The U.S. Food Administration, Women, and the Great War: The Pennsylvania Food Conservation Train

Pictured here is one of many leaflets produced and distributed by U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food Administration to educate Americans about food conservation. The United States Food Administration was created by an Act of Congress on August 10, 1917 to provide further for the national security and defense by encouraging the production, conserving the supply, and controlling the distribution of food products. The Food Administration was a chiefly volunteer organization brought into being during World War I to assist in feeding the Allied forces.

The interior of one three train cars that were spanned by the educational exhibits. A collaborative endeavor, the Conservation Train was operated under the auspices of the U.S. Food Administration, Pennsylvania State College, and the Pennsylvania State Food Administration, and with the cooperation of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The Pennsylvania Food Conservation Train was a volunteer-operated mobile exhibit used to educate housewives and others in methods of food conservation.

This photograph depicts one of the female volunteers from Pennsylvania State College demonstrating recipes that save wheat by utilizing a variety of substitutes. The Conservation Train was outfitted with a complete kitchen, including a fully functioning gas stove, for demonstrations. Food conservation in the home was essential to the mission of the U.S. Food Administration, and the Conservation Train extended that mission by educating Pennsylvanians about methods of substitution and conservation . The goal was for America to increase its exports to a point that would allow the Allies to properly provision their armies and to feed their people during the coming winter. 

Women had an important role in winning the war: food conservation. Pictured here is an exhibit that included a diorama about how conserving food in the home could feed Pennsylvanian soldiers fighting abroad. A major theme of the Conservation Train was the importance of individual contributions to the national war effort. One of the exhibits showed that if everyone in Pennsylvania saved one ounce of sugar, one ounce of meat, two ounces of wheat flour, and one-third ounce of fat daily, then in one week enough food could be saved to supply the draft army of the state (60,859 men) with sugar for seven months, meat for two months, and flour for five months, and a large quantity of ammunition containing glycerin manufactured from the fat. 

An exhibit from the Conservation Train about the importance of proper food storage at home. The Conservation Train stressed that proper food storage was essential to food conservation. This exhibit showed women how to properly store and preserve foods in the home in order to waste less and make the most of their goods.

Another one of the exhibits that lined the walls of the Pennsylvania Food Conservation Train. The Conservation Train traveled throughout Pennsylvania during the summers of 1917 and 1918. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, and thus so did the activities of the U.S. Food Administration and the Pennsylvania Food Conservation Train. After the War ended, the U.S. Food Administration was gradually dismantled until an Executive Order of August 21, 1920, terminated all branches of the Food Administration still in existence.