Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century

Contents

CONTENTS Acknowledgments, ix introduction / Victory over Ourselves, 1 American Food in the Era of the Great War 1 / National Willpower, 11 American Asceticism and Self-Government 2 / Eating Cats and Dogs to Feed the World, 37 The Progressive Quest for Rational Food 3 / Food Will Win the World, 58 Food Aid and American Power 4 / A School for Wives, 77 Home Economics and the Modern Housewife 5 / A Corn-Fed Nation, 101 Race, Diet, and the Eugenics of Nutrition 6 / Americanizing the American Diet, 123 Immigrant Cuisines and Not-So-Foreign Foods 7 / The Triumph of the Will, 157 The Progressive Body and the Thin Ideal epilogue / Moral Food and Modern Food, 181 Notes, 189 Bibliography, 269 Index, 295 This page intentionally left blank ILLUSTRATIONS “Corn: The Food of the Nation,” Food Administration poster, 1918, 13 Beech-Nut company letterhead image, 1917, 43 “Will You Help the Women of France?,” Food Administration poster, 1918, 69 Photograph of American soldiers sharing food with French children, 71 Photograph of housewives’ uniform, 87 Cover of Today’s Housewife, 1918, 94 Photograph of a woman called “Mammy,” Bremestead School, 117 Untitled cartoon, from The Bean-Bag, 127 “Food Will Win the War,” Food Administration poster, in Yiddish, 134 “Hoover’s Celebrated Reducing Tonic,” cartoon, 165 This page intentionally left blank ...