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

Date: 1970s

Soup Ladle

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34A
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34A

Utensil Rack

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34K
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34K

Serving Spoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34F
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34F

Deli Fork

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34E
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34E

Carving Knife

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34C
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34C

Utensil Set Box

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34L
catalog number
1981.0948.34L
accession number
1981.0948

Carving Fork

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34D
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34D

Tasting Spoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34G
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34G

Gravy Ladle

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34B
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34B

Fry Pan

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
maker
Wear-Ever Aluminum
ID Number
1981.0948.07
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.07

Vegetable Spoon

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
1981.0948.34H
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.34H

Springform Pan

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970
maker
Wear-Ever Aluminum
ID Number
1981.0948.40
accession number
1981.0948
catalog number
1981.0948.40

Young Child with Basket of Vegetables

With her camera, Lisa Law documented history in the heart of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s as she lived it, as a participant, an agent of change and a member of the broader culture.
Description
With her camera, Lisa Law documented history in the heart of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s as she lived it, as a participant, an agent of change and a member of the broader culture. She recorded this unconventional time of Anti-War demonstrations in California, communes, Love-Ins, peace marches and concerts, as well as her family life as she became a wife and mother. The photographs were collected by William Yeingst and Shannon Perich in a cross-unit collecting collaboration. Together they selected over two hundred photographs relevant to photographic history, cultural history, domestic life and social history.
Law’s portraiture and concert photographs include Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Lovin Spoonful and Peter, Paul and Mary. She also took several of Janis Joplin and her band Big Brother and the Holding Company, including the photograph used to create the poster included in the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum’s exhibition 1001 Days and Nights in American Art. Law and other members of the Hog Farm were involved in the logistics of setting up the well-known musical extravaganza, Woodstock. Her photographs include the teepee poles going into the hold of the plane, a few concert scenes and amenities like the kitchen and medical tent. Other photographs include peace rallies and concerts in Haight-Ashbury, Coretta Scott King speaking at an Anti-War protest and portraits of Allen Ginsburg and Timothy Leary. From her life in New Mexico the photographs include yoga sessions with Yogi Bhajan, bus races, parades and other public events. From life on the New Buffalo Commune, there are many pictures of her family and friends taken during meal preparation and eating, farming, building, playing, giving birth and caring for children.
Ms. Law did not realize how important her photographs were while she was taking them. It was not until after she divorced her husband, left the farm for Santa Fe and began a career as a photographer that she realized the depth of history she recorded. Today, she spends her time writing books, showing her photographs in museums all over the United States and making documentaries. In 1990, her video documentary, “Flashing on the Sixties,” won several awards.
A selection of photographs was featured in the exhibition A Visual Journey: Photographs by Lisa Law, 1964–1971, at the National Museum of American History October 1998-April 1999.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1972
date printed
1998
maker
Law, Lisa Bachelis
ID Number
1998.0139.190
accession number
1998.0139
catalog number
1998.0139.190

Family Harvesting Pumpkins

With her camera, Lisa Law documented history in the heart of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s as she lived it, as a participant, an agent of change and a member of the broader culture.
Description
With her camera, Lisa Law documented history in the heart of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s as she lived it, as a participant, an agent of change and a member of the broader culture. She recorded this unconventional time of Anti-War demonstrations in California, communes, Love-Ins, peace marches and concerts, as well as her family life as she became a wife and mother. The photographs were collected by William Yeingst and Shannon Perich in a cross-unit collecting collaboration. Together they selected over two hundred photographs relevant to photographic history, cultural history, domestic life and social history.
Law’s portraiture and concert photographs include Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Lovin Spoonful and Peter, Paul and Mary. She also took several of Janis Joplin and her band Big Brother and the Holding Company, including the photograph used to create the poster included in the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum’s exhibition 1001 Days and Nights in American Art. Law and other members of the Hog Farm were involved in the logistics of setting up the well-known musical extravaganza, Woodstock. Her photographs include the teepee poles going into the hold of the plane, a few concert scenes and amenities like the kitchen and medical tent. Other photographs include peace rallies and concerts in Haight-Ashbury, Coretta Scott King speaking at an Anti-War protest and portraits of Allen Ginsburg and Timothy Leary. From her life in New Mexico the photographs include yoga sessions with Yogi Bhajan, bus races, parades and other public events. From life on the New Buffalo Commune, there are many pictures of her family and friends taken during meal preparation and eating, farming, building, playing, giving birth and caring for children.
Ms. Law did not realize how important her photographs were while she was taking them. It was not until after she divorced her husband, left the farm for Santa Fe and began a career as a photographer that she realized the depth of history she recorded. Today, she spends her time writing books, showing her photographs in museums all over the United States and making documentaries. In 1990, her video documentary, “Flashing on the Sixties,” won several awards.
A selection of photographs was featured in the exhibition A Visual Journey: Photographs by Lisa Law, 1964–1971, at the National Museum of American History October 1998-April 1999.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1975
date printed
1998
maker
Law, Lisa Bachelis
ID Number
1998.0139.193
accession number
1998.0139
catalog number
1998.0139.193

Ann Miller’s “Heinz’s Great American Soup” Costume

Ann Miller, the vivacious tap-dancing star of such classic screen musicals as On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953) wore this sparkling costume in a famous 1971 TV commercial for Heinz’s short-lived product, Great American Soup.
Description (Brief)
Ann Miller, the vivacious tap-dancing star of such classic screen musicals as On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953) wore this sparkling costume in a famous 1971 TV commercial for Heinz’s short-lived product, Great American Soup. The one-minute commercial, produced and directed by noted humorist and broadcaster, Stan Freberg, was a tribute to the spectacular, Busby Berkeley-style Hollywood musicals of the 1930s and 1940s, with Miller rising up out of the floor on top of a eight feet high cylinder designed to look like a giant soup can. She was backed by spurting red, white, and blue fountains and a staircase filled with singing and dancing platinum blonde chorines. The song featured in the commercial is a Freberg parody of a Hollywood tribute and has, as one of its campy, nonsensical lyrics the following phrase: ”Who’s got its noodles up in lights/ From Broadway to the Loop?/It’s the great – I said the great – the Great American Soup!” At the conclusion of the lavish musical number, Miller whirls back into kitchen setting where the scene began and Dave Willock, the actor playing her husband, remarks, “Why do you always have to make such a production out of everything?”
The costume, created by the Berman Costume Company, is made of red satin and decorated with iridescent red sequins and a glittering white rhinestone filigree pattern trim around the hips and top of bust Another major component of the costume is a bright red silk top hat, decorated with a silver band and blue stars. Both elements of costume, combined with Miller’s sunny, tongue-in-cheek performance style and Freberg’s witty script, make this one of the funniest, most elaborate commercials ever produced.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970
performing artist
Miller, Ann
maker
Berman Costume Company
ID Number
2002.0268.01.02
accession number
2002.0268
catalog number
2002.0268.01.02

Ann Miller’s “Heinz’s Great American Soup” Costume

Ann Miller, the vivacious tap-dancing star of such classic screen musicals as On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953) wore this sparkling costume in a famous 1971 TV commercial for Heinz’s short-lived product, Great American Soup.
Description (Brief)
Ann Miller, the vivacious tap-dancing star of such classic screen musicals as On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953) wore this sparkling costume in a famous 1971 TV commercial for Heinz’s short-lived product, Great American Soup. The one-minute commercial, produced and directed by noted humorist and broadcaster, Stan Freberg, was a tribute to the spectacular, Busby Berkeley-style Hollywood musicals of the 1930s and 1940s, with Miller rising up out of the floor on top of a eight feet high cylinder designed to look like a giant soup can. She was backed by spurting red, white, and blue fountains and a staircase filled with singing and dancing platinum blonde chorines. The song featured in the commercial is a Freberg parody of a Hollywood tribute and has, as one of its campy, nonsensical lyrics the following phrase: ”Who’s got its noodles up in lights/ From Broadway to the Loop?/It’s the great – I said the great – the Great American Soup!” At the conclusion of the lavish musical number, Miller whirls back into kitchen setting where the scene began and Dave Willock, the actor playing her husband, remarks, “Why do you always have to make such a production out of everything?”
The costume, created by the Berman Costume Company, is made of red satin and decorated with iridescent red sequins and a glittering white rhinestone filigree pattern trim around the hips and top of bust Another major component of the costume is a bright red silk top hat, decorated with a silver band and blue stars. Both elements of costume, combined with Miller’s sunny, tongue-in-cheek performance style and Freberg’s witty script, make this one of the funniest, most elaborate commercials ever produced.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970
performing artist
Miller, Ann
maker
Berman Costume Company
ID Number
2002.0268.01
accession number
2002.0268
catalog number
2002.0265.01

Golden North Salmon Derby 1975 Juneau, Alaska

This button is from the Golden North Salmon Derby, which has been held in Juneau, Alaska every August since 1947. It is a fishing competition which raises money for a college scholarship program.Currently not on view
Description
This button is from the Golden North Salmon Derby, which has been held in Juneau, Alaska every August since 1947. It is a fishing competition which raises money for a college scholarship program.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1975
ID Number
2003.0014.0679
accession number
2003.0014
catalog number
2003.0014.0679

The Muppets Lunch Box

Tin lunch box with a yellow plastic snap for a hinged lid and a collapsible yellow, plastic handle. Both sides of the lunch box feature images of Jim Henson’s Muppets, including Kermit, Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Rowlf, Gonzo, and Scooter.
Description (Brief)
Tin lunch box with a yellow plastic snap for a hinged lid and a collapsible yellow, plastic handle. Both sides of the lunch box feature images of Jim Henson’s Muppets, including Kermit, Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Rowlf, Gonzo, and Scooter.
Date made
1979
maker
King Seeley Thermos
Thermos
ID Number
2001.3087.30
nonaccession number
2001.3087
catalog number
2001.3087.30

1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon

This bottle of 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon wine was produced by Warren Winiarski, founder, owner, and winemaker at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, in Napa, California. It is the vintage that outranked some of France's best Bordeaux at a blind tasting held in Paris in 1976.
Description
This bottle of 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon wine was produced by Warren Winiarski, founder, owner, and winemaker at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, in Napa, California. It is the vintage that outranked some of France's best Bordeaux at a blind tasting held in Paris in 1976. Organized by Steven Spurrier, an Englishman who ran a fine wine shop in Paris, the tasting involved a panel of nine experienced French judges who compared a select group of wines from France and California without benefit of knowing which was which. When the 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon placed first, the judges were astonished, and the rest of the wine world took notice.
The "Judgment of Paris" had a huge impact on the California and U.S. wine industry. It crushed the widely-held belief that only the French could make premium wine and inspired American vintners to expand their operations. The aftermath of the tasting played out most vigorously in California, where, between 1975 and 2004, the number of wineries grew from 330 to 1,689. By 2004, California accounted for most of the $643 million in annual U.S. wine exports.
Date made
1973
referenced
Spurrier, Steven
owner
Winiarski, Warren
referenced
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars
maker
Winiarski, Warren
ID Number
1996.0029.01
catalog number
1996.0029.01
accession number
1996.0029

McDonald's Uniform-Female

Founded in 1940, McDonald’s Company Ltd. now has nearly 32,500 restaurants in over 100 countries. McDonald’s opened their first store in Japan in May 1971, in the middle of Tokyo. This one is for a female crew member’s uniform.
Description
Founded in 1940, McDonald’s Company Ltd. now has nearly 32,500 restaurants in over 100 countries. McDonald’s opened their first store in Japan in May 1971, in the middle of Tokyo. This one is for a female crew member’s uniform. This uniform is from the 1970’s, and represent the type first worn by workers at McDonald’s Japan. This female crew member’s uniform is two shades of blue arranged in large checkers. The uniforms are slightly different from the uniforms used in America during the same period. Over the past 40 years the uniforms have evolved significantly. By 1998, there had been 11 changes in uniform style, with a significant change taking place almost every four years. The first uniform features very different uniforms for men and women, but later uniforms matched more closely.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970
ID Number
2011.0142.01
catalog number
2011.0142.01
accession number
2011.0142
2011.0142

McDonald's Uniform- male top

Founded in 1940, McDonald’s Company Ltd. now has nearly 32,500 restaurants in over 100 countries. McDonald’s opened their first store in Japan in May 1971, in the middle of Tokyo. This one is for a male crew member’s uniform.
Description
Founded in 1940, McDonald’s Company Ltd. now has nearly 32,500 restaurants in over 100 countries. McDonald’s opened their first store in Japan in May 1971, in the middle of Tokyo. This one is for a male crew member’s uniform. This uniform is from the 1970’s, and represent the type first worn by workers at McDonald’s Japan. This male crew member’s uniform is white with the symbolic yellow arch patch on the arms. The uniforms are slightly different from the uniforms used in America during the same period. Over the past 40 years the uniforms have evolved significantly. By 1998, there had been 11 changes in uniform style, with a significant change taking place almost every four years. The first uniform features very different uniforms for men and women, but later uniforms matched more closely.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970
ID Number
2011.0142.02
catalog number
2011.0142.02
accession number
2011.0142

Boycott Grapes

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1965-1970 circa
direct
United Farm Workers
ID Number
PL.296849.28
catalog number
296849.28
accession number
296849

RCA Automated Supermarket Checkout Stand

By the late 1960s, minicomputers were sufficiently cheap to envision using them to automate much of the pricing and sale of groceries. RCA Corporation, working in conjunction with Kroger Company, developed a supermarket checkstand that linked to an RCA 6100 minicomputer.
Description
By the late 1960s, minicomputers were sufficiently cheap to envision using them to automate much of the pricing and sale of groceries. RCA Corporation, working in conjunction with Kroger Company, developed a supermarket checkstand that linked to an RCA 6100 minicomputer. This is an example of the checkstand. It first operated at a Kroger’s store in Kenwood, Ohio, near Cincinnati, in July, 1972. The tests were quite successful, running for many weeks. However, the device relied on a different identification code than the Universal Product Code adopted the following year. RCA decided not to try to sell point-of-sale terminals.
Reference:
Stephen A. Brown, Revolution at the Checkout Counter:The Explosion of the Bar Code, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970-1972
maker
RCA Corporation
ID Number
1974.309503.01
catalog number
309503.01
accession number
309503

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