Food

Photo of McCall's Cheese

Part of a nation's history lies in what people eat. Artifacts at the Museum document the history of food in the United States from farm machinery to diet fads.

More than 1,300 pieces of stoneware and earthenware show how Americans have stored, prepared, and served food for centuries. Ovens, cookie cutters, kettles, aprons, and ice-cream-making machines are part of the collections, along with home canning jars and winemaking equipment. More than 1,000 objects recently came to the Museum when author and cooking show host Julia Child donated her entire kitchen, from appliances to cookbooks.

Advertising and business records of several food companies—such as Hills Brothers Coffee, Pepsi Cola, and Campbell's Soup—represent the commercial side of the subject

Topic: FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000

Aluminum Pitcher

By the late 1950s, American manufacturers and retailers were promoting new tools, clothes, furniture, and serving ware to go along with grilled meals on the patio.
Description
By the late 1950s, American manufacturers and retailers were promoting new tools, clothes, furniture, and serving ware to go along with grilled meals on the patio. The set of serving ware, including an anodized aluminum tray, 9 tumblers, and pitcher, and 4 wicker holders, was a common fixture of the 1960s backyard or patio culture established in the U.S. in the 1950s. These “glasses” were among the most common and ubiquitous of the specialized tools for the new life in the outdoors. Many were giveaways given along with or filled with a desirable foodstuff or awarded for coupons in grocery store giveaways.
Anodized aluminum tumblers were commonly used for serving both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks at backyard cookouts. The anodizing process increased the thickness of the oxide layer on metallic parts, making the popular serving ware unbreakable, rust-resistant, and colorful—perfect for outdoor gatherings.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
2012.0125.01
accession number
2012.0125
catalog number
2012.0125.01

BBQ Chef's Hat

After World War II, many newly affluent Americans flocked to the tropics, visiting Pacific islands, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia, as well as warm places closer to home, including Mexico, California, Hawaii, and Florida.
Description
After World War II, many newly affluent Americans flocked to the tropics, visiting Pacific islands, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia, as well as warm places closer to home, including Mexico, California, Hawaii, and Florida. People developed a taste for casual living and the distinctive local foods and drink. Returning home, they re-created these experiences in their new suburban backyards, with patios, tropical drinks, and the grill, where they cooked meals craved by a postwar meat-mad America.
By the late 1950s, American manufacturers and retailers were promoting new tools, clothes, furniture, and serving ware to go along with grilled meals on the patio. Just as the lust for the tropical life inspired experimentation in food and drink (in what we ate and who cooked it), clothing took a tropical turn in the 1950’s and 1960’s, especially in menswear. The aloha shirt, with its tropical motifs from Hawaii and the cool cotton guayabera from the Caribbean, topped the more casual shorts (Bermuda) that men had traded in from their long pants. Summer grillers, through the ‘60’s at least, even had barbecue/grilling shirts, hats, and aprons developed for them, outfits that often poked gentle fun at the aspiring backyard chefs. Aprons, in particular, often carried titles that boasted of the culinary accomplishments of these Daddios of the Patio, these Grill Masters. Others joked about the wearer’s presumed interests in both alcohol and women.
Others, like the hat pictured here, around 1965, which went with a shirt of the same design, pictured the new tools and possessions, even food and drinks of the new life on the patios, decks, and lanais. This chef’s hat, a modified version of the classic French chef’s toque blanche (white hat) and its matching shirt pictured watermelon, pickles, skewers of meat (shish kebabs/Shish-ka-bobs), grill racks with steaks and hot dogs, spatulas, flippers, and even corn on the cob on its decorative design.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
2011.0210.01
catalog number
2011.0210.01
accession number
2011.0210

Microwave Egg Cooker

This red, egg-shaped cooker is made of microwave-safe plastic for use in microwave ovens. It takes no time at all to cook an egg in this device: a mere 30 seconds will cook a soft-boiled egg and 50 seconds will deliver the egg in hard-boiled form.
Description
This red, egg-shaped cooker is made of microwave-safe plastic for use in microwave ovens. It takes no time at all to cook an egg in this device: a mere 30 seconds will cook a soft-boiled egg and 50 seconds will deliver the egg in hard-boiled form. This egg cooker was among the gadgets in Julia Child’s home kitchen, collected by the National Museum of American History in 2001.
Julia Child, the beloved American cooking teacher, cookbook author, and television personality, was a self-described “gadget freak.” She collected kitchen tools throughout her long career and received many gadgets as gifts from friends and colleagues. The origin and actual use of this egg cooker is unknown, but, since Julia’s kitchen did not include a microwave oven in 2001, it is safe to assume she kept the microwave egg cooker for some reason other than to use it for cooking one egg at a time.
date made
ca 1990
maker
Precis Plastic
ID Number
2001.0253.0364
catalog number
2001.0253.0364
accession number
2001.0253

Coffee Cup Lid, Sweetheart DTLX12

This is a Sweetheart DTLX12 peel and lock type coffee cup lid.
Description
This is a Sweetheart DTLX12 peel and lock type coffee cup lid. Peel and lock type lids give the drinker a place to snap the peeled back lid part into itself, preventing the need to tear off or throw away a little triangle of plastic.
Architects and collectors Louise Harpman and Scott Specht donated 56 plastic cup lids to the National Museum of American History in 2012. Their donation is a sample from their much larger collection of “independently patented drink-through plastic cup lids,” which they began in 1984 and discussed in a 2005 essay, “Inventory / Peel, Pucker, Pinch, Puncture,” in Cabinet Magazine: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/19/harpman.php. The collectors’ categorization scheme reflects the primary way the lid design functions, which helps differentiate between the varieties and styles of lids.
Plastic, disposable coffee cup lids and other single-use food packages reinforce the social acceptability of eating and drinking on the go in the United States and reflect increasing expectation for convenience products. Cup lids are also examples of how humble, and even disposable, objects are sometimes the result of meticulous engineering. Patents for lid innovations describe peel-back tabs and the pucker-type shapes that make room for mouths and noses, and describe the nuances of “heat retention,” “mouth comfort,” “splash reduction,” “friction fit,” and “one-handed activation.”
ID Number
2012.3047.36
catalog number
2012.3047.36
nonaccession number
2012.3047

Minute Maid Concentrated Orange Juice Can

This 6-oz. metal can that once held frozen orange juice concentrate represents the way many Americans got their morning glass of juice in the 1950s and ‘60s. It contained a frozen cylinder of concentrated juice that had to be thawed and mixed with water in order to drink.
Description
This 6-oz. metal can that once held frozen orange juice concentrate represents the way many Americans got their morning glass of juice in the 1950s and ‘60s. It contained a frozen cylinder of concentrated juice that had to be thawed and mixed with water in order to drink. Many households adopted the habit of placing a frozen can of concentrate in the refrigerator to thaw overnight so that mixing it with water in the morning would be faster and easier.
Frozen orange juice concentrate was developed by scientists at the National Research Corporation (NRC), working with support from the federal government and the Florida Department of Citrus. Their goal was to improve the quality of food for American troops during World War II. In the early 1940s, soldiers were supplied with lemon crystals for Vitamin C, but too many of the crystals went uneaten because of the unpleasant taste. The NRC scientists examined the conventional process for evaporating the water from fresh juice, which was done in a vacuum at very low temperatures (minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit). The resulting flavor was so concentrated it didn’t taste like fresh juice. The researchers discovered, however, that flavor was restored by adding more fresh juice to the concentrate as it came out of the evaporator. The process of adding "cut-back" to the concentrate was patented in 1948 and quickly adapted for the postwar consumer market. Orange juice concentrate production in Florida grew from 3 plants in 1948 to 10 the following year.
Minute Maid, born out of the success of frozen orange juice concentrate, was named to reflect the product’s convenience and ease of preparation. In 1965, after the company was sold to Coca Cola, Minute Maid’s packaging underwent a dramatic redesign, from its original white, orange, and green color scheme to the dramatic black and orange design of this can.
See Hamilton, Alissa. Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
date made
1965
ID Number
2012.0019.01
accession number
2012.0019
catalog number
2012.0019.01

Coffee Cup Lid

This is a pucker type coffee cup lid. Pucker type lids require the drinker to place his or her mouth over a protrusion with a hole in it. With these lids, the drinker does not drink directly from the cup—mouths do not make contact with the rim of the cup.
Description
This is a pucker type coffee cup lid. Pucker type lids require the drinker to place his or her mouth over a protrusion with a hole in it. With these lids, the drinker does not drink directly from the cup—mouths do not make contact with the rim of the cup. Instead, one drinks from only the lid. The lid bears a possible model number "SL85" and has a decorative leaf pattern around its rim.
Architects and collectors Louise Harpman and Scott Specht donated 56 plastic cup lids to the National Museum of American History in 2012. Their donation is a sample from their much larger collection of “independently patented drink-through plastic cup lids,” which they began in 1984 and discussed in a 2005 essay, “Inventory / Peel, Pucker, Pinch, Puncture,” in Cabinet Magazine: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/19/harpman.php. The collectors’ categorization scheme reflects the primary way the lid design functions, which helps differentiate between the varieties and styles of lids.
Plastic, disposable coffee cup lids and other single-use food packages reinforce the social acceptability of eating and drinking on the go in the United States and reflect increasing expectation for convenience products. Cup lids are also examples of how humble, and even disposable, objects are sometimes the result of meticulous engineering. Patents for lid innovations describe peel-back tabs and the pucker-type shapes that make room for mouths and noses, and describe the nuances of “heat retention,” “mouth comfort,” “splash reduction,” “friction fit,” and “one-handed activation.”
ID Number
2012.3047.21
catalog number
2012.3047.21
nonaccession number
2012.3047

Whisk, ca 1950

From the moment when, in 1963, Julia Child whisked up an omelet on the pilot for her new cooking show, The French Chef, Americans wanted that whisk for their kitchens, just as they came to want any tool or utensil that Julia used.
Description
From the moment when, in 1963, Julia Child whisked up an omelet on the pilot for her new cooking show, The French Chef, Americans wanted that whisk for their kitchens, just as they came to want any tool or utensil that Julia used. Certainly, egg beaters of all sorts were common in American kitchens, and they whipped up the heavy cream and egg whites (for meringues) as well as eggs. But they didn’t have the leverage offered by the European-style whisks that Julia introduced, and they were especially successful in getting air into those soufflés and omelets they were just learning how to cook.
Although whisks varied in sizes, from tiny to giant, people loved the gigantic balloon whisks Julia had used on television, almost like props, to dramatic and comic effect. Julia loved giant tools, the more outrageous the better. Audience remembered the lessons when Julia deployed her giant whisks, blowtorches, salad spinners, and they learned that some of these tools were actually useful. Still, they especially remembered Julia AND her whisk when next they went to the kitchen store, creating a whole new market for these useful tools. This whisk, a part of Julia’s batterie de cuisine, had served her well in her home kitchen and television kitchen, in some cases the very same space.
ID Number
2001.0253.0638
catalog number
2001.0253.0638
accession number
2001.0253

Coffee Cup Lid, The Smart Lid

This is "The Smart Lid" puncture type coffee cup lid.
Description
This is "The Smart Lid" puncture type coffee cup lid. Puncture type lids typically have a pucker shape, but require the drinker to apply a downward force to form an opening in the lid.
Architects and collectors Louise Harpman and Scott Specht donated 56 plastic cup lids to the National Museum of American History in 2012. Their donation is a sample from their much larger collection of “independently patented drink-through plastic cup lids,” which they began in 1984 and discussed in a 2005 essay, “Inventory / Peel, Pucker, Pinch, Puncture,” in Cabinet Magazine: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/19/harpman.php. The collectors’ categorization scheme reflects the primary way the lid design functions, which helps differentiate between the varieties and styles of lids.
Plastic, disposable coffee cup lids and other single-use food packages reinforce the social acceptability of eating and drinking on the go in the United States and reflect increasing expectation for convenience products. Cup lids are also examples of how humble, and even disposable, objects are sometimes the result of meticulous engineering. Patents for lid innovations describe peel-back tabs and the pucker-type shapes that make room for mouths and noses, and describe the nuances of “heat retention,” “mouth comfort,” “splash reduction,” “friction fit,” and “one-handed activation.”
ID Number
2012.3047.51
catalog number
2012.3047.51
nonaccession number
2012.3047

Tortilladora, tortilla press

Concepción “Concha” Sanchez used this hand-cranked tortilladora to press masa into tortillas. Machines like this were invented in Mexico by 1911. This “La Rotative” press dates from about 1923 but was bought used by the Sanchez family in the 1940s.
Description
Concepción “Concha” Sanchez used this hand-cranked tortilladora to press masa into tortillas. Machines like this were invented in Mexico by 1911. This “La Rotative” press dates from about 1923 but was bought used by the Sanchez family in the 1940s. Her grandson, Adrian Sanchez, fondly recalls the machine and working with her to make tortillas and tamales:
I recall helping my Grandmother Concepcion Sanchez make corn tortillas for her to sell….[in] 1948 in Fillmore, California. …My uncle Arnulfo [bought] his mother a molino, a machine that grinds corn for masa to make tortillas…a comal, a griddle to cook the…tortillas, and a machine [tortilladora] that actually made the tortillas…the dry corn was cooked [and limed]…The cooked corn was then ready to be ground in the molino…The ground masa was then gathered into large balls to be placed on the machine…when the handle was turned, a tortilla would fall on an attached conveyor belt which…would drop the uncooked tortilla onto the comal…After the tortillas cooked, they were stacked and counted into dozens… The…neighborhood came to buy their warm tortillas…A…batch was sent…to…Tio Nuco’s market …During…Christmas…Grandma [made] masa for tamales…[she]…was into her 80’s when she quit. (Smithsonian interview, 2006)
Concha Sanchez and her family followed the path of many Mexican immigrants who turned their traditional foodways into a staple of community life. Concha and Abundio Sanchez migrated from Mexico in 1912 at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Through the 1920s, they worked in Kansas, in Texas, and in the produce fields of California, eventually opening a grocery store. When that failed in the Great Depression, Concha supported her family by creating a tortilleria, making and selling tortillas in her Ventura County neighborhood. Instead of making them by hand, as Mexican women had done for centuries, she used the new electric and gas-fired equipment bought by her son to produce tortillas and tamales for sale.
date made
ca. 1920
ID Number
2006.0236.03
catalog number
2006.0236.03
accession number
2006.0236

Marcato Pastamaker

Inspired by regional traditions of France and Italy, cooks, farmers, storekeepers, and adventurous eaters in the 1980s led the charge to revitalize and reinvent an artisanal world of food largely ignored in America.
Description
Inspired by regional traditions of France and Italy, cooks, farmers, storekeepers, and adventurous eaters in the 1980s led the charge to revitalize and reinvent an artisanal world of food largely ignored in America. They turned to the fresh, local, and regional in the United States, and, with the European influences, developed a new American cuisine.
In the 1980s, the old American standby “spaghetti,” was transformed into “pasta,” and both pasta making machines and highly refined (0 0) Italian flour for making fresh pasta came on the market. This pasta machine, a highly popular version made in Italy by Marcato and successfully marketed in the new American kitchenware stores such as Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table.
With its different attachments, the machine presses out the dough fed into it into various shapes, capelli d’angelo (angel’s hair), trenette, spaghetti, and curly lasagna, in addition to simple sheets of pasta from which one can make ravioli or lasagna.
The machine was purchased by the son of a retired Foreign Service officer as a gift for his mother to remind her of the family’s time living in Italy. However, this particular machine remained little used by his mother and she agreed to put it, through her daughter, a curator at the museum, into the Smithsonian food collections.
ID Number
2011.0238.02.a
accession number
2011.0238
catalog number
2011.0238.02.a

Orchard Heater

Rows of galvanized metal heaters are a familiar element in winegrowing regions, including some of Napa’s traditional vineyards.
Description
Rows of galvanized metal heaters are a familiar element in winegrowing regions, including some of Napa’s traditional vineyards. This orchard heater, also called a smudge pot, was one of many that stood near the ends of vineyard rows at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in the Napa Valley. The heaters are used to protect the grapes from freezing when the temperature drops overnight during growing season. Fueled with kerosene, they are often used in conjunction with large fans set in the middle of the vineyard, which help distribute the heat.
ID Number
1998.0181.27
accession number
1998.0181
catalog number
1998.0181.27

Coffee Cup Lid, Sherri Cup

This is a Sherri Cup 20DL pucker type coffee cup lid. Pucker type lids require the drinker to place his or her mouth over a protrusion with a hole in it. With these lids, the drinker does not drink directly from the cup—mouths do not make contact with the rim of the cup.
Description
This is a Sherri Cup 20DL pucker type coffee cup lid. Pucker type lids require the drinker to place his or her mouth over a protrusion with a hole in it. With these lids, the drinker does not drink directly from the cup—mouths do not make contact with the rim of the cup. Instead, one drinks from only the lid.
Architects and collectors Louise Harpman and Scott Specht donated 56 plastic cup lids to the National Museum of American History in 2012. Their donation is a sample from their much larger collection of “independently patented drink-through plastic cup lids,” which they began in 1984 and discussed in a 2005 essay, “Inventory / Peel, Pucker, Pinch, Puncture,” in Cabinet Magazine: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/19/harpman.php. The collectors’ categorization scheme reflects the primary way the lid design functions, which helps differentiate between the varieties and styles of lids.
Plastic, disposable coffee cup lids and other single-use food packages reinforce the social acceptability of eating and drinking on the go in the United States and reflect increasing expectation for convenience products. Cup lids are also examples of how humble, and even disposable, objects are sometimes the result of meticulous engineering. Patents for lid innovations describe peel-back tabs and the pucker-type shapes that make room for mouths and noses, and describe the nuances of “heat retention,” “mouth comfort,” “splash reduction,” “friction fit,” and “one-handed activation.”
ID Number
2012.3047.33
catalog number
2012.3047.33
nonaccession number
2012.3047

Flour tortilla shell mold, 1987

Azteca Foods followed the health–conscious craze of the 1980’s by offering baked instead of fried shells along with providing healthy and innovative ways to use corn and flour tortillas.The traditional corn tortilla and the increasingly popular flour tortilla became a significant
Description
Azteca Foods followed the health–conscious craze of the 1980’s by offering baked instead of fried shells along with providing healthy and innovative ways to use corn and flour tortillas.
The traditional corn tortilla and the increasingly popular flour tortilla became a significant component in everyday American meals after 1950. As companies tapped into the growing Latino market by mass-producing Mexican as well as Central American and other Caribbean foods, they also produced taco shells, tortilla chips, and frozen burritos, which became staples in grocery chains and convenience stores. By the 1990s, salsa challenged ketchup for condiment supremacy in America.
Chicago entrepreneur Art Velasquez founded Azteca Foods in 1970, which sold Mexican and Central American foods in supermarkets across the country. The company enabled supermarkets to sell more flour and corn tortillas by adding a preservative into the masa (dough) to extend shelf life. He was one of the many entrepreneurs of the 1970’s to move tortillas from an ethnic based product to more of a popular everyday non ethnic product.
ID Number
2012.0032.01
catalog number
2012.0032.01
accession number
2012.0032

Soufflé Dish

Sweet (chocolate) and savory (cheese) soufflés, made popular by James Beard and Julia Child in the 1960’s, became “company” dishes used to wow other Americans who’d never seen them unless they went to fancy French restaurants.Inspired by customer demands to have cookware just lik
Description
Sweet (chocolate) and savory (cheese) soufflés, made popular by James Beard and Julia Child in the 1960’s, became “company” dishes used to wow other Americans who’d never seen them unless they went to fancy French restaurants.
Inspired by customer demands to have cookware just like Julia’s, the white porcelain soufflé dish from the French company Pillivuyt was one of the first items Charles E. (Chuck) Williams brought to his customers through his stores in Sonoma, San Francisco, then his catalogues and ever expanding store empire, Williams-Sonoma. This particular soufflé dish is one of Julia’s many soufflé dishes, acquired in France but made by Pillyvuyt, just like all the others in America acquired through Williams-Sonoma and other upscale kitchenware stores.
maker
Pillivuyt
ID Number
2001.0253.0268
catalog number
2001.0253.0268
accession number
2001.0253

1962 Ford Falcon Glove Box Door

This glove compartment door is from a 1962 Ford Falcon Sprint Futura automobile. The shallow wells on the inside indicate that the door, when open to ninety degrees, created a flat surface suitable for supporting a glass or bottle.
Description
This glove compartment door is from a 1962 Ford Falcon Sprint Futura automobile. The shallow wells on the inside indicate that the door, when open to ninety degrees, created a flat surface suitable for supporting a glass or bottle. This design was effective in a stationary vehicle and was widely used by motorists parked at drive-in restaurants or movie theaters. Around 1980, with the rise of fast-food drive-thrus, long commutes, and more eating on-the-go lifestyles, automobile manufacturers designed the in-car cup holder, which became an important feature in new automobiles. Since then, designers have created a variety of cup holder models, placing them in convenient locations like the center console and the door arm rests.
date made
1962
ID Number
2012.3011.01
catalog number
2012.3011.01
nonaccession number
2012.3011

Placard, Frites

Julia Child occasionally used French bistro signs as props on the early episodes of The French Chef television series, which first aired in 1963.
Description
Julia Child occasionally used French bistro signs as props on the early episodes of The French Chef television series, which first aired in 1963. This sign, in red and black lettering, advertises “Frites,” or French fries, one of the few French foods she knew her American audience would find familiar. Julia’s introduction of both favorite dishes and unfamiliar cuisine through humor and a sense of adventure brought the message home to viewers in an accessible and memorable way.
ID Number
2001.0253.0742
catalog number
2001.0253.0742
accession number
2001.0253

Iron Fist Slurpee Cup

Southland Corporation’s chain of 7-Eleven convenience stores is known for proprietary products like the Big Gulp® fountain soft drinks, Big Bite® hot dogs, and Slurpee® beverages, a sweet, semi-frozen, flavored drink.
Description
Southland Corporation’s chain of 7-Eleven convenience stores is known for proprietary products like the Big Gulp® fountain soft drinks, Big Bite® hot dogs, and Slurpee® beverages, a sweet, semi-frozen, flavored drink. 7-Eleven promoted Slurpees with limited-edition cup designs to appeal to kids and teens and to encourage repeat business. These collectible plastic cups from 1975 feature Marvel comic book characters. The 10 designs in the museum’s collection are from a total of 60 in the series and include Captain America, Red Sonja, Dr. Doom, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Falcon, The Vision, Silver Surfer, Black Panther, and Cyclops. The 12-oz. size predates the popularity of supersized (1.2 liter) drinks.
Omar Knedlik invented a machine to make frozen beverages with a slushy consistency in the late 1950s. In 1965, 7-Eleven began a licensing deal with his brand, the ICEE Company, to sell the same product under a different name. 7-Eleven has been selling Slurpees since 1967.
This plastic Slurpee cup from the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores was produced in 1975 as one of a series featuring Marvel Comics superheroes. It shows the Iron Fist and this quote: I WAS ONCE CALLED DANNY RAND, IN THE DAYS BEFORE MY MOTHER AND FATHER WERE KILLED, AND I SOUGHT REVENGE AGAINST THEIR MURDERER . . . BUT NOW I AM MORE THAN A CHILD SEEKING VENGEANCE, NOW I AM IRON FIST!
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1975
maker
Southland Corporation
ID Number
2012.0040.07
catalog number
2012.0040.07
accession number
2012.0040

James Remind-O-Clock Timer

The brainchild of cab driver Henry C. James, Jr., the James Remind-O-Clock was a useful innovation for people in various industries, from hotels to taxi services to laboratories.
Description
The brainchild of cab driver Henry C. James, Jr., the James Remind-O-Clock was a useful innovation for people in various industries, from hotels to taxi services to laboratories. The electric clock’s unique feature is its mechanism for allowing multiple alarms for a single event, such as a laboratory experiment that requires the timing of various steps. The 48 small keys located around the face of the clock could be set to ring a maximum of 48 alarms or ‘reminders’ at one setting. James established the James Clock Manufacturing Co. in Oakland in 1933, and produced and patented this model in 1937 (Patent number 2,098,965).
Enologist Andre Tchelistcheff used this Bakelite-housed “Remind-O-Clock,” to time various experiments and processes in his winery laboratories in California’s Napa Valley. Tchelistcheff made significant contributions to the wine industry, helping to improve techniques and raise standards for winemaking in the postwar period. He helped many winemakers improve their operations by adopting the practices of sterile filtration, cold fermentation, and attention to yeasts.
Andre Tchelistcheff was born in Moscow in 1901; he and his family fled the country at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917. After receiving his degree in agricultural science at the University of Brno in Czechoslovakia, he moved to Paris, where he was employed at the Institute of National Agronomy outside the city. While there he was contacted in 1937 by Georges de Latour, of Napa Valley’s Beaulieu Vineyards (BV). Latour was searching for a highly qualified wine chemist to help improve the stability and quality of BV’s premium wines, which had recently suffered the disastrous effects of microbiological spoilage and volatile acidity.
When he arrived in Napa in 1938, just five years after the repeal of Prohibition, Tchelistcheff was struck by the primitive conditions of winegrowing and winemaking. It took him several years to improve the winemaking at BV by upgrading equipment and controlling fermentation processes. He also worked in the vineyards, with, in his words, “the voice of nature.” Tchelistcheff was committed to the idea of community and promoted the sharing of both technical data and philosophical musings among the people trying to rebuild the wine industry. He also maintained close relationships with the scientists and scholars of viticulture and enology at the University of California at Davis.
After he left BV in 1973, Tchelistcheff became a consultant, serving dozens of California wineries old and new. He also played a key role in developing the modern wine industry in Washington State. In 1991 Tchelistcheff rejoined Beaulieu as consulting enologist. He died in the Napa Valley in 1994.
maker
James Clock Mfg. Co.
ID Number
2011.0131.02
catalog number
2011.0131.02
accession number
2011.0131
patent number
2098965

Boycott Lettuce Protest Button

Some of the most effective nationwide consumer boycotts and strikes, often lasting for years, were against big fruit and vegetable growers and bulk wine producers.The struggle to balance fair wages and workers rights while maintaining cheap labor and sustaining farms has been a m
Description
Some of the most effective nationwide consumer boycotts and strikes, often lasting for years, were against big fruit and vegetable growers and bulk wine producers.
The struggle to balance fair wages and workers rights while maintaining cheap labor and sustaining farms has been a major issue in the history of agriculture and Mexican American civil rights. The National Farm Labor Union (later the National Agricultural Workers Union), the AFL-CIO, and the United Farm Workers used boycotts, strikes, and stoppages as a way to receive national attention for workers rights and working conditions. In the United States Southwest, agricultural labor was overwhelmingly Mexican and Mexican American. Issues of legal status, workers rights, and displacement of domestic workers are issues unions with predominantly Mexican participation have been struggling with since the 1920’s.
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
2012.0036.03
accession number
2012.0036
catalog number
2012.0036.03

Cactus Chip & Dip Set

There is possibly no culinary practice more venerable, older, yet consistently revised and made anew than the dipping of a breadstuff into a semi-liquid substance. Think flatbread (or pita) into mashed chickpeas (what the Middle East calls hummus) or oil (perhaps olive).
Description
There is possibly no culinary practice more venerable, older, yet consistently revised and made anew than the dipping of a breadstuff into a semi-liquid substance. Think flatbread (or pita) into mashed chickpeas (what the Middle East calls hummus) or oil (perhaps olive). Think bread into cheese (or fondue). Think biscuits into gravy. Think fish (sushi) into sauce (soy and wasabi). Such practices cross time and space and culture(s).
But before the 1950’s explosion of the American snacking habit called “chip and dip,” there had to be the new ingredients produced en masse by industrial production methods. First came a potato chip, the “Saratoga chip,” legendarily developed in the middle of the 19th century by an American Indian cook, George Crum, at a New York resort hotel. Then came the corn chip, the “Frito,” in the late 1940’s, made by Elmer Doolin in Texas. All it took was the invention of machines that could peel and slice thousands of potatoes and mix Mexican corn meal (masa) and “chip-ify” the mix into Fritos. Thus Herman Lay and Doolin (later, Frito-Lay) made the mass production of salty, crunchy snacks, or chips, possible.
Followed by the consumer’s adoption of many Mexican, then Middle Eastern foods and flavors into the American repertoire, the consumer’s moving of the venue for food consumption from the dining room to the living room or to the highway and car, and the desire of some commercial food manufacturers and producers to create new uses for their products, we saw the proliferation of chips and dips. Guacamole and salsa moved from garnishes on Tex-Mex meals to dips for corn chips, available anywhere, anytime to anyone who could buy them by the sack, box, and jar.
Snacking in front of the television and in the car, any time of the day or night, required more and more finger foods. Excess dairy production meant finding new uses for sour cream and cheese. And limiting the use of the new dehydrated onion soup to, well, to soup put a cap on a clever manufacturer’s ideas for how to make money. Put all these factors together and America soon had a passion for the salsas, guacamole, bean dip, cheese dip and 7 Layer dip, for the hummus and baba ganouj for the legendary sour cream onion dip and clam dip that followed. Baked flatbreads such as pita and crackers of all sorts joined the potato and corn chips. In the 1990s, a fat and carbohydrate rejecting world tried to replace chips with vegetables to dip, preferably into spiced and citrus-juiced olive oils, putatively more in the “good-for-you” realm than the fat-filled dips. But the fat and salt filled chips and dips remained as popular in Snack Nation as the days when they were first introduced.
This ceramic chip and dip dish, made into the shape of a cactus (to hold the chips) and the beautiful pink cactus flower (to hold) the dip, was no doubt intended to hold some form of corn chip and salsa or guacamole, as its shape of the desert cactus indicates. Other typical shapes for the popular Mexican-inspired snacks of the period would have been the popular sombrero, with the chips resting in the brim and the dip in the indented peak of said sombrero. While some chip and dip sets referred to the origins or kinds of food put in them, some others were almost advertising, either for the sports event or team associated with the service of any snack (i.e. the football helmets with the team logos and names or the football shaped chip bowls). Holiday chip and dip sets featuring Christmas-y designs, or, of course, the ever popular Thanksgiving turkey wings are cast and spread for the receipt of chips for snacking before the dinner was served.
ID Number
2012.0132.01
accession number
2012.0132
catalog number
2012.0132.01

The Vision Slurpee Cup

Southland Corporation’s chain of 7-Eleven convenience stores is known for proprietary products like the Big Gulp® fountain soft drinks, Big Bite® hot dogs, and Slurpee® beverages, a sweet, semi-frozen, flavored drink.
Description
Southland Corporation’s chain of 7-Eleven convenience stores is known for proprietary products like the Big Gulp® fountain soft drinks, Big Bite® hot dogs, and Slurpee® beverages, a sweet, semi-frozen, flavored drink. 7-Eleven promoted Slurpees with limited-edition cup designs to appeal to kids and teens and to encourage repeat business. These collectible plastic cups from 1975 feature Marvel comic book characters. The 10 designs in the museum’s collection are from a total of 60 in the series and include Captain America, Red Sonja, Dr. Doom, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Falcon, The Vision, Silver Surfer, Black Panther, and Cyclops. The 12-oz. size predates the popularity of supersized (1.2 liter) drinks.
Omar Knedlik invented a machine to make frozen beverages with a slushy consistency in the late 1950s. In 1965, 7-Eleven began a licensing deal with his brand, the ICEE Company, to sell the same product under a different name. 7-Eleven has been selling Slurpees since 1967.
This plastic Slurpee cup from the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores was produced in 1975 as one of a series featuring Marvel Comics superheroes. It shows The Vision character and this message in a quote bubble: AN ANDROID WITH HUMAN BRAIN PATTERNS PROGRAMMED INTO MY COMPUTER MIND, I SOMETIMES WONDER . . . AM I HUMAN . . . OR MACHINE?! I KNOW ONLY THAT BECAUSE OF MY ABILITY TO WALK THRU SOLID OBJECTS, MY ALLIES, THE AVENGERS, HAVE NAMED ME THE VISION!
date made
1975
maker
Southland Corporation
ID Number
2012.0040.10
catalog number
2012.0040.10
accession number
2012.0040

Grilling Spatula

After World War II, many newly affluent Americans had the means and desire to travel. They flocked to the tropics, visiting Pacific islands, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia, as well as warm places closer to home, including Mexico, California, Hawaii, and Florida.
Description
After World War II, many newly affluent Americans had the means and desire to travel. They flocked to the tropics, visiting Pacific islands, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia, as well as warm places closer to home, including Mexico, California, Hawaii, and Florida. People developed a taste for casual living and the distinctive local foods and drink. Returning home, they re-created these experiences in their new suburban backyards, with patios, tropical drinks, and the grill, where they cooked meals craved by a postwar meat-mad America.
By the late 1950s, American manufacturers and retailers were promoting the new “necessities” for the affluence represented in the outdoor life. The tools, clothes, furniture, and serving ware to go along with grilled meals on the patio grew into a major industry.
This Mr. Cheftender “Ranger” four-piece set, c. 1970—a carving knife, spatula, fork, and grill scraper—represents the basic tools provided for barbecuers. As the market expanded, enthusiastic grill masters could enhance their tool kit with tongs, skewers, basting brushes, corn or potato holders, salt and pepper shakers on long handles, “doneness” indicators for meat, grill rests or holders, grill lighters, carrying cases, and other gadgets.
Made out of base metals with inexpensive wood handles (and lops and hooks for hanging on the grill side), these barbecue tools represent the middle range, neither the cheap ones that rust or break easily nor the high end designer tools that eventually became available along with expensive grills, complete outdoor kitchens, and designer patio furniture.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
2012.0138.04
accession number
2012.0138
catalog number
2012.0138.04

Captain America Slurpee Cup

Southland Corporation’s chain of 7-Eleven convenience stores is known for proprietary products like the Big Gulp® fountain soft drinks, Big Bite® hot dogs, and Slurpee® beverages, a sweet, semi-frozen, flavored drink.
Description
Southland Corporation’s chain of 7-Eleven convenience stores is known for proprietary products like the Big Gulp® fountain soft drinks, Big Bite® hot dogs, and Slurpee® beverages, a sweet, semi-frozen, flavored drink. 7-Eleven promoted Slurpees with limited-edition cup designs to appeal to kids and teens and to encourage repeat business. These collectible plastic cups from 1975 feature Marvel comic book characters. The 10 designs in the museum’s collection are from a total of 60 in the series and include Captain America, Red Sonja, Dr. Doom, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Falcon, The Vision, Silver Surfer, Black Panther, and Cyclops. The 12-oz. size predates the popularity of supersized (1.2 liter) drinks.
Omar Knedlik invented a machine to make frozen beverages with a slushy consistency in the late 1950s. In 1965, 7-Eleven began a licensing deal with his brand, the ICEE Company, to sell the same product under a different name. 7-Eleven has been selling Slurpees since 1967.
This plastic Slurpee cup from the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores was produced in 1975 as one of a series featuring Marvel Comics superheroes. It shows the character Captain America and this quote: DURING WORLD WAR TWO, I WAS A LIVING SYMBOL FOR ALL THAT AMERICA STOOD FOR. SOME WOULD SAY THAT THE WAR WAS WON DUE TO MY INSPIRATION ALONE, BUT YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME SAYING THAT. NOT CAPTAIN AMERICA!
date made
1975
maker
Southland Corporation
Marvel Comics Group
ID Number
2012.0040.02
catalog number
2012.0040.02
accession number
2012.0040

Coffee Cup Lid, Dixie TS89

This is a peel and lock type Dixie TS89 coffee cup lid. Peel and lock type lids give the drinker a place to snap the peeled back lid part into itself, preventing the need to tear off or throw away a little triangle of plastic.
Description
This is a peel and lock type Dixie TS89 coffee cup lid. Peel and lock type lids give the drinker a place to snap the peeled back lid part into itself, preventing the need to tear off or throw away a little triangle of plastic. This lid is covered by patent number D572,587 assigned to Dixie Consumer Products LLC on July 8, 2008.
Architects and collectors Louise Harpman and Scott Specht donated 56 plastic cup lids to the National Museum of American History in 2012. Their donation is a sample from their much larger collection of “independently patented drink-through plastic cup lids,” which they began in 1984 and discussed in a 2005 essay, “Inventory / Peel, Pucker, Pinch, Puncture,” in Cabinet Magazine: http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/19/harpman.php. The collectors’ categorization scheme reflects the primary way the lid design functions, which helps differentiate between the varieties and styles of lids.
Plastic, disposable coffee cup lids and other single-use food packages reinforce the social acceptability of eating and drinking on the go in the United States and reflect increasing expectation for convenience products. Cup lids are also examples of how humble, and even disposable, objects are sometimes the result of meticulous engineering. Patents for lid innovations describe peel-back tabs and the pucker-type shapes that make room for mouths and noses, and describe the nuances of “heat retention,” “mouth comfort,” “splash reduction,” “friction fit,” and “one-handed activation.”
ID Number
2012.3047.11
catalog number
2012.3047.11
nonaccession number
2012.3047

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