SPEAKER_00: Hi! From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
This month we're pulling back the curtain to reveal women overlooked in their own lifetimes, or in our historical accounts of the eras in which they lived.
We're talking about the activists, thinkers, leaders, artists, and innovators history has
forgotten. Today we're talking about a woman who was determined to see that the poorest Americans wouldn't go hungry.
She was the first director of a federal food stamps program that still feeds more than 38 million Americans today.
Please welcome Isabel Kelly.
Isabel was born in Connecticut on July 27, 1917.
When it was time for Isabel to go to college, she was torn between physics and economics.
A counselor enrolled her in advanced physics and basic economics.
She was the only freshman in her advanced physics class, surrounded by juniors and seniors.
She was also the only woman.
She later described this experience as, "...the only time in my life I was conscious of being a girl."
Isabel went on to graduate from the University of Connecticut with a degree in agricultural economics, the first woman to do so.
After that, she got a master's in economics from Iowa State University.
By the time Isabel became a professional economist in 1940, it was a crucial time for the country.
As the Second World War waged on, the government was sending food to troops overseas and rationing the rest stateside.
Isabel was hired by the Department of Agriculture to develop ration requirements.
Another one of her early projects was the Penny Milk Program, which provided a half pint of milk to schoolchildren for just a penny.
It was one of the first federally organized programs to address school nutrition.
As the war came to an end, there was growing concern about childhood hunger.
Many American men claimed they had been rejected from serving in the military during World War II because of nutrition deficiencies.
So in 1946, Isabel attended a debate in the House of Representatives over the National School Lunch Act.
It was a new program that would offer free and reduced school lunches, ensuring that children received at least one nutritious meal a day.
At the debate, Representative Powell, a congressman from Harlem, fought for an amendment that would deny funding to schools that practiced discrimination in their lunch program.
In other words, if they refused to serve Black students, they'd lose their funding.
The amendment passed, and President Harry Truman signed the act into law that June.
Watching this, Isabel saw the power and impact her job had on the children who needed help the most.
The day after President John F. Kennedy's inauguration, he signed his first executive order.
It expanded existing food distribution programs for needy families.
With it, Isabel's job quickly expanded, too.
She was named to a four-person task force to design and implement a food stamp program.
In May of 1961, Mr. and Mrs. Alderson Muncy of West Virginia used the first-ever food stamps to buy a can of pork and beans to help feed their 15-person family.
By 1964, 380,000 participants across 22 states were using food stamps.
That same year, the Food Stamp Program Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
He called it, a realistic and responsible step toward the fuller and wiser use of our agricultural abundance.
At a time when very few women rose through government ranks, Isabel became the first
director of the food stamps division.
She was the first woman to lead a division and a national program for the USDA.
Within five years of taking the helm, Isabel oversaw a program that served millions of Americans and operated on a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 1973, after 33 years of work in public service, Isabel retired.
Her career spanned six presidential administrations.
She became a lecturer at Georgetown University and spent long hours at the country club golfing.
She still consulted with the federal government, helping ensure continued funding for the food program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Isabel passed away in 1997. She was 80 years old.
In 2011, she was inducted into the USDA Hall of Heroes.
Though often subject to national debates, the programs Isabel fostered are still in place today and help feed more than 38 million Americans.
All month, we're talking about women behind the curtain.
For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram, at Womanica Podcast.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!
