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School lunch comprised of a hamburger, brussel sprouts, cantaloupe, potatoes, and milk.
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The Failed Promise of Free, Universal School Lunch

Masks and social distancing are largely gone, but just as consequentially, a less visible pandemic intervention is ending: universally free school meals.
by Marcus B. Weaver-Hightower via HNN on August 28, 2022
A fat-free label on a food product.

The Big Fat Lie of the Fat-Free Food Movement

For decades, consumers were duped into believing that a fat-free food label would put them on track for weight loss, when the complete opposite was true.
by Ian Douglass via MEL on May 22, 2022
Poster with women pledging to "pay not more than top legal prices" and "accept no rationed goods without giving up ration stamps"

Politics and the Price Level

On inflation, institutions, and the governance of the price level.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via Phenomenal World on May 19, 2022
Floral wallpaper, c. 1875. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Collection, gift of Harvey Smith.

Flower Power

On the women who kickstarted the ecological restoration movement in America.
by Laura J. Martin via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 18, 2022
Empty shelves in a grocery store, specifically an aisle for infant formula products.
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Lessons From World War II Can Help us Navigate the Baby Formula Shortage

Children from poor families or with special formula needs are most at risk.
by Janet Golden via Made By History on May 15, 2022
Fast food with the seal of the president on the containers.

How the State Created Fast Food

Because of consistent government intervention in the industry, we might call fast food the quintessential cuisine of global capitalism.
by Alex Park via Current Affairs on January 25, 2022
Reprint from the September 1966 issue of AFL-CIO American Federationist, Box 38, Folder 4, William Page Keeton Papers, Special Collections, Tarlton Law Library, The University of Texas at Austin.

Controlled Prices

Before the rise of macroeconomics that accompanied World War II, price determination was a central problem of economic thought.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via Phenomenal World on January 12, 2022
Yams under concrete with the leaves growing out of a crack in the sidewalk

The Deep and Twisted Roots of the American Yam

The American yam is not the food it says it is. How that came to be is a story of robbery, reinvention, and identity.
by Lex Pryor via The Ringer on November 24, 2021
Black and white photo of children eating a meal together

Have Crisis, Feed Kids

How a series of emergencies resulted in the school lunch programs we have today.
by A. R. Ruis via Nursing Clio on November 4, 2021
Depiction of an agricultural fair with crowds of people gathered around exhibit halls.

Slavery, Technology and the Social Origins of the US Agricultural State

Ariel Ron discusses the rise of the agricultural state in his book, Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slaveholding Republic.
by Ariel Ron via Broadstreet on September 3, 2021
Old-time black and white pictures of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir with a modern city background

How American Environmentalism Failed

Traditional environmentalism has lacked a meaningful, practical democratic vision, rendering it largely marginal to the day-to-day lives of most Americans.
by William Shutkin via The MIT Press Reader on August 31, 2021
Woman's glowing face

“A Revolutionary Beauty Secret!”

On the rise and fall of radium in the beauty industry.
by Lucy Jane Santos via Literary Hub on July 8, 2021
Woman looking over a former plantation site

The Lost Graves of Louisiana’s Enslaved People

A story about the hidden burial grounds of Louisiana’s enslaved people, and how continued industrial development is putting the historic sites at risk.
by Alexandra Eaton, Christoph Koettl via New York Times Op-Docs on June 27, 2021
Booker T. Whatley

The CSA’s Roots in Black History

Booker T. Whatley introduced the concept in the 1960s for struggling Black farmers, but his agricultural contributions have been excluded from the narrative.
by Shelby Vittek via Modern Farmer on May 17, 2021

America’s Conflicted Landscapes

A nation that identifies itself with nature begins to fall apart when it can no longer agree on what nature is.
by David E. Nye via The MIT Press Reader on April 20, 2021
Corey Lea, a beef and pork rancher in Murfreesboro, Tenn., who also advocates for Black farmers.
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Black Farmers Have Always Faced Injustice. Will the American Rescue Plan Help?

This plight dates back to the era of slavery.
by David W. Dangerfield via Made By History on April 1, 2021
Aerial view of a mining quarry

The Land Was Ours

Trump, Biden, and public lands.
by Nick Bowlin via The Drift on January 27, 2021
An illustration of Black men pulling a platform covered in trash and American symbols.

What Price Wholeness?

A new proposal for reparations for slavery raises three critical questions: How much does America owe? Where will the money come from? And who gets paid?
by Shennette Garrett-Scott via New York Review of Books on January 18, 2021
Ben Cohen giving a presentation

B. R. Cohen on How Food Became “Pure”

On the corrupt, contaminated, deceptive world of 19th-century food adulteration, and how Cohen's own work straddles pure academia and public-facing scholarship.
by David Schleifer, Benjamin R. Cohen via Public Books on September 29, 2020
A photograph of researcher Andrew Moyer in a USDA lab, looking at lab flasks.

Penicillin: How a Miracle Drug Changed the Fight Against Infection During World War II

Before antibiotics, a scratch or blister could lead to death. Who knew this all could change with a little mold?
by Diane Bernard via Retropolis on July 11, 2020
Tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans, fresh and in jars.

The Surprising Backstory of Victory Gardens

In World War I, the Victory Garden movement encouraged people to grow their own food to conserve home-front supplies. But kids' gardens had planted the roots.
by Madeline Compagnon, Rose Hayden Smith, Brian Trelstad via JSTOR Daily on May 15, 2020

Lincoln’s Forgotten Legacy as America’s First ‘Green President’

Lincoln protected thousands of acres of California forest and wanted to restore the nation’s battle-ravaged countryside before he was assassinated.
by Hannah Natanson via Retropolis on February 16, 2020
Watercolor of Abraham Lincoln with soldiers in swirls of red across his face.

Abraham Lincoln’s Radical Moderation

What the president understood that the zealous Republican reformers in Congress didn’t.
by Andrew Ferguson via The Atlantic on February 15, 2020

Organic Farming's Political History

Despite its countercultural associations today, organic farming was entangled with fascist and quasi-fascist politics at its origins.
by Michelle Niemann via Edge Effects on January 23, 2020

Marijuana Reform Should Focus On Inequality

When regulators dictate who grows a cash crop, they can spread the wealth—or help the rich get richer.
by Sarah Milov via The Atlantic on October 5, 2019
Dilapidated boathouse

The Brothers Who Spent Eight Years in Jail for Refusing to Leave Their Family's Land

Their great-grandfather had bought the land a hundred years earlier, when he was a generation removed from slavery.
by Lizzie Presser via ProPublica on July 15, 2019

How Poverty Is Reshaping the Story of Emmett Till's Murder

Beset by poverty, Glendora, Mississippi clings desperately to a version of Till's story that few others seem to believe.
by Dave Tell via The Conversation on May 9, 2019
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The Only Real Solution to the Border Crisis

The United States must devise a program that addresses the root causes of migration.
by Chris Deutsch via Made By History on March 11, 2019

Green and Pleasant Land

A review of four books that all deal with the long-lasting contradictions between the mythology and reality of farming.
by Verlyn Klinkenborg via New York Review of Books on September 26, 2018

When The U.S. Government Tried To Replace Migrant Farmworkers With High Schoolers

When the blazing sun came up on the teenagers' first day of work, "everyone looked at each other, and said, 'What did we do?'"
by Gustavo Arellano via NPR on August 23, 2018
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