One of the themes throughout our "What's Cooking Wednesday" posts has been war and food rationing. American citizens were asked to grow their own food, ration sugar, and eat less meat so that there would be more supplies for soldiers fighting overseas and for people with little food left in their war-torn country. As a result, … Continue reading What’s Cooking Wednesday: Flour Sack Art
Today's post comes from Gregory Marose, an intern in the National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications. As the calendar turns to August and the summer heat sets in, no topic is hotter than the debt ceiling. Congress has voted to increase the debt limit more than 100 times since it was first established. How … Continue reading Patriotic posters and the debt ceiling
“What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?,” our current special exhibition in Washington, DC, examines the Government’s effect on what Americans eat. Government influence was especially visible during wartime, when many food products were reserved for feeding the troops and our Allies. During World War I, the U.S. Food Administration, headed by Herbert Hoover, urged the American people … Continue reading World War I food conservation: “Pan de la libertad”
These Iowa spuds were decades ahead of the "Freedom Fries" idea! To help the war effort during First World War, U.S. citizens were encouraged to eat more potatoes while wheat was being sent to the soldiers overseas. This World War I store window display showed potatoes dressed as soldiers, encouraging both children and adults to … Continue reading Potatriots: The original Freedom Fries
Perhaps the most famous goatee in all of America belongs to Uncle Sam, the white-haired patriot who appeared in political cartoons in the late 1890s, on recruitment posters in both World Wars, and continues to appear on all kinds of products today. And while facial hair fashions have changed drastically through the years since the … Continue reading Facial Hair Friday: Make a date with Uncle Sam
To celebrate our new exhibit “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?” we are featuring a food-related blog post every Wednesday. Today's post comes to us from the National Archives at New York City. “Do you know that the money spent in the United States for candy in one year is double the amount required to feed Belgium … Continue reading What’s Cooking Wednesday: Pull out that sweet tooth!
To celebrate our new exhibit "What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?" we are featuring a food-related blog post every Wednesday. Today's post comes from Christopher Zarr at the National Archives in New York City. The National Archives maintains the primary source documents of the U.S. Food Administration (USFA). Thousands of documents illustrate the local sacrifices and quality … Continue reading What’s Cooking Wednesdays: Eat your peas in NYC
"What's Cooking Wednesday" continues with this post from our colleagues at the National Archives at Denver. These Wednesday features celebrate our new exhibit "What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?" which opens on June 10 in Washington, DC, and looks at the role that the Federal Government has taken in food production, safety, advertising, and nutrition. It's hard to … Continue reading Cooking for your family and your allies
President Woodrow Wilson’s campaign slogan throughout his 1916 reelection campaign was "he kept us out of war," but on April 2, 1917, Wilson reversed course and called on Congress to provide a declaration of war for American intervention in World War I. Although this shift in policy contradicted Wilson’s isolationist principles and firm commitment to … Continue reading The “Wilsonian” Path to War
Americans love Paris. They even ended the Revolutionary War by writing and signing the Treaty of Paris in that city on September 3, 1783. War brought other Americans to Paris. Almost 150 years later, it was home to Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's experience in Paris was colored by war. He arrived … Continue reading Hemingway, JFK! What else do I have to say?!
