Sunny Side Up: The Storied Past of America's Most Important Meal of the Day

This thesis explores the role of breakfast as a reflection of American culture and history as it pertains to social perspectives of morality, war, gender, race, immigration, sexuality and popular media. This project critiques conventional explanations of political, economic and social history regarding the cultural manifestation of breakfast over the last 150 years in the United States. It attempts to answer how intersections of time and space, race and class, society and culture, explain the not always clear meaning of food. The intersectionality of the research within this project is representative of the depths of human character and identity that can be found when the influences of breakfast are examined. By exploring new dimensions of the past that have previously been overlooked, entire facets of breakfast history and American culture are uncovered, leading to emergent connections and interpretations of our collective past.