Lunch Box Beginnings
1950s Walt Disney Lunch Box
Lunch Boxes from the 1960s to 1980s
Current Lunch Boxes
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Lunch Box Beginnings

As with all antiques and collectibles, the history of the lunch box mirrors art and American history. The earliest lunch boxes were circa 1900 metal pails or re-used biscuit, tobacco, or candy tins. From the early 20th Century metal carry-alls that protected immigrant factory workers’ lunches to the post-war lunch boxes that accompanied suburban children to new elementary schools in the 1950s, the lunch box represents the American experience. 

Catering to its school age audience, the first modern and most popular lunchboxes featured cartoon, TV, and movie characters. Hopalong Cassidy was the first image on a lunchbox when Nashville’s Aladdin Company adhered a Hopalong de-cal to a traditional metal lunch boxes in 1950. Hopalong was the earliest image on a lunchbox, but in 1953, Roy Rogers became the first fully lithographic image on a lunchbox.

Metal lithography, a redundant stamp printing process, was used for marketing images that appeared on canned food products and on metal picnic baskets that featured images of plaid textiles or woven basket reed. The metal lithographic production for lunchboxes refers to the same type of repetitious printing process that stirred the early 1960s fine art market with reproduced images of, dare I say, Campbell’s Soup Cans by American Pop artist, Andy Warhol. 

Walt Disney Lunch Box

The yellow dome-shaped, metal lithographed Walt Disney School Bus lunchbox depicted a bus filled with Disney icons including Jiminy Cricket, Dumbo the Elephant, Pluto and, of course, Mickey. The mid 1950s Disney character lunch box appealed to the oldest and youngest of lunchbox aficionados—parents who grew up with Steamboat Willie cartoons and their children who dreamed of visiting California’s newest attraction, Disneyland. At $2.69, the Disney School Bus domed lunchbox was a pricey item in Universal’s 1956 product line. Yet, this lunchbox sells today on the secondary market for $300 to $500—of course, it commands its highest price on the resale market during Back to School week. 

Lunch Boxes from the 1960s to 1980s

In the 1960s, sassy vinyl-over-cardboard Barbie lunchboxes enticed little girls in colors ranging from light pink to hot pink. By the 1970s, school kids knew the answer to the question: “Scooby Doo, Where are You?” as the ultra-popular Scooby lunchbox was a winner for its fun form mimicking the cartoon’s highly recognizable Mystery Machine VW microbus. By the late 1980s, the lunchbox had evolved from a 1950s square metal carry-all hosting a PB & J sandwich to a molded plastic Cabbage Patch Kids container with a highly nutritious Reagan-era lunch: a can of New Coke and Pop Rocks. 

In 2004, Thermos, the lunchbox leader, donated its extensive vintage lunchbox collection to the Smithsonian. The premier American museum organized its current show, “Taking America to Lunch” featuring 75 lunch boxes ranging from 19th Century mining pails to 21st Century soft lunch packs. 

Current Lunch Boxes

Today’s lunchboxes address today’s concerns. The new Built NY lunch bag made of neoprene rubber has insolated storage sections and a built-in placemat for those less-than-sanitary lunch tables or eating on the run—both indicative of the culture of the 2000s. Another post-modern option reflects one of today’s most popular novels, The Da Vinci Code as a Da Vinci inspired lunchbox makes art history. For $10, your favorite lunch can be surrounded by a Renaissance masterpiece on metal.

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Dr. Lori
Director
Masterpiece Technologies Inc.