"Your Community Can Sponsor a School Lunch Program for its Children"

In 1935, Congress had passed legislation that enabled the secretary of agriculture to purchase surplus agricultural commodities, which were often used to provide school lunches for children who could not afford to pay. Federal funding of school lunches continued on a year-to-year basis during World War II. As the war drew to a close, many school boards hesitated to include the school lunch program because of the decrease in federal support through donated food. The House and Senate held hearings on the creation of a permanent school lunch program in 1944 and 1945, and President Harry S. Truman signed the National School Lunch Act into law on June 4, 1946. This is poster 10 from the Make America Strong set.

Text adapted from “Letter about the School Lunch Program” in the September 2009 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education.