“Soil is more than just dirt; it affects all of the foods we eat. But why is this really a conversation about history and why are we talking about this at the National Museum of American History this summer? The way Americans have treated dirt throughout American history has had wide-ranging resul

The TV dinner represented a change in the way Americans were thinking about food. Introduced in 1954 by Swanson & Sons, of Omaha, Nebraska, it offered women--more and more of whom were working outside the home but still assumed to be responsible for cooking--an alternative to time-consuming meal pre

Since the 1950s, demand has soared in the United States for cookbooks featuring diverse ethnic cuisines. Reflecting a heightened interest in foods and flavors from various cultures, the explosion of ethnic cookbooks—and ethnic restaurants and markets—serves to educate the general public while

Whether convenient, fast, organic, processed, gourmet, ethnic, or local—the foods available to Americans have never been more plentiful and diverse, or more ripe for discussion. Coupled with big changes in who does the cooking, where meals are consumed, and what we know (or think we know) about

Taking America to Lunch is an online exhibition that includes a sampling of illustrated lunch boxes and beverage containers dating from the 1890s through the 1980s. Students will learn how television changed the metal lunch pails carried by industrial workers and students a century ago i