meals served.
Sixty-five percent of the milk served was free. 0
Holland
By royal decree in 1900, Holland authorized
municipalities to supply food and clothing to
public or private school children who were una­ble,
because of the lack of food and clothes, to
go regularly to school or to those who probably
would not continue to attend school regularly
unless food and clothes were provided. Thus
Holland became the first country to adopt na­tional
legislation specifically to provide schooi
lunches.
Switzerland
In Switzerland lunches were prodded to
about 8 percent of the primary school children
by private societies. This was done to encour­age
attendance by children who lived long dis­tance
· from school and could not go home for
the noon-day meal. An investigation was made
into the situation by one Dr Huber He found
that teachers supported school feeding enthu­siastically
because of better attendance, im-
• A Bill to Amend the Education Act of 1902, Provision of Meals
Act of 1905, British Parliamentary Papers, 1905 ( 132) i-p 485.
• Louise Stevens Bryant. School Feeding: Its History and Practice
at Home and Abroad, Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott,
1913, pp 44-45. •r
• The School Lunch Program and Agricultural Surphls Disposal,
The Bureau of Agricultural Economics, USDA, Miscellaneous Publi­cation
No. 467, October 1941.
3
proved attention, and better scholastic work by
the children. Dr Huber's findings and recom­mendations
resulted in a national order being
issued in 19~ making it an obligation on the
part of municipalities to furnish food and
clothing to children in need. Consequently the
program grew rapidly, and in 1906 the use of
State funds was authorized for this purpose.
However, the amount of local support could not
be reduced because of the receipt of state
funds.
Dr F. Erismann of Zurich made a study of
school lunches throughout Switzerland and
found them to be generally inadequate in pro­tein
and fat. Among his four recommendations
for management and improvement of the meals
is the following. "The school lunch should be a
full nourishing meal. The portions should have
enough food value to furnish 816 calories or
one-half the day's required total of calories per
child. It should be especially rich in protein and
fat and the food values should be distributed in
about the following amounts: 40 grams protein,
26 grams ·fat, 100 grams carbohydrate for a
ten-year-old child. Proper variety should be in­sisted
on." 7
Other European Cities
By the early 1900's, school feeding had
spread throughout most of the European coun­tries.
In Milan and San Remo, Italy, meals had
been furnished during the 1890's and the re­sponsibility
was taken over by the municipali­ties.
By 1914 some 50 Italian cities were con­ducting
some kind of school feeding programs.
In Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and
Norway programs were underway.8
Norway's "Oslo Breakfast" was a new ven­ture
in school feeding in Norway, although
Christiania (Oslo) had been providing noon­day
meals since 1897 The Oslo Breakfast con­sisted
of: 1/ 2 pint milk, whole meal bread,
cheese, 1/ 2 orange and 1/ 2 apple. From Septem­ber
to March, one dose of cod-liver oil was in­cluded.
This program spread to other parts of
Scandinavia very rapidly, and was tried out in
7 Louise Stevens Bryant, School Feeding: Its HistOTIJ and Practice
at Home and Abroad, Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott
1913, p 137.
• Marjorie L Scott, School Feeding: Ita Ccmtribution to Child Nu­trition,
Rome, Italy, Food and A~rriculture Or~ranization of the
United Nations, Novembe1, 1953.
4
London as an experiment to determine its effect
upon 130 children from poor families entitled
to free meals. Said Professor J C. Drummond
of London University: "The effects have been
remarkable." Children were free from the usual
skin complaints, and boys gained in height 25
percent more than those not participating in
the experiment. 9
EARLY PROGRAMS IN THE
UNITED STATES
In spite of information available from the
vast experience and progress made in most of
the nations of Europe, school feeding in the
United States underwent the same evolution as
in Europe, beginning with sporadic food serv­ices
undertaken by private societies and asso­ciations
interested in child welfare and educa­tion.
The Children's Aid Society of New York
initiated a program in 1853, serving meals to
students attending the vocational school. How­ever,
it did not gain sufficient momentum to
convince other organizations or municipalities
to do likewise.10
There can be no doubt that Poverty, a 1904
book by Robert Hunter, had a strong influence
upon the U.S. effort to feed hungry, needy
children in school.
Hunter was vitally concerned with hunger,
particularly among the children in poor fami­lies.
" but the poverty of any family is
likely to be most serious at the very time when
the children most need nurture, when they are
most dependent, and when they are obtaining
the only education which they are ever to re­ceive.
Guidance and supervision of the parents
are impossible because they must work, the
nurture is insufficient because there are too
many hungry mouths to feed, learning is diffi­cult
because hungry stomachs and languid
bodies and thin blood are not able to feed the
brain. The lack of learning among so many
poor children is certainly due, to an important
extent, to this cause. There must be thousands
• Times .Educaticmal Supplement, London, July 22, 1939, p. 299.
1o School Lunches, Yearbook Separate No. 3004, U. S. Department
of A~rriculture, p. 692.
-very likely sixty or seventy thousand chil­dren-
in New York City alone who often ar­rive
at school hungry and unfitted to do well
the work required. It is utter folly, from the
point of view of learning, to have a compul­sory
school law which compels children, in that
weak physical and mental state which results
from poverty, to drag themselves to school and
to sit at their desks, day in and day out, for
several years, learning little or nothing. If it is
a matter of principle in democratic America
that every child shall be given a certain amount
of instruction, let us render it possible for them
to receive it, as monarchial countries have
done, by making full and adequate provision
for the physical needs of the children who come
from the homes of poverty " 11
Philadelphia
Toward the turn of the century significant
efforts at school feeding were evidenced almost
simultaneously in Philadelphia and Boston.
In Philadelphia, the Starr Center Association
began serving penny lunches in one school in
1894, later expanding the service to another.
Soon a lunch committee was established within
the Home and School League, and lunches were
extended to include nine schools in the city.
Dr Cheesman A. Herrick, who was principal
of the William Penn High School for Girls when
it first opened in 1909, is credited with accom­plishing
the transfer of responsibilities for op­eration
and support of the lunch program from
charitable organizations to the Philadelphia
School Board. He requested that a system be
established to assure that the lunches served
would be based upon sound principles of nutri­tion
and required that the program be under
the direction of a home economics graduate.
The Board granted his request on an experi­mental
basis and on the condition that the pro­gram
would be self-supporting. The experiment
proved successful, and the following year lunch
services were extended to the Southern Manual
Training School and later to three additional
units.
In the spring of 1912, the School Board es­tablished
a Department of High School Lunches
n Robert Hunter, Poverty: Social Conscience in the Progreosive
Era, Harper & Row, New York, Evanston and London, 1965, p. 217.
and directed that the food services be inaugu­rated
in all the high schools of the city.
During all this time the Home and School
League had continued operating the feeding
program in the nine elementary schools, and
continued to do so until May of 1915, when it
reported to the Board that the need for a lunch
system had been clearly demonstrated and that
it could not be successfully operated by an orga­nization
outside the school system. As a result,
the School Board placed the operation of both
high school and elementary lunch programs
under the supervision of the Department of
High School Lunches and authorized the exten­sion
of the program to other elementary schools.
Under the Herrick plan, light, heat, cooking
gas and the original equipment were supplied
by the Board. Otherwise, the program was to
be self-supporting.12
Boston
Early programs in Boston were inaugurated
under the auspices of the Women's Educational
and Industrial Union. According to a report of
the Union's activities in 1908, the organization
had begun serving hot lunches in September of
that year to high schools which were under the
supervision of the Boston School Committee. A
central kitchen system was used and lunches
were transported to the participating schools.
There was a school lunch advisory committee
which set the policy for the program and actual
administration of the program was in the
hands of a lunchroom superintendent and a
director of schoollunches.1a
An experimental program for elementary
schools was begun in January 1910, taking the
form of a mid-morning lunch prepared by the
class in Home Economics three days each week.
On two days of each week sandwiches and milk
were served. The children ate their meals at
their desks, there being no lunchroom in the
building.
Before the end of the school year (1909-1910)
five additional schools were benefiting from the
program, and a total of 2,000 pupils were being
12 Emma Smedley, The School Lunch: Ito Organization and Man­agement
in PMJ.o.delphio., Smedley, 1920.
13 Marion Cronan, The School Lunch, Peoria, Illinois, Charles A.
Bennett, Inc., 1962.
..-
5
served each day, according to a report sub­mitted
by Elle"n H. Richards in the "Journal of
Home Economics" for December 1910. She
stated further that "The teachers are unani­mous
in the belief that the luncheons are help­ing
the children both physically and mentally
They are more attentive and interested in the
~essons during the last hour of the morning and
the result in their recitations gives the proof."
Milwaukee
In 1904, the same year that Poverty was
published, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, began its ef­forts
at meeting the need when the Women's
School Alliance of Wisconsin began furnishing
lunches to children in three centers located in
areas where both parents were working and the
greatest need was evident. The project was sup­ported
by dona~ions from private individuals,
churches, societies and clubs. The lunches were
prepared in the homes of women who lived
near the schools and were willing to cook and
serve the meals. Improvement in attendance
and scholarship was noted, and six additional
centers were in operation by 1910.
The preparation and serving of the lunches
had by that time been transferred to the school
buildings and a matron was employed at each
school. The price of the meal was one cent for
children who could pay, and they were served
all the soup and rolls they could eat. Those who
could not pay received their lunches free. The
Alliance recognized the need for establishing
additional centers throughout the city, but it
was unable to raise the necessary funds for
their support. The county board was requested
to assume support of the school feeding pro­gram,
but the proposal failed, it being the con­tention
of the board that such action would en­courage
parents to be indolent and shift paren­tal
responsibilities to the municipalit~. 14
School Feeding Supported
In the year following the publication of
Hunter's Poverty, there appeared another,
similar publication dealing with poverty and
the plight of poverty-stricken families. This
" Mrs. Duane Mowry, Penny Lunches in Milwaukee Schools,
American City 4 (6). pp. 283-288.
6
was John Spargo's The Bitter Cry of the Chil­dren.
Like Hunter, Spargo dwelt extensively
upon the misfortunes of children and the effect
of malnourishment upon their physical and
mental well-being. He estimated, after very
careful study, that "not less than 2,000,000
children of school age in the United States are
the victims of poverty which denies them com­mon
necessities, particularly adequate nourish­ment.
Such children are in very many cases
incapable of successful mental effort, and much
of our national expenditure for education is in
consequence an absolute waste." 15
The introduction to The Bitter Cry of the
Children was supplied by none other than
Robert Hunter, the author of Pove1·ty. In
commenting upon Mr Spargo's publication, he
states, "Few of us sufficiently realize the pow­erful
effect upon life of adequate nutritious
food. Few of us ever think of how much it is
responsible for our physical and mental ad­vancement
or what a force it has been in for­warding
our civilized life."
Mr Spargo's emphasis upon the importance
and appropriateness of feeding the school child
is borne out in the following quotations from
his book "To the contention that society, hav­ing
assumed the responsibility of insisting that
every child shall be educated, and providing the
means of education, is necessarily bound to as­sume
the responsibility of seeing that they are
made fit to receive that education, so far as
possible, there does not seem to be any convinc-ing
answer It will be objected that for society
to do this would mean the destruction of the
responsibility of the parents. That is obviously
true. But it is equally true of education itself,
the responsibility for which society has as­sumed.
Some individualists there are who con­tend
that society is wrong in doing this, and
their opposition to the proposal that it should
undertake to provide the children with food is
far more logical than that of those who believe
that society should assume the responsibility of
educating the child, but not that of equipping it
with the necessary physical basis for that edu­cation."
'"John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children, Chicago, Quad­tangle
Books, 1906, p. 117.
New York
Robert Hunter had estimated that there were
sixty or seventy thousand school children in
New York who were not capable of doing good
school work because of malnourishment. As has
been previously noted, the situation had no
doubt been recognized by the Children's Aid
Society of New York as far back as 1853. In
that year they began serving lunches to stu­dents
at a vocational school. No significant pro­grams
in the public schools developed, however,
until 1908 when Dr William H. Maxwell, su­perintendent
of schools, made a special plea in
his report to the Board of Education. "Again I
appeal to you, in the name of suffering child­hood,
to establish in each school facilities
whereby the pupils may obtain simple whole­some
food at cost price."
A school lunch committee consisting of physi­cians
and social workers was thereupon organ­ized
to find out whether a lunch might be self­supporting
at a 3-cent charge to students. Two
schools were selected on a trial basis. Two
years later the board authorized expansion of
the program to other schools of the city and
agreed that the board would pay the cost of
equipment and gas and supply the necessary
rooms. The cost of food and labor was to be met
from the sale of lunches.
During this period height and weight meas­urements
were generally used and recognized
as standards in determining nutritional adequa­cies.
Consequently such records were main­tained
for 143 children for three months in the
New York school lunch experiment. Records
were also maintained on 81 children who did
not participate in the lunch program. It was
found that the 143 children had gained 91
pounds 4 ounces, or an average of 10.2 ounces
each, while the 81 children gained 17 pounds or
an average of 3.4 ounces. In both groups some
children had lost weight, but the proportion of
those who had lost weight was less among those
eating the school lunches than among those who
did not. This was considered as proof of the
beneficial effects of one good planned meal each
day at school.
Until January 1920, lunches in the elemen­tary
schools of New York had been supported
by volunteer social organizations. In the
1919-20 school year, the Board of Education
assumed full responsibility for all programs in
Manhattan and the Bronx, and in the following
year for all the programs.
Cleveland
Elementary school lunch service began in
Cleveland, Ohio, on December 6, 1909, when the
Cleveland Federation of Women's Clubs began
serving breakfasts to 19 children at the Eagle
School. One additional school was added in
1910, and by 1915 meals were being provided
for all special classes in the grade schools, ex­cepting
the school for the deaf. In total about
710 children were being provided for each day
School lunch services in Cleveland took on a
unique aspect. The Board of Education fur­nished
the equipment and provided the lunch­rooms.
However, "For crippled and open air
children the Federation of Women's Clubs pro­vides
food and at each school employs a woman
to prepare it. For the blind, the Society for
Promoting the Interests of the Blind takes
charge. The committees, in consultation with
principal, medical inspector, and supervisor of
high school lunches, make out the different
menus. The Board of Education contracts with
these committees to furnish meals to excep­tional
children in specified schools at so much
per child per day, according to the kind and
number of meals supplied.16
In some schools the meals were served at 10
a.m. and again at 2 p.m., and the children went
home for their noon lunch. In other schools the
lunches were served at noon. Apparently "open
air" children received the two lunches each day,
and the noon meal was supplied for the blind
and crippled children who did not go home at
noon.
The meal generally consisted of "bread and
jam and a hot dish, such as beef stew, minced
meat with potatoes, thick soup, or macaroni
with tomato sauce. A few, on order from- the
medical inspector, get milk in the morning."17
In the summer of 1909, lunchrooms were in­stalled
in seven high schools in Cleveland. For
16 years prior to this, lunches had been pro­vided
by "lunch wagons" going to the schools
...
to Alice C. Boughton, Household ATts and School Lunches, Cleve­land
Education Survey 1915, pp. 121-122.
" Ibid., p. 126.
7
or by stores in the vicinity serving hot meals at
noon. Ih some schools the "basket lunches"
were served on the school premises by caterers.
Even after the installation of lunchrooms and
equipment in the seven high schools, the opera­tions
in the schools were actually conducted by
the former caterers under contract with the
Board of Education on a concessionaire basis.
In the contract the Board of Education agreed
to furnish all the necessary equipment, as well
as heat, light, gas and water, sufficient for the
proper maintenance of the lunchrooms, and to
replace all equipment rendered useless through
natural wear and tear.
In 1914-15 the normal school and all high
schools except two were provided with lunch
services. This involved a total of 6,715 students.
All items served were priced a la carte and a
typical "menu" offered a selection from about
15 items, including milk. "In some schools the
range of choice is too great, in others too
small. In all it is uneven. Vegetable soup is
always vegetable soup and the price is 4 cents;
but price is the only constant factor, for the
materials used vary from school to school. That
is, a nickel will buy more food, often of better
quality, in one school than it will in another."18
Milk was furnished to all schools by one
dairy selected by the lunchroom supervisor.
"All other supplies are chosen by the individual
concessionaires, who are entirely responsible
for the service. In a number of schools they
prepare the food themselves, which increases
their difficulties for they are frequently inter­rupted
by tradespeople, by lunchroom helpers
asking questions, by stray students who need
attention, and by teachers on diet who want
beef juice or an eggnog, or by other teachers
who have a free hour and want a special meal.
Lunch has to be prepared in between these de­mands
and dishes are sometimes ready long be­fore
the regular lunch period."19
Naturally, concessionaires had no guaran­teed,
minimum income. During the 1914-15
school year, concessionaire's profits ranged
from $942 in one school to as little as $124 in
another The median for 10 schools was $605.
The comments of a survey committee con­cerning
the "Place of Lunch Service in the
1• Alice C. Boughton, Household Arts and School Lunches, Cleve­land
Education Survey 1915, pp. 146-146.
19 Ibid., p. 161.
8
School System" is worthy of special note :
"School lunches meet a natural need of all chil­dren.
The purpose of the service is to teach
children to choose wisely the food they buy. The
conduct of school lunches is a business, an art,
and a science. . . The Superintendent of
Lunches should have the same rank as the direc­tor
of any other special division and be compen­sated
accordingly She should be subordinate to
the educational department, for her work bears
a direct relation to all health teaching in the
schools and offers an opportunity to teach chil­dren
the ethics and economies of spending, and
various factors affecting the price of school
meals and restaurant meals."20 In the summary
of its findings and recommendations the survey
committee states, among other things. "The
school lunch division should reach all children;
it should provide wholesome and nutritious food
for them at cost, train them in sane habits of
eating, and teach them to choose wisely what
food they buy."21
Cincinnati
Almost simultaneously with the installation
of lunchrooms in Cleveland. civic and social or­ganizations
were preparing for serving penny
lunches in at least one school in Cincinnati.
Here, again, the school board furnished the
equipment, excepting that the very first equip­ment
was paid for from private donations.
Five food items were served every day, two
of which were hot foods. Each item was sold
for a penny. The following are samples of
menu offerings: "1. Hot meat sandwich, baked
sweet potato; oranges; candy balls; graham
crackers. 2. Hot wieners, rice pudding in
cones; candy; bananas; cakes." The salary of
the cook was paid by the Council of Jewish
Women. All other costs were met by lunchroom
receipts.
St. Louis
In St. Louis, five schools in congested areas
of the city were selected for an experiment in
school lunch services in October 1911. High
20 Alice C. Boughton, Household Arts and School Lunches, Cleve­land
Education Survey 1915, p. 162.
"' The findings and recommendations in the report contain no ref­erence
to provision of mealo to children who were unable to pay.
schools already had some form of lunch service,
but it was decided to expand the services to
elementary schools primarily for poorly nour­ished
children and for those children who could
not go home at noon. About 900 children were
participating in the five centers. At the outset
the food was prepared at the Central High
School kitchen and transported to the elemen­tary
schools. This was found to be exces­sively
costly, however, and after a month's ex­perience
the preparation was transferred to
each of the participating schools.
Originally the board purchased the food, but
"It was decided, however, that it was illegal to
spend public funds for the purchase of food and
the board was obliged to abandon the work." 22
Consequently, the programs were required to
be self-supporting aside from the cost of equip­ment,
which was paid by the board.
Chicago
According to the Department of Interior, Bu­reau
of Education Bulletin No. 37, issued in
1921, "Chicago has the most intensive school
lunch system in America." At that time, all the
city's high schools and 60 elementary schools
were carrying on school feeding programs as a
full responsibility of the Chicago Board
of Education. "Most of the high school children
attend the lunchroom for part of their meal at
least, and in the elementary schools approxi­mately
31,000 children are served daily."
The program had its beginning in 1910,
when the Chicago Board of Education author­ized
the expenditure of $1,200 to begin an ex­perimental
program of serving hot lunches to
children in six elementary schools.23 By 1916,
the number of elementary schools participating
had grown to 28 and 31 high schools had joined
the program.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles had entered upon a fairly sub­stantial
program by 1921. The Board of Educa­tion
sponsored the program in nine high
""Department of Interior, Bureau of Education Bulletin No. sr,
1921, p. 24.
23 School Feeding in the United States, FDPB, P&MA, USDA,
June 1947.
schools, eight intermediate, and 31 elementary
schools. The participation in high schools
ranged from 450 to 1,800 students per day per
school, in the intermediate school 700 to 1,000
per school, and in the elementary system ap­proximately
120 pupils per day per school.
The programs in the high schools and inter­mediate
schools were managed by student body
associations or by a cafeteria director selected
from the Home Economics Department. The ele­mentary
schools selected for participation in
the program had a high percentage of students
needing the noonday lunch because of defective
nutrition. The undernourished children were
fed at noon and in some cases were given a
snack at 10 a.m. Lunches were sold at cost, but
were given free to those unable to pay The
deficit in the elementary program was taken
care of by the P.T.A. In the high schools and
intermediate schools students unable to pay for
their lunches· were given work in the Home
Economics Department or in other areas in the
school to pay for their meals.
In a 1918 survey by the New York Bureau of
Municipal Research, concerning school lunch­room
services in 86 cities having over 50,000
population, it was found that only 25 percent of
them provided lunch services in elementary
schools, but that 76 percent had some form of
lunch services in high schools.
In high schools it was found that the noon
lunch period was short and students came long
distances to school. Some form of meal service
was, therefore, considered essential. For the
most part, elementary school children lived in
the neighborhood of the school and could go
home for their noonday meal.
Improvement of nutrition was not a part of
the consideration. Only five of the cities report­ing
lunchroom services in high schools indi­cated
that the program had been instituted as a
means of overcoming malnutrition among the
students.
Rural Schools
Nationally, rural schools had a special prob­lem
in attempting to establish warm noonday
lunches for their pupils. Almost without excep­tion
there was no room available fo... r setting up
a kitchen and dining area. Children came to
school from long distances, and their lunches at
9
• noon consisted mainly of cold sandwiches,
many of them of questionable nutritive value.
Efforts were made beginning in the early
1900's to provide some means of warming cer­tain
foods brought from home or to prepare a
hot food of some kind at school as a supplement
to the foods brought from home. Public funds
for such purposes were generally not available.
But many ingenious teachers devised plans
for preparing soups or similar hot dishes from
meats and vegetables brought to school by pup­ils
as a donation for the general use of all.
Students took turns in helping to prepare the
foods before the morning session began. Such
dishes were cooked in a large kettle set on top
of the stove which also heated the school room.
In Wisconsin, an extensive program known
as "the pint jar method" was used in heating
foods brought from home. Students were en­couraged
to bring such items as soups, maca­roni,
cocoa, etc. in a pint jar. The pint jars were
set into a bucket of water on top of the room
heater or stove, and by lunch time such foods
would be piping hot. Much stress was placed
upon the importance of students receiving some
hot food at school each day to supplement the
cold sandwiches (sometimes frozen solid by the
time the student reached school)
County home demonstration agents of the
University Extension Service were extremely
helpful to rural schools in devising plans for
providing some supplementary hot foods and in
drawing up lists of suggested "menus" in ad­vance.
Parent-Teacher Associations became increas­ingly
concerned and active in the school lunch
movement, and supported activities through do­nations
of funds and equipment. Pots, pans,
cooking utensils, portable ovens, and domestic
type ranges were often donated by the associa­tions
or even by individual families. Such as­sistance
was invaluable in getting the program
started in many rural and village schools.
In 1914 the Pinellas County (Florida) health
officer, decided to experiment at the school to
see what results would come out of a program
which would provide each child with a half pint
of milk a day
To get the program started a large white cow
was placed on the playground with posters and
other material to explain what was being at­tempted.
Amid this setting the children were
10
served their milk.
The health officer was so impressed with the
results that he suggested they serve a bowl of
soup to the children with the milk.
A group of mothers and the principal
planned and carried out the project serving the
children a hot bowl of soup with crackers and
one-half pint of milk. The meat and some of the
potatoes were donated by the mothers. They
also furnished the utensils, and the principal
supplied the vegetables grown in the school
garden.
Under these varied means of support-by
philanthropic organizations, school-oriented as­sociations,
school district boards, and individu­als-
the school lunch program continued to ex­pand,
gaining momentum during the decade of
the 1920's. It was estimated that by 1931 there
were 64,500 cafeterias in operation throughout
the country in addition to perhaps 11,500
smaller units serving a single hot dish daily.
The depression years of the 1930's deepened
the concern over hunger and malnourishment
among school children, and many States and
municipalities adopted legislation, some of
them including appropriations, to enable
schools to serve noonday meals to their
children. 24
STATE LEGISLATION
AND PROGRAMS
"By 1937, 15 States had passed laws specifi­cally
authorizing local school boards to operate
lunchrooms. Although the laws commonly au­thorized
the serving of meals at cost, usually
the cost of the food only, four States made spe­cial
provisions for needy children. In Indiana
(for cities of over 300,000 inhabitants-Indian­apolis
was the only one), and in Vermont, the
boards were authorized to furnish lunches
without cost to poor children, and in Missouri
(for cities over 500,000-St. Louis was the only
one), and Wisconsin at less than cost prices."25
" Howard L. Briggs, and Constance C. Hart, From Basket Lunch ..
to Ca!eteriatt-A Sto111 of ProQreaa, Nation's Schools, 8:51-6, 1931.
"' The Bureau of Agricultural Economics, USDA, The School Lunch
ProQram and ADricultural Surplus Dilpoaal, Miscellaneous Publica­tion
No. 467, October 1941.
EARLY FEDERAL AID
Although both State and local legislation au­thorized
local school districts to provide meals
for children through various means, it soon
became evident that local governments and
school district boards could not provide the
funds necessary to carry the increasing load.
Supplementary contributions by charitable or­ganizations
and individuals did not suffice. Aid
from Federal sources became inevitable.
The earliest Federal aid came from the Re­construction
Finance Corporation in 1932 and
1933 when it granted loans to several towns in
southwestern Missouri to cover the cost of labor
employed in preparing and serving school
lunches. Such Federal assistance was expanded
to other areas in 1933 and 1934 under the op­erations
of the Civil Works Administration and
the Federal Emergency Relief Administration,
reaching into 39 States and covering the em­ployment
of 7,442 women.
Commodity Donation Program
The depression of the 1930's brought on
widespread unemployment. Millions of people
in the cities lost their jobs and were without
means of support for themselves and their fam­ilies.
They were obliged to seek help through
public assistance programs.
Much of the production of the farm went
begging for a market, surpluses of farm prod­ucts
continued to mount, prices of farm prod­ucts
declined to a point where farm income
provided only a meager subsistence. Millions
of school children were unable to pay for their
school lunches, and with but limited family re­sources
to provide meals at home, the danger of
malnutrition among children became a national
concern. Federal assistance became essential ' and Congressional action was taken in 1935 to
aid both agriculture and the school lunch pro­gram.
Public Law 320 passed by the 74th Congress
and approved August 24, 1935, made available
to the Secretary of Agriculture an amount of
money equal to 30 percent of the gross receipts
from duties collected under the customs laws
during each calendar year The sums were to be
maintained in a separate fund to be used by the
Secretary to encourage the domestic consump-tion
of certain agricultural commodities
(usually those in surplus supply) by diverting
them from the normal channels of trade and
commerce. The object of this legislation was to
remove price-depressing surplus foods from the
market through government purchase and dis­pose
of them through exports and domestic do­nations
to consumers in such a way as not to
interfere with normal sales.
Needy families and school lunch programs
became constructive outlets for the commodi­ties
purchased by the USDA under the terms of
such legislation. Many needy school children
could not afford to pay for lunches and were
sorely in need of supplementary foods from a
nutritional standpoint. Thus they would be
using foods at school which would not other­wise
be purchased in the market place and
farmers would be helped by obtaining an outlet
for their products at a reasonable price. The
purchase and distribution program was as­signed
in 1935 to the Federal Surplus Com­modities
Corporation which had been estab­lished
in 1933 as the Federal Surplus Relief
Corporation to distribute surplus pork, dairy
products, and wheat to the needy In March
1937, there were 3,839 schools receiving com­modities
for lunch programs serving 342,031
children daily Two years later, the number of
schools participating had grown to 14,075 and
the number of children had risen to 892,259.
In a still further effort to be of assistance,
the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation
(and later the Surplus Marketing Administra­tion)
employed a special representative in each
State in 1939-1940 to work with State and local
school authorities, Parent-Teacher Associa­tions,
mothers clubs and similar organizations
in an effort to expand the school lunch pro­gram.
The growth of the program from 1939 to
1942 is evidence of the success of their efforts.
During that period the number of schools par­ticipating
increased by 78,841, and the number
of pupils participating increased by 5,272,540.
The 1941-42 school year became the peak year
in participation and in the use of commodities
in school lunch programs before the effects of
World War II upon the food su~ply became
evident. During that year, 454 million pounds
of food valued at over $21 million were allotted
to schools.
11
The distribution of commodities was made
possible through the teamwork of Federal,
State a:1d local governmental units. Vast quan­tities
of foods were distributed to needy fami­lies
and charitable institutions, in addition to
those distributed to schools. It was essential,
therefore, to have an effective administrative
organization at each level of government as
well as physical facilities to care for the ware­housing,
packaging and distribution of the
foods.
At the State level, a director of commodity
distribution was responsible for the proper ad­ministration
of the program, including the or­dering
of the foods from the Government, ar­ranging
for proper warehousing at strategic
points throughout the State, setting up and
maintaining adequate records to account for
the receipt and distribution of all foods shipped
into the State, and reporting to the Federal
Government from time to time as required.
Generally, foods were received in carload lots
and placed in storage at various warehouses.
From these points, they were transferred (gen­erally
by truck) to county warehouses main­tained
by the county agencies. From this point
they were either distributed by truck to the in­dividual
families and schools entitled to receive
them, or such recipients called at the county
warehouse for their allotments.
Before an agency such as a school board,
P T.A., mothers' club, or other civic or social
organization sponsoring a school lunch pro­gram
could receive surplus commodities, it was
required to enter into a written agreement with
the state distributing agency providing sub­stantially:
12
• That the commodities would be used for
preparation of school lunches on the school
premises.
• That the commodities would not be sold or
exchanged.
• That the food purchases would not
discontinued or curtailed because of the re­ceipt
of surplus foods.
• That the program would not be operated
for profit.
• That the children who could not pay for
their meals would not be segregated or dis­criminated
against and would not be iden-tified
to their peers.
• That proper warehousing would be pro­vided
and proper accounting would be ren­dered
for all foods received.
At first, commodities were allotted to schools
based upon the number of undernourished and
underprivileged children participating in the
program. However, this was soon changed to an
allotment based on the total number of chil­dren
participating in the program.
The maximum quantity of any food that any
school could receive was based upon a maxi­mum
quantity per child per month established
by USDA. This method of allocation persists to
this day, with the exception that for some items
the allocation is unlimited if the supply is ade­quate.
W.P.A. Assistance
Although the Reconstruction Finance Corpo­ration,
the Civil Works Administration and the
Federal Emergency Relief Administration pro­vided
some financial assistance in payment of
labor employed in the school lunch program
from 1932 to 1934, it was not until the advent
of the Works Progress Administration (later
changed to Work Projects Administration) that
a very substantial contribution from Federal
sources became available in this area of pro­gram
operations. This agency was created in
1935 to provide work for needy persons on
public works projects.
School lunch work was assigned to the Com­munity
Service Division of W.P.A. Since there
were unemployed, needy women in nearly every
city, town, village and rural community of the
country, the preparation and serving of school
lunches became a very ready area of emp1oy-.
ment to which such women could be assigned.
In addition, they could be employed as bakers,
clerks, typists, etc. where the size and nature of
the program warranted.
The work was under the direction of a
W.P.A. supervisor at the State level. This super­visor,
in turn, had a supporting staff of district
and local school lunch supervisors who called on
the workers in the individual schools to give
them needed direction and help. The supervi­sory
staff was generally chosen from people who
had special knowledge and abilities in food
service.
i
Menus, recipes, and manuals were developed
at the State and district supervisory levels
which were of inestimable value to the local
cooks and helpers in the performance of their
duties and did much to improve the quality of
the meals served as well as to set standards for
equipment, sanitation, and safety in the lunch
program.
With much of the labor being provided with­out
cost to a school district, lunch prices were
held to a minimum, more children participated
and the natural outcome was a very rapid ex­pansion
in the program throughout the Nation.
In some areas, projects involving canning
foods for the lunch program were undertaken
during the summer months when schools were
not in session. At times, this involved the pres­ervation
of fresh fruits or vegetables received
as surplus items, while in some school districts
and communities garden projects were set up to
provide additional foods for the school lunch
program. Some of these foods were canned by
personnel employed by the W.P.A.
In March 1941, W.P.A school lunch programs
were in operation in all States, the District of
Columbia and Puerto Rico, providing help in
23,160 schools serving an average of nearly 2
million lunches daily, and employing 64,298
persons.
N.Y.A. Assistance
The National Youth Administration was an­other
Federal agency which also provided as­sistance
to the school lunch program. This
agency was also founded in 1935, having as its
purpose job training for unemployed youth and
providing part-time work for needy students.
Since they could be employed only under adult
supervision, N Y.A employees did not manage
lunch programs but supplied much needed
assistance as part-time helpers. They also sup­plied
help in making tables, chairs and other
equipment for the lunchrooms. In April, 1941
over 16,000 youths were employed in school
lunch projects in 42 States, the District of Co­lumbia
and Puerto Rico.
Effects of World War II
In February 1942, the school lunch program
operating under the assistance from W.P.A and
N Y.A and rece1vmg donated foods reached
92,916 schools serving 6 million children daily
The effect of World War II upon the nation's
economy was making itself evident, however
As defense industries provided work for more
and more people, W.P.A payrolls declined
sharply, and the agency's activities came to a
close in the early part of 1943.
The huge supply of food required for the
support of U.S. Armed Forces and allies soon
drained off farm surpluses, except for a few
sporadic over-supplies of some items from time
to time. Consequently, the kinds and quantities
of foods available for distribution to school
lunch programs became comparatively negligi­ble,
dropping from the high of 454 million
pounds in 1942 to 93 million pounds in 1944.
Labor supplied by W.P.A had been completely
eliminated. The effect upon the school lunch
program was dramatically shown.
By April 1944, there were only 34,064 schools
serving some 5 million children in the program.
But a further decline was not to occur.
Authorization of Federal Funds
The 78th Congress in July 1943 enacted
Public Law 129, amending Section 32 of the
Agricultural Act of 1935, authorizing the ex­penditure
of Section 32 funds not in excess of
$50 million for maintaining the school lunch
and school milk programs during the fiscal year
July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1944.
This assistance was in the form of cash sub­sidy
payments to school lunch sponsors for the
purchase of food for the program. No part of
the funds could be used for the payment of
labor or for the purchase of equipment. With­out
it the decline in participation previously
noted would undoubtedly have been even more
drastic. It took time to reach schools with the
information, place the procedures into operat­ion,
and re-establish programs which had
closed down.
The following year there was an improve­ment
in legislation and a further expansion of
the program. Under the provisions of Public
Law 367, the 78th Congress again set aside
$50 million of Section 32 funds for carrying on
the school lunch program in 1944-45, a•n. d ex- tended the authority to include child care cen-ters.
For the first time, the legislation also pro-
13
vided some details as to conditions under which
·" Federal assistance could be received:
• Cash payments could not exceed the cost of
food purchased for use in the program.
• Accurate records of cost of food had to be
maintained.
• Total payments of Federal funds in any
State could not exceed the total amount
provided for food purchases by the school
lunch sponsors, school districts, or other
sources within the State, including the
value of donated services and supplies.
Again for the 1945-46 school year, the same
amount was appropriated as in the previous
year, but the legislation included a provision
that not more than two percent of the funds
allotted to any State could be used for lunch
programs in child care centers. Because of a
rapid expansion of the program, Congress ap­propriated
an additional $7.5 million in Decem­ber
1945, in order to continue the payments to
schools until the end of the school year By
April 1946, the program had expanded to in­clude
45,119 schools serving 6.7 million children
daily, representing an increase of some 11,000
schools and about 1.5 million children over the
1943-44 school year.
NATIONAL SCHOOL
LUNCH ACT APPROVED
Nevertheless, the program was not expand­ing
as rapidly as desirable. The year-to-year
appropriations by the Congress without legisla­tion
assuring a continuation of program opera­tions
in years ahead, and the past experience of
a drastic falling off in Federal support by
means of donated foods, made ·school boards
hesitant to undertake the program.
. Equipment installations, especially in the
larger schools in cities and rural consolidated
districts, were expensive. In the majority of
school buildings there was no available room
suitable to the installation of kitchen equip­ment,
separate dining space was not available,
and additions to or extensive remodeling of ex­isting
buildings would be necessary if the IJrO-
14
gram were to be inaugurated. Without some
guarantee as to a future, this was regarded as a
high risk investment, and hampered program
growth.
The 79th Congress (1946) recognized the
need. Legislation was introduced to give the
program a permanent status and to authorize
the necessary appropriations for it. 26 Follow­ing
hearings on the proposed legislation, the
~ouse Committee on Agriculture Report stated,
m part "The need for a permanent legislative
basis for a school lunch program, rather than
operating it on a year-to-year basis, or one de­pendent
solely on agricultural surpluses that for
a child may be nutritionally unbalanced or nu­tritionally
unattractive, has now become appar­ent.
The expansion of the program has been
hampered by lack of basic legislation. If there
is an assurance of continuity over a period of
years, the encouragement of State contribution
and participation in the school lunch program
will be of great advantage in expanding the
program.
"The national school lunch bill provides
basic, comprehensive legislation for aid, in gen­eral,
to the States in the operation of school
lunch programs as permanent and integral
parts of their school systems. Such aid,
heretofore extended by Congress through the
Department of Agriculture has, for the past 10
years, proven for exceptional benefit to the chil­dren,
schools, and agriculture of the country as
a whole, but the necessity for now coordinating
the work throughout the Nation, and especially
to encourage and increase the financial partici­pation
and active control by the several States
makes it desirable that permanent enabling leg­islation
take the place of the present temporary
legislative structure. The educational fea­tures
of a properly chosen diet served at school
should not be underemphasized. Not only is the
child taught what a good diet consists of, but
his parents and family likewise are indirectly
instructed."27
The legislation was identified as the "Na­tional
School Lunch Act," and Section 2 of the
Act defines its purposes: "It is hereby declared
to be the policy of Congress, as a measure of
26 Public Law 896, 79th C011gress, June 4, 1946, 60 Stat. 231.
""House Committee on Agriculture Report P.L. S96-79th Con~rress
June 4, 1946. See Chronological Legislative History of Child Nutri­tion
Programs. F&NS, U.S.D.A.
national security, to safeguard the health
and well-being of the Nation's children and to
encourage the 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 food and other facilities for the estab­lishment,
maintenance, operation and expansion
of nonprofit school lunch programs."28
The Act spelled out very clearly just how the
funds should be apportioned among the States.
Exclusive of any amount which might be ap­propriated
from year to year for nonfood as­sistance
(equipment purchases), the Secretary
was required to pay out to the States not less
than 75 percent of the amount appropriated to
be used by the schools for food purchases. The
funds allotted to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico,
and the Virgin Islands could not exceed 3 per­cent
of the total appropriation for food pur­chases.
The apportionment to States was based
on two factors· "The number of school children
between the ages of 5 and 17, inclusive, in the
State, and the need for assistance in the State
as indicated by the relation of the per capita
income in the United States to the per capita
income of the State." This meant that the
States with the lower per capita income would
receive a greater proportion of the Federal
funds than States whose per capita income was
equal to or greater than the per capita income
of the United States.
Section 5 provided that $10 million of the
total appropriation each year should be appor­tioned
among the States to assist school dis­tricts
in purchasing equipment for the pro­gram.
These funds were to be apportioned
among the States on the same basis as the
funds for food purchases. 29
Section 6 gave the Secretary authority to use
up to 3.5 percent of the appropriation for ad­ministrative
expenses. This section provided
also that any funds remaining after the appor­tionment
of funds to the states and territories
for food and equipment purchases and for ad­ministrative
expenses could be used by the Sec­retary
for direct purchases of food to be dis­tributed
among the schools participating in the
"' P .L. 396-79th Congress, June 4, 1946, 60 Stat. 231.
"' After the initial appropriation for nonfood assistance for fiscal
year 1947, there were no further appropriations for this purpose until
1966-67.
lunch program "in accordance with the needs
as determined by the local school authorities."
Section 7 called for a matching of Federal
funds paid to the States as follows:
• Fiscal years 1947 to 1950-$1.00 for each
Federal $1.00
• Fiscal years 1951 to 1955-$1.50 for each
Federal $1.00
• Fiscal year 1956 and thereafter-$3.00 for
each Federal $1.00
In States where the per capita income was
less than the per capita income of the United
States, the matching requirement was reduced
by the percentage by which the State per capita
income was less than that of the United States.
In meeting the matching requirement, the
payment for lunches by children, moneys paid
out by school boards, and the reasonable value
of foods, equipment, labor and other donations
to the program could be regarded as matching
funds. However, "the cost or value of land, of
the acquisition, construction, or alteration of
buildings, of commodities donated by the Secre­tary,
or of Federal contributions" could not be
considered as matching funds. States were re­quired
to enter into written agreements with
the Secretary concerning the receipt and dis­bursement
of Federal funds and foods received
in support of the lunch program, and for the
supervision of the program in all schools to
assure compliance with the provisions of the
Act and regulations and directives issued by
the Secretary concerning program operations.
Likewise, schools participating in the pro­gram
were required to execute agreements with
the State educational agency. These agreements
provided principally that the sponsoring agency
for the school would :
1. Serve lunches meeting the minimum nu­tritional
requirements prescribed by the
Secretary
2. Serve meals without cost or at reduced
cost to children who were determined by
local school authorities to be unable to
pay the full cost of the lunch, and not to
segregate or discriminate against such
children in anyway ..
15
3. Operat~ the program on a non-profit
basis.
4. Utilize as far as practicable the commodi­ties
declared by the Secretary to be in
abundance and to utilize commodities do­nated
by the Secretary
5. Maintain proper records of all receipts
and expenditures and submit reports to
the State agency as required.
In States where the State educational agency
could not administer the program in private
and parochial schools, a proportionate amount
of the State's share of fund was withheld
from the allocation to the State agency for dis­bursement
to the private and parochial schools
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The
Department also supervised the operation of
the programs in these schools and continues to
do so where the situation requires.
Section 9 of the Act provided that "Lunches
served by schools participating in the school
lunch program under this Act shall meet mini­mum
nutritional requirements prescribed by
the Secretary on the basis of tested nutritional
research." The Secretary prescribed three types
of lunches which would be acceptable, designed
as Type A, Type B, and Type C. The Type C
lunch consisted of 112 pint of whole milk serv­ed
as a beverage. The milk would have to meet
the minimum standards of the State and local
laws and ordinances concerning butterfat con­tent
and sanitation requirements. The mini­mum
nutritional requirements of the Type A
and Type B lunches were as follows:
TypeA TypeB
Milk, whole ----- --------------- lh pint
Protein-rich food consisting of
any of the following or a com-bination
thereof:
Fresh or processed meat,
poultry meat, cheese,
cooked or canned fish ___ .:__ 2 oz.
Dry peas or beans or spy-beans,
cooked ------------ lh cup
Peanut Butter ---------- - ,-- 4 tbsp.
Eggs ---------------------- 1
Raw, cooked, or canned vegeta-bles
or fruits, or both -------- - %. cup
Bread, muffins or hot bread made
of whole grain cereal or en-riched
flour ---- -------------- 1 portion
Butter or fortified margarine ____ 2 tsp
16
lh pint
1 oz.
:14 cup
2 tbsp.
lh
lh cup
1 portion
1 tsp.
Type A lunch was desig·ned to m~et one-third
to one-half of the minimum daily nutritional re­quirementg
of a child 10 to 12 years of age. By
making some adjustments, this meal pattern
could be adapted to meet the nutritional re­quirements
for children of all ages.
The Type B pattern was devised to provide
a supplementary lunch in schools where ade­quate
facilities for the preparation of a Type A
lunch could not be provided.
Schools were reimbursed for a part of the
cost of food purchased and used in the prepara-tion
of the noon lunches. This was accomplished
through a plan of monthly payment to schools
at a certain rate (cents) per meal for the num­ber
of meals served which had met the nutri­tional
requirements. The maximum reimburse­ments
allowable, established by the Secretary,
were: Type A, 9 cents; Type B, 6 cents; Type
C, 2 cents. Reimbursement rates for lunches
served without milk were reduced by 2 cents,
but this was permitted only if an adequate
supply of milk, meeting State and local stand­ards
as to butterfat and sanitation was not
available; otherwise, meals without milk were
not reimbursable. Total reimbursement to any
school could not exceed the total amount spent
for food.
Additional Commodities Authorized
Further assistance to the program by way of
Federal commodity donations was brought
about under the provisions of Section 416 of
the Agricultural Act of 1949. Authority was
granted to the Commodity Credit Corporation
to donate commodities acquired by it under its
price support activities to various agencies
according to certain priorities · "First, to school
lunch programs, and to the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and Federal, State and local public wel­fare
organizations for the assistance of needy
Indians and other needy persons ; second, to
private welfare organizations for the assist­ance
of needy persons within the United States;
third, to private welfare organizations for the
assistance of needy persons outside the United
States."30 These donations were in addition to
those which might become available through
the provisions of Section 32 of the Agricultural
Act of 1935.
ao Public Law 439-81st Congress, Oct. 31, 1949, 63 Stat. 1058.
National School Lunch Act Amended
The first amendment to the National School
Lunch Act occurred in 1952. It changed the
formula concerning the apportionment of
school lunch funds to Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto
Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands both as to
food and non-food assistance funds. The same
amendment also provided that in the first ap­portionment
of funds following the enactment
of the amendment, the amounts received by
Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands
should "not be less than that amount which will
result in an allotment per child of school age in
the State having the lowest per capita
income among the States participating in such
first apportionment."31
Special Food Assistance to Needy Schools
Although the formula for apportionment of
school lunch funds among the States and Terri­tories,
as stated in the Act, was designed to
allocate a greater proportionate share to low­income
States, the expansion of the program to
reach the large proportion of needy children
who were entitled to free or reduced-price
lunches became a very real burden upon the
local districts which were the least able to pay.
The situation was further complicated by lack
of facilities and space for meal preparation par­ticularly
in the smaller schools in rural areas
and older schools in large cities.
An experimental program was undertaken
whereby special foods would be purchased for
distribution to needy schools. The Congress ap­propriated
$10 million for fiscal year 1962 to be
used for direct commodity procurement by the
Secretary of Agriculture. Of this amount $2.5
million was authorized to be used for commod­ity
procurement and distribution "to provide
special assistance to needy schools which be­cause
of poor local economic conditions (1)
have not been operating a school lunch program
or (2) have been serving free or at substan­tially
reduced prices at least 20 percent of the
lunches to the children."32 By the end of the
1961-62 school year the special commodity as­sistance
program was operating in 270 espe­cially
needy schools in 22 States, serving
31 P.L. 518 July 12, 1952, 66 Stat. 591.
"" P.L. 87-112 July 26, 1961, 60 Stat. 230; 75 Stat. 231.
lunches to approximately 25,000 children. This
form of special assistance was not continued
beyond the 1961-62 school year.
1962 Amer,dments
In October of 1962 the Congress enacted
some very significant amendments to the N a­tiona]
School Lunch Act. Inequities in the ap­portionment
of funds among the States had
become evident as the program expanded. For
example· State X having the same number of
school children and same per capita income as
State Y would receive the same amount of
funds. But, if State X had a school lunch par­ticipation
twice as great as State Y, it is ob­vious
that the actual per pupil assistance in
State X would be on the average only one-half
the assistance which could be granted by State
Y.
In correcting this situation, Section 4 of the
Act was amended to provide that funds would
be apportioned on the basis of (1) the partici­pation
rate for the State and (2) the assistance
need rate for the State.
The "participation rate" for a State meant
the number equal to the number of lunches
served in the preceding fiscal year by schools
participating in the program under the terms
of the Act. The "assistance need rate" was re­defined.
For any State having an average per
capita income equal to or greater than the aver­age
annual per capita income for all the States,
the "assistance need rate" would be five. In any
State where the average annual per capita in­come
was less than the average for all the
States, the "assistance need rate" would be "the
product of five and the quotient obtained by
dividing the average annual pe1· capita income
for such State, except that such product may
not exceed nine for any such State."33 The an­nual
average per capita income was to be deter­mined
on the basis of such income for the three
most recent years for which the data was avail­able
and certified to the Secretary of Agricul­ture
by the U.S. Department pf Commerce.
Reducing the language in the formula to a
"dollar-and-cents" interpretation, it would
mean that if adequate funds were appropriated
no State would receive an apportionment of
33 P.L. 87-823, Oet... . 15, 1962, 76 Stat. 944 .
17
.. funds less than an amount equal to 5 cents per
lunch for the number of lunches served in the
previous year and that States with a per capita
income of less than the national average would
receive proportionately more funds, but not
more than the equivalent of 9 cents per meal
for the number of meals served in the previous
year.
Since the new formula for apportio'nment of
funds among the States meant a sharper reduc­tion
in allotment in some States, Congress pro­vided
for a gradual transition in the applica­tion
of the new formula over a period of three
years. This gave States and local school dis­tricts
affected an opportunity for making ad­justments
to compensate for the loss of Federal
funds, if that were the case.
NOTE· In all subsequent legislation deal­ing
with apportionment of Federal funds
for school and non-school child feeding
programs, there is a special provision for
appo1·tionment of funds to private and
parochial schools. The details of the appor­tionment
formula to be applied in each in­stance
are lengthy and will be understood
best by 'referring to the legislation desig­nated
in the applicable footnotes.
Section 11 of the original School Lunch Act
of 1946 (covering miscellaneous provisions and
definitions) was redesignated as Section
12. New subsections were added, including the
definitions for "participation rate" and "assist­ance
need rate."
In the new Section 11 of the Act, the Con­gress
provided for special assistance in the
form of cash reimbursement for meals served
free or at substantially reduced prices to needy
children. A detailed formula for apportionment
of the funds among the States and territories
was included.
The selection of the schools for receiving the
special reimbursement from Section 11 funds
was to be based upon five factors:
1. The economic condition of the area from
which the schools draw attendance.
2. The need for free or reduced-price
lunches.
3. The percent of free or reduced-price
lunches being served in such schools.
18
4. The price of the lunch in such schools as
compared with the average price of
lunches served in the State.
5. The need for additional assistance as evi­denced
by the financial position of the
lunch program in such schools.
Despite the enabling legislation to appropri­ate
special funds for providing lunches to needy
children, no funds were actually appropriated
for such purpose by the Congress until fiscal
year 1966.
National School Lunch Week Established
An annual National School Lunch Week was
established on October 9, 1962, by a Joint Reso­lution
of Congress. By such resolution "
the President is requested to issue annually a
proclamation calling on the people of the
United States to observe such week with appro­priate
ceremonies and activities."34 The seven­day
period designated begins on the second
Sunday in October each year
Authorization to Buy Dairy Products
An amendment to the Food and Agriculture
Act of 1965 authorized the Secretary of Agri­culture
"to use funds of the Commodity Credit
Corporaton to purchase sufficient supplies of
dairy products at market prices to meet the
requirements of any programs for the schools
(other than fl. uid milk in the case of schools)
when there are insufficient stocks of dairy
products in the hands of Commodity Credit
Corporation available for these purposes."35
CHILD NUTRITION ACT
OF 1966
A new dimension was added to school food
services with the enactment of the Child Nutri­tion
Act of 1966. In its Declaration of Purpose
in Section 2 of the Act, the Congress stated, "In
M P.L. 87-780, 87th Congress, Oct. 9, 1962, 76 Stat. 779.
:w P.L. 89-321, 89th Congress, Nov. 3, 1966, 79 Stat. 1212.
recognition of the demonstrated relationship
between food and good nutrition and the capac­ity
of children to develop and learn, based on
the years of cumulative successful experience
under the National School Lunch Program with
its significant contributions in the field of ap­plied
nutrition research, it is hereby declared to
be the policy of Congress that these efforts
shall be extended, expanded, and strengthened
under the authority of the Secretary of Agri­culture
as a measure to safeguard the health
and well-being of the Nation's children, and to
encourage the domestic consumption of agri­ultural
and other foods, by assisting States,
through grants-in-aid and other means, to meet
more effectively the nutritional needs of our
children."36
Special Milk Program Extended
Under the provisions of the Act, the Special
Milk Program which had been functioning
since fiscal 1954 under a separate authoriza­tion
(Public Law 85-478) was extended to June
30, 1970, and made a part of the Child Nutri­tion
Act. Eligibility for the program in­cluded
"(1) nonprofit schools of high school
grade and under, and (2) nonprofit nursery
schools, child-care centers, settlement houses,
summer camps, and similar nonprofit institu­tions
devoted to the care and training of chil­dren"
37-located in the 50 states and the Dis­trict
of Columbia.
Pilot Breakfast Program
A pilot breakfast program with specific ap­propriations
was authorized for two years, be­ginning
with fiscal year 1966-67 and ending
June 30, 1968.
In selecting schools for participation in the
program, State educational agencies were re­quired
to give first consideration to "schools
drawing attendance from areas in which poor
economic conditions exist and to those schools
to which a substantial proportion of the chil­dren
enrolled must travel long distances
daily."38
36 P.L. 89-642, 89th Congress, Oct. 11, 1966, SO Stst. 885-890.
37 P .L. 89-642, 89th Congress, Oct. 11, 1966, 80 Stat. 885-890.
38 lbid.
In cases of extreme need, the Secretary of
Agriculture could approve reimbursement rates
equivalent to 80 percent of the operating costs
of such a program including costs of obtaining,
preparing, and serving food. Schools were re­quired
to justify the need for the assistance.
The breakfasts were required to meet the nu­tritional
standards established by the Secretary
of Agriculture, on the basis of tested nutri­tional
research. Schools were required to serve
the meal free of charge or at reduced charge to
children who were unable to pay the full
charge, and, as in the case of the school lunch
program, there could be no segregation of, or
discrimination against, any child because of in­ability
to pay.
Nonfood Assistance Funds
Section 5 of the Child Nutrition Act provided
Federal funding assistance toward equipment.
At least one-fourth of the purchase price of any
equipment would have to be provided by State
or local funds. Schools were required to justify
their requests for Federal funds for equipment
purchases. Applications for funds had to be
accompanied by a detailed description of the
equipment to be purchased and how it would
enable the schools to extend the lunch and
breakfast services to additional children.
State Administrative Funds
Obviously, the special effort to expand the
school lunch program to additional schools and
children-particularly those in low income
areas where the program was not in operation
-and to inaugurate breakfast programs in the
same or similar areas, would require additional
staff on the part of State educational agencies.
Inestimable time and effort would be required
to assist local schools in planning for remodel­ing
of buildings, additions to buildings, plan­ning
efficient kitchen equipment and layouts,
and determining what additional personnel
would be required for breakfast programs
and/ or expanded noonday lunch services.
In most States, staffing was inadequate even
for effective administration of existing pro­grams
and additional funds for increasing such
staff was generally out of the question. There­fore,
Congress made provisions in section 7 of
the Act for funds with which to employ addi-
19
tio~l personnel in States where State funds
were inadequate and could not be increased.
Again, States were required to provide detailed
justification for the funds requested.
Centralized School Food Programs
Authorized
With several Federal agencies involved to
some degree in feeding school children (such as
Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Eco­nomic
Opportunity, Bureau of Indian Affairs)
the Congress decided that the "conduct and su­pervision
of Federal programs to assist schools
in providing food service programs for chil­dren"
~0 should be assigned to the Department
of Agriculture. This could be accomplished, it
was felt, by a transfer of school food service
funds from other agencies to USDA.
With all school food services under one Fed­eral
agency, there could be uniform standards
as to nutrition, sanitation, management of
funds, supervision, guidance, use of equipment
and space, and some guarantee of program con­tinuity.
With several agencies having jurisdic­tion
over various kinds of feeding programs in
schools, there often developed dual administra­tion
within a school, lack of communication,
confusion in records of the use of federally-do­nated
foods, etc. Since the Child Nutrition Act
provided for participation in all programs by
pre-school children as well as those of ele­mentary
and secondary grade levels, the con­solidation
of all programs was a timely step.
Section 13 of the Child Nutrition Act provided
the authority for placing all school food services
under one agency. 40
Miscellaneous Provisions
Breakfast programs were authorized by the
Act to use all commodities donated by the Sec­retary
excepting Section 6 items purchased spe­cifically
for school lunch programs.
The benefits of all school feeding programs
"conducted and supervised by the Department
of Agriculture" were extended to include pre­school
programs operated as a part of a school
system.
39 P.L. 89-642, 89th Coneress, Oct. 11, 1966, 80 Stat. 885-890.
•0 This provision not implemented as of the date of this publication.
20
The Act prohibited Federal and State laws
from decreeing that the value of benefits re­ceived
by any child under the Child Nutrition
Act were to be considered as income for such
purposes as taxation, welfare or public assist­ance
programs.
1968 Amendments
In 1968 the National School Lunch Act was
again amended by :
1. Adding to Section 9 concerning nutritional
requirements the wording "except that such
minimum nutritional requirements shall not be
construed to p1·ohibit substitution of foods to
accommodate the medical or other special die­tary
needs of individual students."41
2. A new section, number 13, was added ex­tending
the eligibility for participation in the
p1·ogram to include children in "service institu­tions,"
such term meaning "private, nonprofit
institutions or public institutions, such as child
day-care centers, settlement houses, or recrea­tion
centers, which provide day care, or other
child care where children are not maintained in
residence, for children from areas in which
poor economic conditions exist and from areas
in which there are high concentrations of work­ing
mothers, and includes public and private
nonp·rofit institutions providing day care serv­ices
for handicapped children."
"Private or nonprofit institutions that de­velop
special summer programs providing food
service similar to that available to children
under the National School Lunch or School
Breakfast Programs during the school year, in­cluding
such institutions providing day care
services for handicapped children" were also
declared eligible. This program became known
as the Special Food Service Program for Chil­dren.
The funds appropriated under the new Sec­tion
13 were to be used by the States in reim­bursing
the service institutions for meals served,
the rate of reimbursement to be established by
the Secretary of Agriculture. In cases of ex­treme
need, the Secretary could authorize pay­ment
up to 80 percent of the cost of operation
01 P.L. 90-302, 90th Congress, May 8, 1968, 82 Stat. 117.
of a program, including food and labor. Institu­tions
were required to justify the need for as­sistance.
A State could use up to 25 percent of the
funds received to reimburse service institutions
for equipment purchased or rented for the pro­gram,
but the institution would be required to
pay at least 25 percent of the cost or rental of
the equipment.
Any funds remaining unobligated at the end
of any fiscal year could remain available for
disbursement during the first three months of
the following fiscal year.
Service institutions were authorized by the
amendment to use all commodities donated by
the Secretary, excepting those purchased under
Section 6 of the National School Lunch Act and
therefore to be used only for the school lunch
program.
Section 4 of the Child Nutrition Act was
amended to extend the breakfast program
through fiscal year 1971. At the same time, au­thority
was extended to use State administra­tive
funds for program supervision to include
special assistance and service institutions
where applicable.
PUBLIC CONCERN
The school lunch program had experienced a
continuous expansion from the time it was
given permanent status in 1946 until 1968,
growing from 4.5 million children participating
in 1946-47 to 18.9 million in 1967-68. During
the same period, Federal support in cash pay­ments
climbed from about $60 million to over
$160 million (including reimbursement for
"milk only" lunches). The value of donated
commodities increased from $8 million in
1946-47 to nearly $276 million in 1967-68. In
1946-47, about 12 percent of all lunches served
(including "milk only" lunches) were provided
free or at reduced price.
In 1967-68, the national enrollment in public
and private schools was approximately 50.7
million, according to a survey of School Food
Services in March 1968. About 36.8 million
children, or 73 percent, were enrolled in
schools participating in the National School
Lunch Program with an actual average partici­pation
in the program of 18.9 million children,
or about 37 percent of the national enrollment.
At the time of the 1968 survey, free or re­duced-
price lunches were still being provided
for about 12 percent of the number participat­ing.
Reasons for non-participation in the pro­gram
were numerous, but in low-income areas
and large urban centers low participation was
particularly evident. Many of the school build­ings
in these areas, as well as the small schools
in rural areas, were built many years ago when
there were no plans for operating a school
lunch program, and the buildings did not lend
themselves to remodeling for that purpose­neither
were local funds available for it. Many
of the elementary school buildings in urban
centers were built with the idea that the chil­dren
could and should go home for lunch
("neighborhood schools") and lunchroom facili­ties
were not available. Many of these condition
hold true today.
Some school authorities still cling to the idea
that a school lunch program must be self-sup­porting,
and others feel that the school has no
responsibility in this area. According to a jun­ior
high school principal, "We think this is the
responsibility of parents and child. We do not
check them to see if a student eats. As a whole,
we are doing it as a service rather than a
need."42 A principal of a low-income elemen­tary
schools says, "I don't believe in free
lunches for welfare people . . . It is not a wel­fare
or educational responsibility. It is the par­ents'
responsibility " 43 Another school princi­pal
said, "We have a specific allocation of free
lunches. There are always more children to feed
than the funds allow. We have a policy that no
child goes hungry. If they can't get a lunch,
then they get milk and crackers."44
The net result is that the children in the
neediest areas must go without an adequate
noonday meal at school, or perhaps an inade­quate
meal at home, or none at all. Many high
school students prefer to bring a bag lunch
from home or eat snacks and beverages at a
nearby stand or from a vending machine in the
school. In some instances the portions served to
" Jean Fairfax, Chairman, Committee on chool Lunch Participa­tion,
Their Daily Bread, Atlanta, Ga., McNe~ley-Rudd Printin~r Service,
Inc., p. 17.
•• Ibid., p. 25.
•• Ibid., p. 18.
21
...
high school students are not adjusted to meet
their needs and they seek other sources of serv­ice
where their tastes and appetites can be sat­isfied.
The predominating reason, however, appears
to be inadequate funding at Federal, State and
local levels with the end result that the children
who cannot afford to pay are the losers.
The findings of the Committee on School
Lunch Participation published in Their Daily
B1·ead in April 1968, gives stark evidence of
the general treatment of the free or reduced­price
provision of the National School Lunch
Act nationally Contrary to a generally ac­cepted
belief that children participating in a
school lunch program are provided lunches free
or at reduced price, if unable to pay, the com­mittee
concluded after extensive national re­search
that: "Of 50 million public elementary
and secondary school children, only about 18
million participate in the National School
Lunch Program. Two out of three do not par­ticipate.
Of 50 -million school children, fewer
than two million, just under 4 percent, are able
to get a free or reduced price school lunch.
Whether or not a child is eligible for a free
lunch is determined not by any universally
accepted formula, but by local decisions about
administration and financing which may or
may not have anything to do with the need of
the individual child. And generally speaking,
the greater the need of children from a poor
neighborhood, the less the community is able to
meet it."45
National Nutrition Status
Also in April 1968, the Citizens' Board of
Inquiry into Hunger and Malnutrition in the
United States publicly revealed the findings of
its nation-wide study, in a paperback book,
Hunger USA. The Board consisted of se­lected
representation from medicine, law uni­versities,
foundations, social action groups, or­ganized
labor, and religion. "We have found
concrete evidence of chronic hunger and malnu­trition
in every part of the United States where
we have held hearings or conducted field trips,"
the Board reported, estimating that at least 10
<> J ean Fairfax, Chairman, Committee on School Lunch Participa­tion,
Their Daily Bread, Atlanta, Ga., McNelley-Rudd Printing Service,
Inc.
22
million persons were suffering from hunger
and malnutrition.46 The Board also alleged
that 280 counties in the United States were
"hunger counties" and were in need of emer­gency
assistance. 47
A CBS television documentary portraying
case after case of extreme poverty and the
need for free or reduced-price lunches by hun­gry
children, particularly from families living
on incomes at or below poverty level, was
shown to television audiences in May, 1968.
Action Demanded
There had been a growing public clamor for
more funds and food for needy families and
more free school lunches for needy children for
quite some time, and the television documen­tary
plus the publications, Their Daily Bread
and _Hunger USA, evoked demands for
action. Public concern rose to an unprecedented
height, and so did the concern and action by
Congress and the President. Soon after the re­port
of the Citizens' Board of Inquiry, the Sen­ate
Select Committee on Nutrition and Human
Needs was created for further intensive study,
in addition to the hearings conducted by com­mittees
of the House and Senate.
Action by the President
On May 6, 1969, the President sent a mes­sage
to Congress outlining the problem facing
the Nation and making recommendations for
action by the Congress and governmental agen­cies
to eliminate hunger and malnutrition and
insure a healthful diet for all Americans. The
President stated, "So accustomed are most of
us to a full and balanced diet that, until re­cently,
we have thought of hunger and malnu­trition
as problems only in far less fortunate
counties.
"But in the past few years we have awak­ened
to the distressing fact that despite our
material abundance and agricultural wealth,
many Americans suffer from malnutrition. Pre­cise
factual descriptions of its extent are not
presently available, but there can be no doubt
•• Cit izens' Board of Inquiry, Hunger USA, Boston, Beacon Press
1968, p . 16.
<7 Ibid., pp. 38 and 95-96.
that hunger and malnutrition exist in America,
and that some millions may be affected. For
them, there must be first sufficient food income.
But this alone would only begin to address the
problem, for what matters finally is what peo­ple
buy with the money they have. People must
be educated in the choosing of proper foods. All
of us, poor and non-poor alike, must be re­minded
that a proper diet is a basic determi­nant
of good health."
The President went on to state further,
"More is at stake here than the health and
well-being of 16 million American citizens who
will be aided by these programs and the current
child food assistance programs. Something very
like the honor of American democracy is at
issue. . . America has come to the aid of one
starving people after another But the moment
is at hand to put an end to hunger in America
itself for all time. I ask this of a Congress that
has already splendidly demonstrated its own
disposition to act. It is a moment to act with
vigor, it is a moment to be recalled with pride."
At the President's direction, the Food and
Nutrition Service was created as a new agency
within the Department of Agriculture exclu­sively
to administer Federal food programs, in­cluding
the school lunch program, and other
agencies involved were directed to coordinate
their activities with those of the Department of
Agriculture.
On December 2, 1969, the President reas­serted
the problem as he addressed the opening
plenary session of the White House Conference
on Food, Nutrition and Health. He said, "Ex­perts
can argue-and they do-and you will­about
the magnitude of the problem; about how
many are hungry, how many malnourished, and
how severely they are malnourished. Precise
statistical data remain elusive and often con­tradictory
However, Dr. Arnold Schaefer, the
man in charge of the National Nutrition Sur­vey,
recently made this cautious but forceful
observation "We have been alerted by recent
studies that our population who are malnutri­tion
risks is beyond anticipated findings, and
also that in some of our vulnerable population
groups-preschool children, the aged, teen­agers,
and the poor-malnutrition is indeed a
serious medical problem.' We can argue its ex­tent.
But hunger exists. We can argue its se­verity,
but malnutrition exists. . . In a related
matter, we already are greatly expanding our
school lunch programs, with the target of reach­ing
every needy school child with a free or
reduced-cost lunch by the end of the current
fiscal year.''
Various panels of the White House Confer­ence
recommended expansion of the school
lunch program to the extent that every school
child shall have the lunch available to him, and
that every needy child shall be provided a
lunch (and breakfast under certain circum­stances)
free or at reduced price when unable
to pay the full price. 48
NUTRITION, BEHAVIOR,
AND LEARNING
The school lunch program has continued to
grow as an accepted part of the total educa­tional
program. Though it was considered by
some administrators and teachers as a govern­ment
program for "getting rid of surplus com­modities"
a decade or more ago, it has come to
be recognized as a valuable tool in the learning
process. Teachers, principals and administra­tors
can tell the difference.
"Seventeen out of my 36 children are either
not getting any lunch or an adequate one. I see
definite personality changes when a child
doesn't get lunch.'' 49
"Since getting free lunch she has shown a
marked improvement in attitude. Last year she
was a major discipline problem.''50
"Children that don't eat are very had to
discipline."51
In January 28, 1971, letter from a Green
Bay, Wisconsin elementary principal states in
part "I believe this to be one of the finest
programs initiated at the school for the follow­ing
reasons· Attendance has improved by ap­proximately
3/ 4-day per student. The majority
of the children have shown a good increase in
weight (some 10-12 pounds) Children are now
receiving an on-going education in meal plan-
'" White House Conference on Food, Nutriticn and Health-Final
Report, Washington, D.C., U. S. Government Printing Office, pp. 148,
249, 252, 269.
•• Jean Fairfax, Chairman, Committee on School Lunch Participa-tion,
Their Daily Bread, p. 19. ,..
DO Ibid., p. 15.
Gl Ibid., p, 17.
23
...
ning and nutrition, as well as invaluable experi­ence
in observation. The attitude of parents to­ward
Federal programs has shown good growth
because they are directly involved. This has
also created a better home-school relationship."
In a New York City study of 50 malnour­ished
children aged 2 to 9, it was found after
improving their nutritional level over a one to
three-and-one-half year period, that their IQ's
rose by an average of 18 points. No such
change occurred in a well-nourished control
group. 52
These are but a few of the typical testimoni­als
stating in simple language the correlation
between adequate nutrition and behavior and
ability to learn in school.
The day-to-day observation of teachers and
administrators of the relationship between in­adequate
nutrition and behavior and ability to
learn is substantiated by scientific studies.
Twenty Cape Town, South Africa, children
were studied for 11 years, beginning in 1955.
The study was based on the hypothesis "that
the ill effects of under-nutrition are determined
by (1) its occurrence during the period of max­imum
growth and (2) the duration of under­nutrition
relative to the total period of growth.
... Evidence is cumulative and impressive that
severe undernutrition during the first 2 years
of life, when brain growth is most active, re­sults
in a permanent reduction of brain size and
a restricted intellectual development."53
In Chile, 14 infants were treated at a hospi­tal
for severe protein malnutrition. These chil­dren
were discharged from the hospital after a
long period of treatment, and thereafter fol­lowed
up through visits to the outpatient de­partment.
They were given a special allotment
of milk each month as a special food supple­ment,
as were the other pre-school children in
the families. At ages 3 to 6 years they were
considered adequately nourished and their nu­tritional
condition normal. In IQ tests (Binet)
they averaged 62; none was above 76.
The results of the physical and psychological
tests led researchers to conclude that brain
damage in infancy is permanent at least up to
02 The School District of Philadelphia, Food for Thought, October
1, 1970.
G3 Undernutrition During Infancy, and Subsequent Brain Growth
and InteUectual Development from Malnutrition, Learning and Be­havior.
Edited by Nevin S. Scrimshaw and John E. Gordon, M.I.T.
Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, pp. 279-287.
24
the sixth year of life, despite improving nutri­tional
condition.
In his testimony before the Senate Select
Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, Dr
Arnold Schaefer, Director of the National Nu­trition
Survey, stated, "The evidence points
toward the fact that malnourished children are
more difficult to teach and that they have a
lower mental score. The risk of retarded neuro­logical
and mental development is such that it
cannot be tolerated or ignored." Dr. Schaefer
stated further, "When the children were in a
boarding school and given the proper food,
proper health care and proper education, the
high prevalence of some of our biochemical find­ings
disappeared. However, the key problem
with preschool children who exhibit growth re-tardation
.is that it is doubtful whether they will
catch up."54
Malnutrition a National Problem
It would be erroneous to conclude that only
people who live at or below the poverty level
suffer from malnutrition, and hence are suscep­tible
to underdevelopment physically and men­tally.
According to the food consumption sur­vey
conducted by USDA's Agricultural Re­search
Service in 1965, over one-third of the
households with incomes of $10,000 or more
did not have diets that met all recommended
levels of all the nutrients to provide a good diet,
and nine percent of the families in this income
bracket actually had diets rated as "poor." As
the family income declined, so did the diet rat­ing.
At an income level of $3,000 or less, 36
percent of the households had diets rated as
"poor." 55
Food likes and dislikes, food fads, ethnic
backgrounds, habits, and income all influence
the dietary patterns of rich and poor alike. It is
therefore evident that to supply merely an
abundance of food to combat malnutrition
would be only a partial attack upon a complex
problem. "It has long been known that if a food
supplement is to be successful in nourishing a
malnourished population, it must be acceptable
04 Hearings Before the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human
Needs, U.S. Senate, Monday, April 27, 1970, pp. 784-785.
66 ARS 62-17. January, 1968, Dietary Levels of Households in the
United States, Spring 1965, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agri­cultural
Research Service, pp, 8 and 9.
to ~he people for whom it is intended. Chan­ging
food fads and habits even in malnourished
populations is extremely difficult. Therefore,
nutrition education is of the utmost importance
to any nutrition program whether in the
United States or in other countries."56
School Lunch Program a Remedy
The National School Lunch Program offers
several approaches to solving the malnourish­ment
problem:
1. The nutritive content of the meal (known
as the "Type A") must meet at least a
third of the child's nutritional require­ments
for the day, containing all of the
elements essential to a balanced meal.
2. Through Federal, State and local support,
the price of the meal is within the ability
of most of the children to pay.
3. By Federal regulation, children who are
unable to pay the full price of the meal
must be provided a lunch free of charge
or at a reduced price.
4. The menu pattern is devised to give ex­tensive
latitude to the local schools in
planning the meals from day to day; yet
the pattern will provide the full nutri­tional
requirements when adhered to with
a wide variety of foods to choose from.
5. Even though local food habits and pat­terns
are observed in menu planning, the
program provides an excellent opportu­nity
for introducing foods which the chil­dren
are not accustomed to eating at
home and which will broaden their range
of selection to help insure an adequate
and balanced diet.
6. The day-to-day participation in the pro­gram
develops good food habits which
will carry on through adulthood and into
the community
Properly coordinated with classroom
work, the lunchroom can be a laboratory
for actual experience in the principles of
nutrition, sanitation, safety, personal hy-
""Delbert H. Dayton, Early Malnutrition and Human Developmmt,
Children, November-December 1969.
giene, food service management, courte­sies
and social graces, budgeting, account­ing,
food storage and handling, food pres­ervation,
delivery systems, and many
other subjects of importance to society.
TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS
IN SCHOOL FOOD SERVICE
The Type A meal pattern has been developed
over a period of many years testing and is pres­ently
recognized as a good, nutritious meal.
Nevertheless, it is constantly undergoing
further research as to nutritional content and
acceptability among elementary and high school
students. Cost, availability and other factors
which affect participation and expansion are
also studied.
Engineered Foods
There has also been close cooperation with
the food industry in research into fortifying
and enriching food products which might sim­plify
school feeding in schools which lack space
and food preparation facilities.
Some such foods are classified as "engi­neered
foods." Since some of these are still in the
early stages of development and others can vary
widely in ingredients and nutritive value, the
Secretary of Agriculture has issued guidelines
to the State educational agencies on the use of
engineered foods in the school lunch and break­fast
programs. Overall requirements are: "(a)
that the food product be on the market or be in­tended
for the commercial market in a form
similar to traditional foods; (b) that there be
adequate evidence that the new or modified
foods contribute to improved nutrition; (c) that
the new or modified foods be as acceptable and
will cost the same or less than traditional alter­natives."
57 Engineered food are defined by the
Department of Agriculture as "those foods
which are so prepared and processed that they:
improve nutrition, reduce cost, offer greater
convenience in meal preparation, improve ac­ceptability,
and improve stability."
&7 Herbert Rorex, Implications of the New Regulatiom on School
Food Service as Related to Feeding the Child Now, Paper presented
at 5th Annual Industry Seminar, October 20, 1970.
25
..
Equipment and Service
Along with the development of engineered
foods there has been a constant improvement in
food preparation and serving equipment. Prep­aration
of foods in central kitchens for delivery
to other schools within a school district has
brought about new packaging and food delivery
systems to make the job less difficult in schools
without kitchens and serving areas. Mobile
units which keep hot foods hot or which
hold cold foods at the right temperature either
in bulk form or in individual containers are
readily available on the market. Disposable
plates, cups, bowls, and utensils eliminate dish­washing
problems in schools without equipment
and enhance sanitation in school food service.
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
The 91st Congress took action to accomplish
the recommendations of the President, many
of the recommendations of the White House
Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health,
and those of witnesses testifying before the
Senate Select Committee. New amendments to
the National School Lunch and Child Nutrition
Acts brought about significant changes particu­larly
concerning the requirement for providing
free or reduced-price lunches for needy chil­dren.
Free and Reduced-Price Lunches
Previous legislation and regulations issued
by the Secretary of Agriculture had required
school district boards and schools to develop
policies and criteria with respect to eligibility
for free or reduced-price meals. The 91st Con­gress
amended Section 9 of the National School
Lunch Act to establish uniform national guide­lines
and criteria in the determination of eligi­bility,
and set a maximum charge of 20 cents
for lunches served at a reduced price.
The income poverty guidelines prescribed by
the Secretary of Agriculture as of July 1 each
year must be used for the ensuing fiscal year
As of July 1, 1970, the Secretary issued the
income poverty guidelines for the 1970-71
school year, stating the family size and applica­ble
income level for 48 States, the District of
26
Columbia, and outlying areas. The income level
for Hawaii and Alaska were stated separately.
Under the first income poverty guidelines, for
example, children from a family of four with a
family income of $3,720 or less annually would
be eligible for free or reduced price lunches at
participating schools.
Public Review
Because of the substantial changes brought
about by the amendments, and with substantial
increases in appropriations and funds availa­ble,
USDA issued proposed new regulations
covering the operatiqn of the program. The
proposed revisions of the regulations were first
published in the Federal Register on July 17,
1970, giving interested persons 20 days "in
which to submit comments, suggestions, or
objections regarding the proposed regula­tions."
58
This was the first time such procedure had
been pursued, giving the State agencies and ad­ministrators
an opportunity to voice their opin­ions
prior to the issuance of final regulations.
Many communications and suggestions were
sent in, and a number of changes in the pro­posed
regulations were made. The revised regu­lations
were published in the Federal Register
September 4, 1970.
Uniform Criteria
The Secretary imposed upon each State
agency special responsibilities for informing
schools and service institutions of their obliga­tion
to provide free or reduced price lunches
and breakfasts to children who are unable
to pay the full price. Furthermore, each local
school authority (school board in public
schools) was required by the regulation to sub­mit
to tl).e State agency a policy artd criteria
which would be followed in determining the
eligibility of all children for a free or reduced
price lunch. The policy statement had to in­clude,
as a minimum:
1. The officials to whom authority would be
delegated by the school board to deter­mine
such eligibility
68 Reprint from Federal Register of September 4, 1970 (35 F.R.
173).
2. Criteria involving income, including wel­fare
payments, family size, and number
of children in school, which would be
used, respectively, in determining eligibil­ity
for free lunches and for reduced price
lunches (based upon Income Poverty
Guidelines prescribed by the Secretary) .
3. Procedure for appealing from the deci­sion
of an official together with an assur­ance
that the Board would abide by such
procedure.
4. Procedures the board would use in accept­ing
applications for free or reduced price
meals, and alternative methods which it
intended to use.
5. Description of the system to be used in
collecting payments from children which
would fully protect the anonymity of
those receiving free or reduced price
meals.
The board was required, further, to notify
parents of the children in attendance of eligibil­ity
standards and policy adopted by the board,
and to publicly announce such policy and cri­teria
through the information media. The
notice to parents had to be accompanied by a
copy of the application form to be used. The
final deadline for filing a policy and criteria
acceptable to the State agency was set as De­cember
30, 1970.
In addition to the policy and criteria state­ment,
schools were required to give assurance
to the State agency that the names of children
receiving free or reduced price lunches would
not be published, posted or announced in any
manner to other children, and that such chil­dren
would not be required, as a condition of
receiving such meals, to use a separate lunch­room,
go through a separate serving line, enter
the lunchroom through a separate entrance, eat
lunch at a different time from paying children,
work for their meals, use a different medium of
exchange in the lunchroom than paying chil­dren,
or be offered a different meal than the
paying children.
Monthly Reports
Participating schools are required to report
each month the average number of children
who received free lunches and the number who
received reduced price lunches during the pre­ceding
month. As of October first of each year
and again on the first of March, schools must
submit to the State educational agency an esti­mate
of the number of children in school who
are eligible for free and reduced price lunches.
The State agency, in turn, is required to submit
the summary of the school reports to USDA.
Section 11 Revised
Section 11 of the National School Lunch Act
concerning special assistance to needy schools
and children was again revised by providing
for appropriations beginning with the 1970-71
fiscal year in such amounts as might be neces­sary
to furnish free or reduced price lunches to
children of low-income families. Furthermore,
the use of these funds was no longer limited to
food purchases.
Planning for Annual Expansion
Another far-reaching prov1s10n of the
amendment of 1970 to Section 11 of the Na­tional
School Lunch Act is the requirement that
not later than January 1st of each year each
State educational agency must submit to USDA
a plan of operation which will describe the
manner in which the educational agency pro­poses
to use Federal and State funds to furnish
a free or reduced price lunch to every needy
child in school.
Until such a plan has been submitted and
approved by USDA, a State cannot receive ei­ther
Federal funds or donated foods for use in
programs under the School Lunch or Child Nu­trition
Acts in the next year.
Transfer of Funds Authorized
USDA may authorize transfer of funds by
any State between the various programs under
the Acts. Such transfers would be supported by
a State plan of operation giving details as to the
use of the funds. ·
Appropriations
A giant step forward to enable local school
districts to plan their program operations for
27
the future and to provide for the necessary
financing of the program within the time pre­scribed
for school budgeting was accomplished
·• through the amendment of Section 3 of the N a­tiona!
School Lunch Act. The amendment pro­vides
that "Appropriations to carry out the
provisions of this Act and of the Child Nutri­tion
Act for any fiscal year are authorized to be
made a year in advance of the beginning of the
fiscal year in which the funds will become avail­able
for disbursement to the States. N otwith­standing
any other provision of law, any funds
appropriated to carry out the provisions of
such Acts shall remain available for the pur­poses
of the Act for which appropriated until
expended."59
Nutrition Education and Research
In the amendment of Section 6 of the N a­tiona!
School Lunch Act the Secretary of Agri­culture
is authorized to use not to exceed one
percent of the funds appropriated for the Na­tional
School Lunch and the Child Nutrition
Acts for "training and education for workers,
cooperators, and participants in these pro­grams
and for necessary surveys and studies of
requirements for food service programs in fur­therance
of the purposes" of the Acts. 60
Special Developmental Projects
In an amendment of Section 10 of the Child
Nutrition Act, State educational agencies may
use up to one percent of the funds apportioned
to them to carry out special developmental pro­jects,
subject to approval by USDA.
State Matching Requirement
By the provisions of an amendment to Section
7 of the National School Lunch Act, beginning
with the fiscal year 1970-71, State funds ap­propriated
or utilized specifically for program
purposes at the school district level would be
required to make up a portion of the matching
requirement as follows. For fiscal years ending
June 30, 1972 and 1973-4 percent, fiscal years
ending June 30, 1974 and 1975-6 percent;
69 P .L. 91- 248, 91st Congress, May 14, 1970, 84 Stat. 207.
co P .L. 91- 248, 91st Congress, May 14, 1970, 84 Stat. 207.
fiscal years ending June 30, 1976 and 1977-8
percent, and for each fiscal year after June 30,
1978, at least 10 percent of the matching re­quirement
would come from State funds.
Matching of funds received under Section 11 of
the Act was not required.
National Advisory Council
Section 14 was added to the National School
Lunch Act. It provides for establishing a N a­tiona!
Advisory Council on Child Nutrition
composed of 13 members appointed by the Sec­retary
of Agriculture to serve without pay, but
to be reimbursed for travel and subsistence.
The membership is to be composed of: State
school lunch director, school administrator,
child welfare worker, person engaged in voca­tional
education, nutrition expert, school food
service management expert, State superintend­ent
of schools, or equivalent, school board mem­ber
classroom teacher, and 4 members of the
Department of Agriculture with training, expe­rience
and knowledge relating to child food pro­grams.
One of the members is to be designated as
chairman of the Council by the Secretary of
Agriculture and one was vice chairman. Meet­ings
are to be held upon, the call of the chair­man,
but not less than once a year Seven mem­bers
constitute a quorum and the powers of the
Council are not to be affected by a vacancy on
the Council.
The Council is to carry on a continuing study
of school lunch and child nutrition programs
and any "related Act under which meals are
provided for children, with a view to determin­ing
how such programs may be improved."61
Annual reports and recommendations for ad­ministrative
and legislative changes are to be
submitted by the Council to the President and
Congress.
In spite of some criticisms and admitted
weaknesses over 25 years of development, the
National School Lunch Program has continued
to r each out to school children throughout the
50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Is­lands
and Trust Territories.
In the first year of its legislative life in
1946-47 it assisted in providing food services
Bl P .L. 91-248, 91st Congress, May 14, 1970, 84 Stat. 207.
in 44,537 schools serving 910.9 million Type A
and Type B meals to 6 million children.
In the year of its 25th anniversary some 24.5
million children in over 79,000 schools will re­ceive
the nutritional benefits of more than 3
billion meals at school.
The program is constructed upon a system of
Federal-State-local and individual coopera­tion.
It can justly boast of a big percentage of
hard-working, devoted public servants at all
levels of operation. The extent to which it will
accomplish its potential in future years will de­pend
upon the extent to which each individual
at all levels of government and society meets
his responsibilities under a national dedication
to eliminate hunger and malnutrition from
America for all time.
SCHOOL MILK PROGRAMS
Fluid whole milk is an important component
in an adequate diet, being one of the most im­portant
sources of calcium, and contributing
substantially to the protein and vitamin A con­tent
of a meal. It is an important part of the
Type A school lunch. In the 1965 survey on
dietary levels of U.S. households, it was found
that calcium and iron intakes were substan­tially
below the recommended amounts in one­fifth
of the households. This was due princi­pally
to the low consumption of milk and milk
products, vegetables, and fruits.
Federal assistance in providing milk for
school children has been in operation since June
4, 1940, when a federally subsidized program
was begun in Chicago. It was limited to 15 ele­mentary
schools with a total enrollment of
13,256 children. The schools selected were lo­cated
in low-income areas of the city. The price
to the children was 1 cent per one-half pint,
and children who could not pay were
given milk free, the cost being paid through
donations by interested persons.
On October 14, 1940, a similar program was
begun in New York. At first only 45 schools
were involved, but as time went on additional
schools were approved, and by the end of No­vember,
123 schools were participating. As
originally planned, the program was to have
concluded at the end of the calendar year.
The evident success of the programs in
Chicago and New York brought about a contin­uation
of the program in New York and the
re-opening of the program in Chicago in J anu­ary
1941. Schools in other cities became inter­ested,
and in April 1941, the program had been
extended to Omaha, Nebraska; Ogden, Utah;
Birmingham, Alabama, St. Louis, Missouri ;
and to Boston and the Lowell-Lawrence area,
Massachusetts.
Under the plan of operation, dairies submit­ted
bids to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Schools collected 1 cent per half pint from
the children and paid it to the dairies. The dif­ference
between the 1-cent payment and the
cost of the milk to the school was paid to the
dairies by USDA, based on monthly invoices
certified by the schools. In Chicago, this
amounted to 0.893 cent per 1/2 pint; in New
York, 1.37 cent; in Omaha, 0.995 cent; and in
St. Louis, 0.837 cent.
In all but the Birmingham and Ogden
schools, all children in the schools selected for
participation were permitted to buy milk at 1
cent per half pint. In Birmingham and Ogden,
the needy children in all schools of the city
could buy the milk at 1 cent, and the schools
were obligated to purchase milk for sale to the
other children at prevailing prices, conducting
the milk sales in such a way that the needy
children receiving the 1-cent milk could not be
identified by their peers. In Birmingham, the
ticket system was used in much the same way
as the system now employed in the school lunch
program. Children who could not pay the 1-cent
charge were supplied milk free and the cost
was met through donations from charitable or­ganizations.
In Ogden, the payments by chil­dren
were made directly to the teacher; no tick