shopping cart
Call us:  800-878-7323 HELP
HACKER SAFE certified sites prevent over 99.9% of hacker crime.

Related Aisles



School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America)

by Susan Levine

School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America) Cover

ISBN13: 9780691050881
ISBN10: 0691050880
All Product Details
See More Like This

Only 1 left in stock at $29.95!

Synopses & Reviews

Review:

tells the fascinating history of the National School Lunch Program, which officially began in 1946 and continues to this day. This is an important book and will be valuable for many audiences. It should receive attention not only from historians (especially historians of twentieth-century social policy) but also a broader audience interested in the current obesity crisis and the commercialization of public life. Any reader of will love this book.

Review:

[Susan Levine] traces the [school lunch] program back to the Progressive Era, when localized charities distributed school lunches as a way to counteract malnutrition. But over the course of the program's lifetime, the interests of the agricultural and commercial food industries have largely superseded those of students. Levine provides an in-depth look at how such factors as early nutritionists' disdain for Italian cooking have led to the ubiquitous greasy pizza of today's school cafeteria.

Synopsis:

Whether kids love or hate the food served there, the American school lunchroom is the stage for one of the most popular yet flawed social welfare programs in our nation's history. School Lunch Politics covers this complex and fascinating part of American culture, from its origins in early twentieth-century nutrition science, through the establishment of the National School Lunch Program in 1946, to the transformation of school meals into a poverty program during the 1970s and 1980s. Susan Levine investigates the politics and culture of food; most specifically, who decides what American children should be eating, what policies develop from those decisions, and how these policies might be better implemented.

Even now, the school lunch program remains problematic, a juggling act between modern beliefs about food, nutrition science, and public welfare. Levine points to the program menus' dependence on agricultural surplus commodities more than on children's nutritional needs, and she discusses the political policy barriers that have limited the number of children receiving meals and which children were served. But she also shows why the school lunch program has outlasted almost every other twentieth-century federal welfare initiative. In the midst of privatization, federal budget cuts, and suspect nutritional guidelines where even ketchup might be categorized as a vegetable, the program remains popular and feeds children who would otherwise go hungry.

As politicians and the media talk about a national obesity epidemic, School Lunch Politics is a timely arrival to the food policy debates shaping American health, welfare, and equality.

About the Author

Susan Levine is professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of "Labor's True Woman" and "Degrees of Equality".

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables vii

Acknowledgments ix

Product Details

ISBN:
9780691050881
Subtitle:
The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program
Author:
Levine, Susan
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Location:
Princeton
Subject:
Americas (North Central South West Indies)
Subject:
United States - 21st Century
Subject:
Public Policy - Social Services & Welfare
Subject:
United States - 20th Century (1945 to 2000)
Subject:
American history
Subject:
Political Science and International Relations
Subject:
Sociology
Subject:
Food
Subject:
Children
Copyright:
Edition Description:
Hardcover
Series:
Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America
Publication Date:
April 2008
Binding:
Hardback
Grade Level:
College/higher education:
Language:
English
Illustrations:
8 halftones. 1 line illus. 6 tables.
Pages:
272
Dimensions:
9 x 6 in
  • back to top
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.