In the United States a lunchbox may also be termed a
lunch pail, David Shayt, curator of the
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, states that "Some of our earliest examples, from the 19th century, were woven baskets with handles. A meal would be wrapped in a handkerchief. Depending on your station, a fancy wooden box would be used by the wealthy."
Tinplate boxes and recycled biscuit tins commonly were used in the early 1800s, and fitted metal pails and boxes began to appear around the 1850s. Patents started to appear for lunchbox inventions in the 1860s.
Vacuum bottles, which enabled hot or cold beverages to remain at optimal temperature until lunchtime, became a common component of the lunch box. In 1920,
The American Thermos Bottle Co. produced "the first metal lunch box for kids" to aid selling their vacuum bottles. Manufacturers grew to include ADCO Liberty, Kruger Manufacturing Company, Landers, Frary and Clark (Universal), Okay Industries, and a number of other producers through the 1980s. The first use of plastics was the lunch box handle, but later spread to the entire box, with the first molded plastic boxes produced during the 1960s.
Vinyl lunch boxes debuted in 1959. During the 1960s, the lunch box had few changes. The vacuum bottle included in them, however, steadily evolved during the course of the decade and into the 1970s. What was originally a steel vacuum bottle with glass liner, cork or rubber stopper, and
bakelite cup became an all-
plastic bottle, with insulated foam rather than
vacuum. Aladdin produced glass liners into the 1970s, but they were soon replaced with plastic.
School safety Beginning in
Florida during the 1970s, In 2001, most major manufacturers began testing their lunch boxes for lead levels, remedying the issue, and labeling their boxes as lead-free.
Political symbolism In the United States, the lunch box or lunch pail has been used as a symbol of the
working class. The phrase "
lunch pail Democrat" is used to classify populist politicians who attempt to gain the votes of the working class.
The New York Times printed in 2008 that
Joe Biden is a lunch-bucket Democrat. While his father had been wealthy early in life, by the time Biden was born, the family was broke.{{cite news |newspaper=
The New York Times ==Outside the United States==