Word: mcfiggins
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Dates: during 2009-2009
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...year history of food stamps in the U.S. began in May 1939, when unemployed factory worker Mabel McFiggin collected stamps to buy surplus butter, eggs and prunes in Rochester, N.Y. McFiggin was the first person to take advantage of the experimental program, designed to improve on Depression-era commodity-distribution systems developed to aid the needy and unload surplus wheat and other products bought by the government to support farm prices. Food stamps originally came in two colors: recipients bought orange stamps, which could be used for any kind of food, and they were given half that amount in free...
...While the Eisenhower Administration showed little interest in the idea, President Kennedy's election the following year marked a major turning point: moved by the abject poverty he witnessed on the campaign trail in West Virginia, Kennedy authorized a three-year food-stamp program beginning in 1961. Following in McFiggin's footsteps, Mr. and Mrs. Alderson Muncy of Paynesville, W.Va., inaugurated the Kennedy-era program, buying a can of pork and beans on May 29, 1961, to help feed their 15-person household. The Food Stamp Act, making the program permanent, was passed by Congress in 1964; it swelled...
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