School Food: History

Public and charity funding of meals in public schools began in Europe in the late 1700s, with most countries having some programs by the early 1900s. School meals have been a practical consideration in individual communities in the United States since the mid-1800s, as educating the working class became a social and governmental priority. The first school lunch programs in the United States were charitable efforts to feed the hungry poor. In 1853 the Children’s Aid Society of New York supplied the first recorded school lunches in America. The home economics pioneer Ellen Swallow Richards studied and promoted school nutrition programs in Boston in the late 1800s, and in 1898 the New York City superintendent of schools, Dr. William Maxwell, raised private funds for a pilot program offering meals at the student cost of three cents. Philadelphia, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Chicago had meal programs by the early 1900s.