Foodie Friends in Washington DC - A new museum exhibit!

What's Cooking Uncle Sam is exhibiting June 10, 2011 - January 3, 2012 at the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery
at the National Archives. 

 

Food. We love it, fear it, and obsess about it.

We demand that our Government ensure that it is safe, cheap, and abundant. In response, Government has been a factor in the production, regulation, research, innovation, and economics of our food supply. It has also attempted, with varying success, to change the eating habits of Americans.

From the farm to the dinner table, explore the records of the National Archives that trace the Government’s effect on what Americans eat.

Here is a preview of what you'll learn:

• Discover the many ways that Government has affected farming from the days of horse and plow to the combine harvester.

These stylish ladies demonstrated what $1.34 bought in 1918 and 1945, thanks to the Office of Price Control. WHERE is the office of price control THESE days?!

National Archives, Records of the Office of Price Administration

• Explore how Government regulation of food processing and labeling evolved after the industrial revolution.

FDA inspectors seizing crates of contaminated frozen eggs.

National Archives, Records of the Food and Drug Administration

• Find out why the Government wanted us to “eat the carp,” “share the meat,” and “know our onions.”

Some of us might like to reinstate this food guide from World War II because butter has its own food group.
National Archives, Records of the Office of Government Reports

• Learn about how the Government has affected our eating habits and its unintentional effects on the American appetite.

Mrs. Lady Bird Johnson claimed this chili recipe was “almost as popular as the government pamphlet on the care and feeding of children.”

National Archives, Lyndon B. Johnson Library