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What's in a lunch box?

Far more than a cheese sandwich and a thermos of milk, obviously.

An exhibit that will open today at Lexington's Headley Whitney Museum will highlight the lunch box's chapter in American design. "Lunch Box Memories" charts the lunch box from the 1860s to the 1980s, from recycled tobacco tins and lard pails to classical boxes illustrating heroes of popular culture such as Hopalong Cassidy, the Harlem Globetrotters, Miss America, Annie Oakley, Garfield, Snoopy, Superman, the Green Hornet, Bert & Ernie, the Lone Ranger and the Beatles.

The exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution makes its second stop on a national tour that continues through 2006. Drawn from the National Museum of American History and two private collections, the display may seem a sentimental journey back to the school yard, but it's also a serious look at the way design reflects culture.

The lunch box developed under several influences, including a newly mobile population of workers and school children in the 19th century who didn't have time to return home for a midday meal. With the advent of television in the early 20th century, the question was no longer what was in the lunch box, but what was on it. The great American pursuit of self-image by second-hand attachment to popular culture and its stars had begun in earnest.

The square face of the box was often designed to resemble a television screen and the heroes on it were posed like publicity shots from Hollywood studios. The watershed year was 1950. Aladdin Industries, already selling red and blue painted steel lunch kits to workers, took a chance and put decals of Hopalong Cassidy on a children's lunch kit. They sold 600,000 in the first year. It took Roy Rogers three years to persuade rival American Thermos to feature him and Trigger, but when the Roy Rogers box and bottle came out in 1953, 2.5 million were sold in that year alone.

The marketing world took note.

Illustrated children's lunch boxes rode a boom market until the 1970s, when metal lunch boxes used as potential weapons became an issue. Florida banned them in 1972 and many states followed suit. Thus began the rise of insulated, high-tech fabric thermal bags. Interestingly, these initially resembled paper lunch bags. They have evolved to resemble soft-sculpture lunch boxes.

Today, the lunch boxes of yesteryear are the stuff of collections, trading, conventions, Web sites and national traveling exhibitions. Those who collect and trade lunch kits, such as those on view at the Headley-Whitney, are known as "boxers." A serious collector is regarded as a "heavyweight boxer."

So, what's in a lunch box? Memories, perhaps, but also money. A mint-condition Superman box from 1954 sold for $11,999.99 on eBay in 2000 — the highest recorded price for a lunch box.

Pails' tale

With thanks to the Smithsonian and to LunchBoxPad.com:

1765: The fourth Earl of Sandwich, embroiled in a card game that brooked no delay for dinner, came up with the idea of eating sliced meat on bread slices from the hand.

1810: Tin plated cans are made in England, moving to the U.S. in 1825.

1847: Metal stamping patented in the U.S., producing printed tins for biscuits, tobacco and lard.

1860 to 1920: More than 300 patents are issued for lunch box designs.

1892: James Dewar of England invents the vacuum bottle, which is renamed the thermos in a German newspaper contest, after the Greek word, therme, for heat.

1911: American Thermos Bottle Co. puts thermos bottles in a workman's lunch kit.

1920: The first children's lunch kit is produced by American Thermos.

1925: Television appears.

1936: NBC begins broadcasting.

1947: Howdy Doody debuts.

1949: Hopalong Cassidy is broadcast.

1950: Aladdin Industries sells 600,000 Hopalong Cassidy lunch kits in one year.

1953: American Thermos brings out a Roy Rogers kit, which sells 2.5 million in one year.

1957: The first decorated dome kits appear, such as a Red Barn by American Thermos.

1959: The first vinyl boxes appear.

1962: Embossing is introduced on metal boxes. The first Brunch Bag with zipper and strap appears.

1972: Steel lunch boxes are banned in Florida.

1987: The last steel box made illustrates Rambo. Soft insulated storage containers dominate.

1998: Thermos Co. begins reproducing metal lunch boxes. The "boxing" hobby is in full swing.

2003: "Lunch Box Memories" exhibition is on national tour.

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