The National School Lunch Program came about when President Harry Truman signed it into law in 1946. That may seem to be the entire story in a nutshell, but the federal government jumped on the idea at least 50 years after it really started, with private, municipal, and state programs. The idea of children going to school with nothing to eat for six or seven hours sounds awful to us now, but that's the way it was before reform programs began in the late 19th century. Sure, some kids brought lunch or went home to eat, but many just did without because their families were poor.
The women's reform groups, the same activists who advocated for women's suffrage and alcohol prohibition, organized local support for hot lunches served at school. The local pilot programs, paid for by charities and served by volunteers, showed results immediately as children gained weight and earned better grades. The menus from these early programs show that meat was not served in order to keep costs down. Read about the early efforts that led to American school lunches at Fishwrap. -via Strange Company
(Image source: Library of Congress)