Fast Food

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Wendy Woloson

Even more than hotdogs and apple pie, the hamburgers and french fries found at ubiquitous fast food restaurants represent America's quintessential food and, in many ways, America's quintessential culture.

The rise of the fast food restaurant would not have been possible without concomitant changes in American culture. Beginning in the 1920s, thanks in large part to developments in technology and industry, the American lifestyle began to change. Formerly distinctive regional and ethnic cultures were now meeting up with each other, blurring differences in identity. More people were moving off the farm and into the city in search of lucrative and exciting careers. In addition, the widespread use of inventions like the telephone and the increasing acceptance of mass media meant that there was a larger degree of cultural interaction.

The development of an affordable automobile and the simultaneous governmental support of new road systems physically reinforced this cultural melding, enabling car owners, especially, to go to places they had never been before. This sparked a boom in the tourist industry: travelers who once went by rail, boat, or horse, were now moving faster by car, and began to value things such as speed and convenience as part of their trips. Not only did they need affordable and reliable places to stay, but they also needed similarly reliable places to eat.

While local diners and eateries offered good, wholesome home-cooked meals, they were often located far away from main thoroughfares, making them inconvenient for the interstate traveler. Travelers, however, were not the only ones eating on the run; private dining, once a formal ritual among family members and close friends, was becoming a thing of the past, and eating in public was becoming much more acceptable for everyone. The increased pace of life, especially in urban areas, meant that people no longer ate as a group around the table, but favored sandwiches and other foods that could be eaten quickly and on the go. Food carts had been familiar urban sites since the late 1800s, eventually evolving into more permanent "short order" joints and diners. Cafeterias like Horn and Hardart in Philadelphia featured Automat systems in the early 1900s that allowed people to extract foods such as pies, sandwiches, and entrees from vending machines for a penny or nickel. Food was becoming merely a fuel, like gasoline, for the human working machines.

The need for fast, reliable, affordable, and convenient food, along with an increasing acceptance among Americans of a more homogenous culture, led to the rise of the fast food industry, and in particular, of the hamburger's and french fries it served. Purveyors of fast food sprang up in both urban areas and along the nation's highways. During the 1920s, the hamburger experienced a complete change of identity that attested to Americans' collective willingness to accept the new culture of food service. At the beginning of the decade the humble meat patty, served between layers of bun and often garnished with onions, ketchup, and mustard, was considered a lowly, working-class food held largely in disrepute. At this time, most hamburger stands were located close to factories and in working-class neighborhoods. By the end of the decade, however, the hamburger had come into its own, gaining widespread popularity and being considered a staple food, as evidenced by the overwhelming success of the "hamburger stand." The cartoon Popeye even featured a character, Wimpy, who gorged himself on nothing but hamburgers.

The most successful of these stands quickly multiplied, taking advantage of the growing popularity of this new "fast" food and applied industrial principles of standardization to its development. White Castle, founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921 by Billy Ingram and Walt Anderson, is considered the first fast food restaurant. Anderson had originally been a fry cook who perfected one version of the hamburger--square with small holes for better cooking, topped with fried onions and placed on a bun of soft white bread. Ingram recognized the potential of this relatively simple food, devised a limited menu around it, and standardized its production so that the White Castle hamburger could be found in many different cities, but would be uniform. While White Castle was never the largest of the fast food chains, it was the first and most influential, beginning the franchise system that inspired many imitations, including White Tower, White Clock, Royal Castle, and White Palace.

The methods and success of White Castle outlets had many implications for business and culture. They sold their five-cent burgers "by the sack," and encouraged carry-out for those customers on the go. They also developed standard floor plans and architectural designs that could be easily duplicated wherever a new White Castle was to be erected. They standardized the operations of the cooks so that even human workers behaved like machine mechanisms. All of these things were implemented in order to produce a uniform product and to divest the hamburger of its formerly negative reputation as a working-class foodstuff made of dubious ingredients. In order to implement these ideas, White Castle even adopted a system of vertical integration: the company produced the white porcelain and steel panels used for its buildings, owned the bakeries that made its buns, and even started a company to make the disposable paper hats and aprons worn by its employees.