August 31, 2012
The History of the Lunch Box
Historic lunchbox, 1880s. A tobacco box was recycled as lunch box. Harold Dorwin / SI
Considering what passed for children’s fashion in the 1970s when I started elementary school—patterned polyester pants with coordinating turtlenecks—it’s no surprise that picking out new clothes was not my favorite part of back-to-school shopping. Instead, I considered my most important September decision to be choosing the right lunch box. It had to last all year, if not longer, and it was a personal billboard, much like the concert T-shirt was to older kids, that would tell my classmates what I was into. The message I hoped to get across was: “Hey, I dig Snoopy. Wanna be friends?”
An added bonus of my Peanuts lunch box was that it was covered in comic strips, so just in case the lunch box failed to provide a conversation starter, I always had something to read as I ate my cheese and crackers, apple, and alphabet soup from the coordinating Thermos that fit neatly inside the metal box. (I guess my mom didn’t get the memo about Quiche Lorraine, which was a popular lunch item in the 1970s, according to a fun series of food history posts, called What’s In Your Lunch Box?, that Smithsonian intern Ashley Luthern wrote for the blog).
Sadly, the metal lunch box has mostly gone the way of the overhead projector. Today’s kids often tote their lunches in soft insulated polyester versions that fit easily into backpacks, just the latest development in the long and distinguished history of midday-meal transporting devices.
The seemingly inactive Whole Pop Magazine Online has an illustrated history of the lunch box—cutely named Paileontology—that traces the origins to the 19th century. Back then working men protected their lunches from the perils of the job site (just imagine what a coal mine or a quarry could do to a guy’s sandwich) with heavy-duty metal pails.
Historic lunchbox, 1880s. A tobacco box was recycled as lunch box. Harold Dorwin / SI
Worker’s lunch box, by Thermos L.L.C., 1920s. Richard Strauss / SI
Around the 1880s, school children who wanted to emulate their daddies fashioned similar caddies out of empty cookie or tobacco tins. According to the timeline, the first commercial lunch boxes, which resembled metal picnic baskets decorated with scenes of playing children, came out in 1902.
Mickey Mouse was the first popular character to grace the front of a lunch box, in 1935. But the lunch box as personal statement really took off in the 1950s, along with television. According to Whole Pop, executives at a Nashville company called Aladdin realized they could sell more of their relatively indestructible lunch boxes if they decorated them with the fleeting icons of popular culture; even if that Hopalong Cassidy lunch box was barely scratched, the kid whose newest fancy was the Lone Ranger would want to trade in his pail for the latest model.
Mickey Mouse Lunchbox. Photo courtesy of Flickr user fortinbras.
“Gunsmoke” by Aladdin Industries, 1959. Richard Strauss / SI
Cheap vinyl lunch boxes made a brief appearance in the 1960s, but metal continued to dominate the lunch box scene until the 1980s, when molded plastic—which was less expensive to manufacture—took over. Aladdin stopped making lunch boxes altogether in 1998, though Thermos continues to make them.
“Barbie” by Thermos L.L.C., 1962. Richard Strauss / SI
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has a sampling of images online from its lunch box collection, which includes some cool-looking miner’s pails and popular models from the 1950s and 60s, many of which are in this post.
“The Beatles” by Aladdin Industries, 1965; “Yellow Submarine” by Thermos L.L.C., 1968; “Psychadelic” by Aladdin Industries, 1969. Harold Dorwin / SI.
“Lost in Space” by Thermos L.L.C. 1967. Richard Strauss / SI.
“Julia” by Thermos L.L.C., 1969. Richard Strauss / SI.
“The Partridge Family” by Thermos L.L.C., 1971. Richard Strauss / SI.
“Harlem Globetrotters,” by Thermos L.L.C., 1971. Richard Strauss / SI.
“Woody Woodpecker” by Aladdin Industries, 1971. Harold Dorwin / SI.
“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Aladdin Industries, 1974. Harold Dorwin / SI.
“Kung Fu” by Thermos L.L.C., 1974. Harold Dorwin / SI.
“Knight Rider” by Thermos, 1981. Richard Strauss / SI.
What kind of lunch box did you carry?
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My very first lunchbox was Flipper and my second was a bright fuchsia colored Osmond lunchbox. I wish I still had my Flipper one!
The one I most remember was plastic and purple. My best friend had the same one in green!
[...] Back to school: a history of the lunch box. [Smithsonian] [...]
I had a Family Affair lunchbox and a Hot Wheels. I still have the Family Affair and several different Aladdin thermoses.
Great article and some interesting links too which I hadn’t seen before! I am a massive fan of the 1940s/50s boxes by given my age (34) my real favorites are ones from the 1980s. Dukes of Hazzard tops my list!
Ahhh, memories. Thanks for the article, I remember that Disney one!
I have an authentic Brady Bunch lunchbox and a Superfriends one. That marked the first two days I discovered Ebay. Had to banish myself from that site forever a few days after.
[...] http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2010/09/01/the-history-of-the-lunch-box/ [...]
Nice article! AND… I had that same lunchbox as a kid!! My old man has it somewhere in his garage!!!
I can’t remember my first lunch box, but the coolest was definitely my one with Evel Knievel jumping a bunch of cars on his motorcycle (picture here: http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/2500000/Evel-Knievel-Vintage-1974-Lunch-Box-lunch-boxes-2585716-800-717.jpg)
My kids’ soft, insulated boxes with no pictures are downright boring in comparison. Perfect post for back-to-school time!
I remember one of my early lunch boxes in elementary school. I used it to bash the head of a kid who bothered me! I was banned from the bus for two weeks, had to walk to school those two weeks , and write “I will not hit anyone on the bus” 100 times. But it was worth it. He didn’t bother me any more.
I had a Bionic Woman metal lunchbox…growing up, my neighbor (a boy) had an older sister and unfortunately had inherited her old “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” lunchbox! He HATED that lunchbox…bet he wishes he still had it now..could have sold it for a pretty penny!!
[...] in the sand over cartoon heroes, there will always be a future for the lunchbox. [WholePop via Smithsonian Mag Image credit: NMAH] Tagged:designfoodhistorylunchboxestaste [...]
[...] chalkboards, and menus with covers like the old black-and-white composition books. A collection of vintage lunch boxes on the wall. We would serve from-scratch versions of Hostess chocolate cupcakes (the kind with the [...]
I had an Aladdin lunchbox kit – red tartan rectangular metal box with a matching thermos. It was snazzy!
I have about 140 lunchboxes. I adore them. Great artwork, silly illustrations, lovely colors. I’d be happy to donate a few to the Smithsonian if they need a few more examples! :-)
I don’t remember my 1st lunchbox BUT I do remember I ALWAYS wanted the one shown above,Disney school bus. My mother would tell “Thats a boy lunchbox”
40 years later I found it on eBay (mint condition) ! !
Elizabeth III :-)
You must have lived in a rich neighborhood, everyone in my school carried their lunch in a paper bag.
Alas, I was one of those rare few subjected to the lowly “brown paper bag”!
The only one I ever had was a Batman & Robin lunchbox from when I was in first grade. One of the first days of the term, I was yelled at in the lunchroom by a teacher because the thermos was in the box. We had been told we weren’t allowed to bring the thermoses because the glass inside could break, and it was a safety hazard. I was very upset, probably even cried, because I knew I had told my mother we weren’t allowed to have the thermos. It was only when I went to eat my sandwich that I realized what had happened. My lunchbox and the exact same one of another student had gotten mixed up in the coat closet where we were told to leave them until lunchtime. When I unwrapped a cream cheese and jelly sandwich, something my mother would never have packed for me, I realized someone else had my box. Perhaps scarred by the incident, I walked home for lunch most days for the next six years. This was the 1960s, and that was still allowed then.
Though I didn’t save that box, my very first purchase on eBay, years later, was that same Batman & Robin box. Without a thermos! The kits with thermoses were far more expensive; my assumption is that many of the thermoses were thrown out because kids were not allowed to bring them to school just as I wasn’t, and the scarcity drove up the price of the kits that still had them.
Remember many of these. I never had one, family couldnt afford them
Metal lunchboxes may have been mostly supplanted by plastics nowadays, but I still think they’re the better choice: my kids inevitably tore through the soft plastic cloth before the end of a school year. A slightly dented metal box is still a perfectly useful metal box.
(This year, I sent my son off to school with a TARDIS-imprinted metal lunchbox. He told his classmates it was bigger on the inside.)
I had a Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids box for a while. Hey, Hey, Hey!!!
Great post, i also build a price guide for vintage lunch boxes here http://www.greatestcollectibles.com/lunch-box-price-guide/ hope its helpful.
thanks
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea http://www.flickr.com/photos/treaspaulsbsmt/7052373351/
My first lunch box was a dark blue box with Roy Roger’s horse Trigger rearing on the front. Loved that box. It saw me all the way through grade school. Years later I read in a lunch box book that the artist did a lot of food advertising art and that Trigger looked a lot like a rearing Cornish game hen.
I still have my Lost in Space lunchbox. I actually used it at work for a year. It was well received. I found out how much it’s worth, retired it and cleaned it up. It’s now on display in my sci-fi museum area in my home.
One of my delinquent buddies quit school at 16 in 1969 to embark on a scavenger career. He cruised the alleys in the Chicago area suburbs and NW Indiana with a pick-up and trailer collecting rags, metal, furniture and whatever else he could sell for recycling or to “junke shoppes”. He hung onto old printed lunch boxes, radios with that had Elvis, Hopalong Cassity or others on them along with anything else that looked cool while stoned on weed. He’s been doing the same thing all these years and is cementing his retirement thru E-bay selling off all the wierd crap he’s saved. He used the printed lunch boxes to hold small items related to the characters printed on them, like toys, doll clothes, doll parts, accessories, Happy Meal toys, etc. Says there’s a lively market for all that mess, too!
Where we lived (in the 50′s) everyone went home for lunch except for a few kids. The rest of us envied them with their cool metal boxes. We would plead with our parents to let us stay in school for lunch so we could get a box with a favorite character on it, but it never worked.
The only one I ever remembering having was Annie Oakley and Tagg. I had a pony and a be-be(?) gun and pretended I was Annie Oakley. Thanks for bringing back great memories!
In Nebraska, 1973 or 1974, my mom let me get a Speed Buggy, with dreamy Cory on one panel. Later, my mom picked out this (totally NC) soft, plastic, zippered, weird, textured, oval, starfish-patterned, nerd alert lunch tote. I hated it and wanted to use my Speed Buggy, but she had thrown it out. I’m still scarred.
My husband, who used to get one each year (envy!) said he had an Evel Knievel, Six Million Dollar Man, AND Star Wars! What a brat!
My mom went the vinyl route. Fire engine red with a generic rocketship and spaceman theme. Never used the thermos, as our school served cold milk.