The Story of School Lunch: FDR and Surplus Commodities

Over the past two summers Russell Library interns Ashton Ellett and Kaylynn Washnock assisted in curating the new exhibit, “Food, Power, and Politics: The Story of School Lunch” opening September 26th in the Russell Library’s Harrison Feature Gallery. The exhibit examines the complicated past of the National School Lunch Program, from feeding malnourished children and putting excess commodities to good use, to the more recent debates over childhood obesity and nutrition in America. This post is one in a series where Ashton and Kaylynn provide a preview of key documents featured in the exhibition.   

Amidst the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration began disbursing donations of surplus commodities through several New Deal agencies, including the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Federal Surplus Commodity Corporation (FSCC), and the Surplus Marketing Administration (SMA). But the onset of World War II in 1941 reshaped federal support for lunch programs. Although Congress began rationing supplies and diverting labor to support the war effort, federal grants offered subsidies to school lunch programs for the purchase of food and milk.

Miscellaneous Publication 467,
produced by the USDA, October 1941.

The USDA Miscellaneous Publication No. 467 demonstrates the effect of war on the program. The lunch program peaked during the 1941-1942 school year with nearly 6 million children served annually.

By March of 1941, most states in the economically depressed South and West had enrolled and worked with the Surplus Marketing Administration to receive foodstuffs. Georgia had the highest average for school enrollment in the nation at 61.7 percent. Ultimately, rising food and labor costs forced cuts in lunch service during the war years, which saw numbers dwindle.

At the close of World War II, school lunch proponents found a new advocate in Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell, Jr. With his leadership, the still piece-meal initiative would navigate both houses of Congress and become a mandate of federal law. In 1946, Congress passed the National School Lunch Act establishing a nationwide program.

Want to find out more about School Lunch? Visit Food, Power, and Politics: The Story of School Lunch on display in the Harrison Feature Gallery inside the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries from September 26, 2014 through May 15, 2015. The Russell Library gallery is free and open to the public weekdays from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 1-5 p.m. For more information, email russlib@uga.edu or call 706-542-5788.

The Story of School Lunch: Experimentation in the Progressive Era

Over the past two summers Russell Library interns Ashton Ellett and Kaylynn Washnock assisted in curating the new exhibit, “Food, Power, and Politics: The Story of School Lunch” opening September 26th in the Russell Library’s Harrison Feature Gallery. The exhibit examines the complicated past of the National School Lunch Program, from feeding malnourished children and putting excess commodities to good use, to the more recent debates over childhood obesity and nutrition in America. This post is one in a series where Ashton and Kaylynn provide a preview of key documents featured in the exhibition.   

Front cover, USDA Farmer's Bulletin
No. 712 published in March 1916.

Experimentation with school lunch in the United States began during the Progressive Era (1890-1920). In growing urban centers like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston religious institutions, professional women’s groups, and charities launched the first free milk and lunch programs to combat pervasive childhood malnutrition.

As the USDA Farm Bulletin No. 712 noted, “Growing children have special needs in the way of food.” As the future generation of America, the growth of healthy children was of the utmost importance. The USDA’s sample menu relied on available foods according to season. While the winter menu baked apples, the summer diet offered students a variety of fruits.

Without state or federal aid, the majority of American school children continued without a school-provided lunch. But shortly, a period of financial depression and war would reshape thoughts on the issue.

Want to find out more about School Lunch? Visit Food, Power, and Politics: The Story of School Lunch on display in the Harrison Feature Gallery inside the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries from September 26, 2014 through May 15, 2015. The Russell Library gallery is free and open to the public weekdays from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 1-5 p.m. For more information, email russlib@uga.edu or call 706-542-5788.

New Installation in Russell Gallery Connects Visitors to Cartoons, Oral Histories

The History Lives Showcase Gallery occupies the central portion of the Russell Library’s exhibit space inside the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. The gallery features materials drawn from the Russell Library’s collections and highlights six key collecting areas: Politics, Social Relations, Public Good, Environment, Economy, Peace and War. The contents of these cases rotate every six to twelve months and offer visitors a sample of the kind of documents and objects found in the archival collections.

A look at the last installation of the Politics of Peace
and War case in the History Lives Showcase Gallery.

Beginning in August 2014 the cases will showcase a selection of political cartoons drawn from the Clifford H. (Baldy) Baldowski Editorial Cartoon Collection. The cartoons have been matched with the library’s six collecting areas to spotlight stories connected to each of the "politics" areas.

In addition to selecting which cartoons to display, student curator Kaylynn Washnock also sorted through hours of the Russell Library's oral history recordings to find six audio clips that connect with the cartoons on display. The clips were selected from a variety of collections including the Reflections on Georgia Politics Series, The First Person Project, and The Georgia Environmental Oral History Project – all ongoing initiatives of the Russell Library’s Oral History and Media Unit. The clips have been compiled into a playlist on the Russell Library's SoundCloud page.

Signage in the gallery space provides a QR code which, when scanned, will connect a visitor directly to the SoundCloud playlist of audio clips. You blog readers can play these clips directly from the embedded link below! We hope visitors will enjoy this playlist either while they tour the gallery space or from the comfort of their personal computer. Our staff hopes this experiment in the gallery gives visitors a greater sense of the breadth of oral history collections at the library and a quick look into some of the most recent interviews conducted by the Oral History and Media Unit team, Callie Holmes and Christian Lopez.

The Russell Library Gallery is free and open to the public weekday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 1-5 p.m. For more information on the exhibit, email russlib@uga.edu or call (706) 542-5788.

Powell A. Moore Papers Now Open for Research

Powell Moore in his office during the
Nixon administration, ca. 1974.

The Richard B. Russell Library is pleased to announce that the Powell A. Moore Papers are now open for research. The papers capture Moore's nearly five-decade career involved in legislative affairs, public policy and international relations within the federal government and the private sector   By virtue of his various positions, Moore corresponded and interacted with a wide range of individuals at different levels of the government, including prominent U.S. Senators, and clients in the private sector, from international corporations to foreign governments. His correspondence also documents the myriad of professional and personal inquiries and requests he received. Moore retained a wealth of documentation related to the man who gave him his start in Washington, Senator Richard B. Russell. Moore’s papers also feature information related to the many congressional delegations he accompanied abroad during his tenure. The papers include reports, news clippings, invitations, program materials, artifacts and audiovisual materials related to his work and to numerous presidential campaigns, conventions and inaugurations from 1972 to 2009. Photographs feature portraits of well-known Georgia and national political figures and other images, including six United States Presidents.

Moore’s earliest government service was in the U.S. Army. Part of that time he was stationed in Germany, during the construction of the Berlin Wall, which he credits for his developing an affinity with the Republican Party. The opportunity that brought him to Washington, D.C., in 1966 was his work as press secretary for Senator Richard B. Russell. Moore’s papers go beyond documenting his working relationship with the Senator and also chronicle the period surrounding Senator Russell’s passing. Moore’s life-long interest in Senator Russell’s life and accomplishments is evidenced in the material from dedications and events that have helped keep Senator Russell’s legacy alive.

Moore went on to be part of four presidential administrations. During the Nixon administration he was Public Information Officer in the Office of Attorney General within the Department of Justice. Moore was part of the Committee to Reelect the President during the 1972 campaign and was later the Director of Press Relations for the Inaugural Committee.

Moore with President Gerald Ford, August 1974.

During Nixon’s second term and into the early part of Ford’s term, Moore was Deputy Special Assistant to the President in the Congressional Relations Office. Moore did not remain a “Nixon leftover” for long as he left the federal government to start his own consulting firm, Powell Moore & Company, to advise and represent a variety of clients. After six years, he re-entered government service under the Reagan administration. First he was appointed Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs in 1981. Moore oversaw the Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor while holding this position. He later was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs.

Powell Moore serving as Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs
in the George W. Bush administration, May 2001.

Towards the end of 1983, Moore left the Reagan administration to become Vice President for Legislative Affairs for the Lockheed Corporation. He went back to consulting from 1985 to 1998, working for Ginn, Edington, Moore, and Wade; Capitoline International Group; and Global USA. In 1998 he returned to federal government service once again to become Chief of Staff for Senator Fred Thompson.
Moore became part of a fourth presidential administration when he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs during George W. Bush’s first term. During this period, he received the Defense Department’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service. He went on to become the Managing Director for Federal Government Relations for McKenna, Long & Aldridge. In 2006, Moore became the Representative of the U.S. Secretary of Defense to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna, Austria. In 2010, he joined Venable LLP.

Moore was born on January 5, 1938, in Milledgeville, Georgia. He is a graduate of Georgia Military College and was awarded a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Georgia. Moore remained an active alumnus of both institutions and received a number of honors from them throughout his career. He was editor of the Milledgeville newspaper,  The Union-Recorder, and worked for Southern Natural Gas before working for Senator Russell. Throughout his life he has been involved in a number of civic activities. He currently works as a consultant and lives with his wife, Pamla, in Washington, D.C. Together they have two sons and two daughters.

Moore was interviewed for the Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history series in December 2009. You can view the ROGP interview below through the Russell Library's YouTube channel. To read the interview transcript, visit: http://podcaster.gcsu.edu/podcastdata/UGA/Channel_14896/podcast_2433199/2433199.pdf

The Richard B. Russell Library is open for research from 8:30am-4:30pm, Monday through Friday (with the exception of University of Georgia holidays). For more information on this and other collections call (706) 542-5788, email russlib@uga.edu, or visit www.libs.uga.edu/russell.

Post by Mark Walters, Political Papers Processing Intern, Russell Library