I did some searching in the MJP for the phrase "corn fed" and "victory gardens," and I'm surprised to say that I couldn't come up with anything too interesting. I was hoping to find some item like an advertisement or poster about Americans or troops being "corn fed." Perhaps a poster proudly displaying some stout, healthy, and young black or white man and/or woman working in his/her victory garden husking corn for the war effort. Or, I thought that maybe I would find a poster displaying happy soldiers sitting together for a hearty moment sharing a basket of corn, or, maybe a happy family scene at the table after a hard day's work with bags of wheat by the door (presumably to be sent off to the troops as part of the conservation movement) and a bundle of bright yellow corn and a stick of butter before the smiling eyes of a happy, American family. But, alas, no such luck. As a Midwesterner, I wondered (and still wonder) if the phrase "corn fed" could be traced back to the food conservation effort during World War I.

Jennifer D. Keene's article "Images of Racial Pride: African America Propaganda Posters in the First World War" discusses how the Food Administration and the Committee on Public Information went to great lengths to tap in to the patriotic sympathies of African American citizens. Keene notes, "Food Administration propaganda designed to underscore the key economic role that black cooks played in controlling food resources throughout the South provided official recognition of black women's power within the southern economy" (221). She goes on to explain that the Food Administration's propaganda would make its way into movie theaters that were known to service large black communities (221). The Food Administration also  "created a productive partnership with privately run black newspapers" and established a Negro Press Section (213). Keene states, "Many of the Food Administration's most famous propaganda  posters urging citizens to conserve sugar, wheat, and meat appeared as advertisements in black newspapers" (213). As a "helpful" suggestion to African American citizens and farmers, the Food Administration recommended that farmers grow more corn so they can send more wheat overseas as wheat stays fresh longer (213).

Certain press releases sent to the black press targeted the negative racial and class stereotypes behind having to eat a lot of corn in such a way to make corn, corn recipes, and the 'idea' of corn seem more appealing. Keene explains, "Press releases directed at the black press specifically addressed the prejudice that some blacks might have against incorporating corn into their daily diet. 'Corn, once upon a time, was always on the table either as cereal, bread, vegetable or desert....As a child we remember the humiliation we felt at having to eat corn bread, but how times have changed! In exclusive tea rooms...we find a large demand for corn bread, corn griddle cakes, mush, etc., and little or no call for pastry made of wheat" (213-14). If this press release (sent by the Food Administration) was sent to and appeared in the black press and used the term "we," then the use of "we" intends to cause the black press's African American readers to 'believe' that the writers of this press release as similar, like-minded blacks that share the same poverty stricken and racially scarred past. It describes how "we remember" that corn "was always on the table" like it was the poor, black man's only food choice "once upon a time" when blacks were even more disenfranchised than they are now. However, the (presumably) black writers of this press release want to reassure their black readers that not only has the "taste" of corn become more appealing in society, so too have these black writers become more "appealing" in society. They joyfully proclaim, "how times have changed" and imply to their readers that as black writers they have access to "exclusive tea rooms" that have an exorbitant, or "a large demand" for a wide variety of corn-based food. This seems to be a subtle move on the part of the writers of this press release because it implies that the writers - (presumably) black men - have bettered themselves by not only becoming writers but have improved their social status by gaining access into the private drawing rooms (presumably because of their profession) of the upper-crust, white society (read "exclusive" rooms that have "large demand[s]") where they revel together in a utopian scene full of corn! Aside from the subtle suggestion that the "we" of the press release - featured in the black press - are black writers who have moved up in the world and that their audience is similarly capable of doing so because "times have changed," at the very least, the press release wants black people to think that being "corn fed" is no longer something to avoid or dislike, but, instead, it is something that is "exclusive" and desirable. 

Growing up, I always thought that being "corn fed" just meant that you lived in the country (near corn), and you were strong. I wonder if my sanitized, modern-day understanding of the idiom "corn fed" may actually have more racially motivated, class related, and governmentally propagandistic roots.