Food Stamp Timeline
Evolution of the Current Program
1939 — Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace initiates the first food stamp program. The program permits people on relief to buy orange stamps equal to their normal food expenditures. The government reimburses them with blue stamps that can only be used to buy food determined by the Agriculture Department to be surplus. 1943 — The first food stamp program ends “since the conditions that brought the program into being — unmarketable food surpluses and widespread unemployment — no longer existed.” 1959 — After an 18-year interruption, Congress passes legislation authorizing the Secretary of Agriculture to operate a food stamp system….
