Have No Fear, A McDonald's is Near!
By: Michael W. Kramer
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            During World War II, advances in transportation, mass-manufacturing, and technological innovation successfully aided allied troops in defeating the axis powers who, primarily on the eastern front, suffered from starvation. After the war, beginning in southern California, restaurants across the nation had an excellent opportunity to harness such new technologies to supply consumers, rather than soldiers, with the food they desired producible at a much faster rate.
            In 1954, an atmosphere of fear loomed large over the country during the early years of the Cold War. In the minds of the population, the fear that sinister forces were conspiring to corrupt American society were omnipresent throughout the nation. As a result, the government and businesses faced the problem of having to guarantee to civilians that the nation and the American way of life were safe. The fear that forces out of ones own control could jeopardize ones security is natural to the human condition. While people needed security from out-of-sight forces threatening their security, they also needed to be convinced that the ingredients in their food were also safe for consumption.
            When McDonald’s restaurants began to spread eastward, they eased American’ fears by assuring them the foods they were consuming were uniquely American, fresh, tasty, affordable, and constantly available. The nine menu items sold at the first franchised McDonald's in Des Plaines, IL, was where a revolution occurred in the food industry as the scientifically-studied foods sold supplied customers with exactly what they wanted but also needed at the time. An analysis of the Des Plaines menu advertised in the Des Plaines journal (fig. 1) will indicate that although many were hesitant at first to eat McDonald's food, the instant gratification of simple and fresh quality wholesome American food made it nearly impossible for area residents to resist eating.1
            The nationwide success of McDonald's was due largely to the entrepreneurial skill of Ray Kroc in marketing the self-service system developed earlier in San Bernardino, CA, by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald. Prior to the Des Plaines McDonald's opening on April 15, 1955, consumers acceptance to eating fast food had long been established in southern California. Between 1920 and 1940, the population of southern California had nearly tripled as near 2 million people arrived from across the United States. As Eric Schlosser claims, "during the Great Depression, restlessness, impermanence, and speed were embedded in the culture that soon emerged there, along with an openness to anything new."2
            The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 and the creation of roads united the country from the east coast to the west coast, which as the cost of automobiles dramatically lowered, intrastate and interstate travel times decreased. As demonstrated by the post-war growth of uniform “Levittown” communities, homogenized suburban communities of like-minded individuals increased across the country. As post-war employment soared, such communities would benefit from the availability of purchasing a satisfying meal without having to wait at sit-down restaurants to be served or prepare often time-consuming home-made meals.
            In 1948, after the McDonald brothers realized that most of their profits came from selling hamburgers, they closed down their successful carhop drive-in in San Bernardino for three months. During that time, they studied their previous menu offerings in order to determine how to better compete with rival fast-food restaurants in the area (such as Carl's Drive-In Barbecue, Dairy Queen, and Tastee-Freeze). The three months in 1948 that McDonald's was closed would forever change the way that people live and eat. By changing their menu to having only nine items, the McDonald brothers devised a method of mass-producing hamburgers as their studied showed that they were accounting for 80% of their total sales. The implementation of an assembly line production called the "Speedee Service System" served customers in less than sixty seconds and the prices were setup to be much lower compared to the competition. Keeping the menu simple, without giving people the ability change the size of an item (even adding or removing hamburger toppings was not allowed), was perhaps the most important choice the McDonald brothers ever made because they realized that simplicity and uniformity sells.
            By 1955, eight McDonald's restaurants had been established throughout California and at each location, profits were rising. Although the McDonald brothers were hesitant at first to franchise their restaurant and expand outside of California, a humble salesperson of a multi-mixer shake machine, Ray Kroc, arrived and having been so impressed with the restaurant setup convinced them otherwise. Kroc witnessed in southern California that the success of fast food chain restaurants, if spread to the heartland of America, would be a worthwhile endeavor. He denotes in his autobiography, "the McDonald brothers had clearly developed a vastly different system, tailor-made for a postwar America that was faster paced, more mobile, and more oriented to conveniences and instant gratification."3
            John C. Super agrees and argues that socioeconomic and cultural changes (such as the entry of women into the labor market and geographic dispersal of families throughout after World War II), combined with industrialization and commercialization of food, have eroded traditional food practices. In such an environment, the fast-food industry had few serious obstacles in increasing its presence around the world. McDonald’s, with its successful combination of sound management and effective use of nutritional universals, easily beat the competition in the 1950s.4
            In order to succeed outside of California, Kroc believed that success would result by not changing the menu or deviating from the basic format the McDonald brothers had previously developed. When comparing the 1955 Des Plaines menu to the first 1948 San Bernardino menu, we notice the menu items and prices are exactly the same.(fig. 2)5 Kroc intentionally designed the menu and he made the Des Plaines location function as a prototype for future franchises in the area. Shortly after the Des Plaines restaurant opened, Kroc strictly enforced a rule forbidding any newly created McDonald's franchises from ever changing the menu or items served.
            By building off of the techniques that made Henry Ford's Model-T automobile easily replicable and producible, Kroc proved that uniformity, reliability, speed of service, and low costs of menu items would, without a doubt, become the standard by which all other fast-food and sit-down restaurants would need to adapt to in order to be successful. As McDonald’s historian John F. Love writes, Kroc "made major operation changes to improve efficiency and encourage system-wide consistency, those changes were refinements and not fundamental alternation of what the McDonald brothers had invented."6 In a sense, he realized that the menu was not broken so there was no need to fix it. Instead, winning the approval and acceptance of middle-class families would be the key to McDonald's future success.
            The appeal of the McDonald's simple nine-item menu indicates to us that Kroc never attempted to advertise the restaurant as an option for upper-class families to frequent. Instead, Kroc focused specifically on the middle-class, which was the largest untapped majority of the population at the time. Historically, upper class people consider foods often consumed by those in the lower or middle-classes as undesirable to eat. Schlosser brilliantly summarizes, "elitists have always looked down at fast food, criticizing how it tastes and regarding it as another tacky manifestation of American Popular culture."7 The menu, prices, and speed of service indeed demonstrate that the intention of the original nine-item McDonald's menu was never designed to appeal to or serve those in the upper class.
            Eating McDonald foods in the 1950s was then, and still is today, regarded by upper class people and those in their tight-knit circle of rich friends as being a sign of weakness, embarrassment, or even laughable course of action. Formal sit-down dinners with appetizers, a main course, and desert remain the cultural norm reserved for those primarily in the upper class. However, middle-class people do also attend fancier restaurants complete with gourmet chefs, servants, and often lower-class workers performing the essential cooking and serving duties albeit they have historically done so far-lesser occasions. In the early 1950s as well as today, for all classes of citizens, consuming McDonald’s food on certain days such as religious holidays, picnics, family barbecues, tailgating during sporting events, and various other days considered sacred , remains unheard of as American culture has a strict divide between times when fast-food can or cannot be consumed.
            Shortly before the McDonald's in Des Plaines opened, Kroc made a decision, which would dramatically aid in the restaurants growth. In order to appeal to families more, Kroc decided to eliminate anything that could be a distraction and create obstacles that could make middle-class customers hesitant to visit the restaurant. Noticing that business at the leading hamburger restaurant in Chicago, IL, White Castle, failed to appeal to middle-class families, he enforced a rule that at the Des Plaines location (as well as future restaurants) that there would be “no pay telephones, no juke boxes, and no vending machines of any kind in McDonald's restaurants." Kroc determined that such polluting devices created unproductive traffic in a store as well as encouraging loitering that could prevent customers from peacefully ordering and obtaining their food. Kroc writes that removing such items was a key decision as having kept them his restaurant they "would downgrade the family image we wanted to create for McDonald’s."8
            By emphasizing speed and constantly improving the “Speede Service System,” McDonald's fast service would lure in more customers as the leading hamburger chain in the area, White Castle, did not have a system of production designed for high-speed self-service. Kroc realized that White Castle's counter seating, flatware service, and only two short-order cooks did not foster an environment where food was easily servable to the largest quantity of the middle-class population. The ability to buy, consume, and then discard every item on the menu allowed McDonald’s eaters the freedom to not have to use spoons, knives (historically representative of violence), and forks. As a result, hands-only eating allowed people to eliminate the time consuming task of preparing, serving, and cleaning up after the meal was finished. As Love argues, the keys to McDonald's success in beating the competition was the result of "self-service, paper service, and quick service, and there was nothing in the food service business that remotely resembled it."9 In addition, by studying the times when business was heaviest, McDonald's was able to better anticipate when customers were most likely arrive. By preparing menu items ahead of time, McDonald was then able to provide something that White Castle could not accomplish.
            A more detailed study of the Chicago, IL, White Castle menu (fig. 3) from 1952 proves to us that the existence of jukeboxes surely limited their audience to primarily teenage customers whose increasingly rebellious behavior and new love of rock and roll music at the time would prevent more mature adults from being able to enjoy their meal in a peaceful environment. 10
           Furthermore, the small, medium, and large drink sizes made it necessary for White Castle employees to cater to each individual’s choice of size. As a result, three different size beverage cup stacks would slow the speed of food delivery while also cluttering valuable service area space. White Castle’s founding in 1920, however, did aid in breaking the taboo that existed at the time in the northern Illinois area against eating hamburgers. The name itself references the color White which, historically, has been an indicator that food is safe and pure for consumption. Also, White Castle prepared the food out in the open behind glass windows so customers could see for themselves their order was being safely prepared.11
            A similar popular restaurant chain that existed in the 1950s was Bob's Big Boy. A review of a 1952 menu (fig. 4) shows us just how dramatically McDonald's fast-food menu differed from that of a sit-down restaurant menu. As the menu indicates, the items were not ready made, non-disposable plates were required, the large variety of items would create lengthy amounts of time to decide what to eat, and the dinners were eight to nine times more expensive.12 Additionally, the more detailed menu and plethora of food options fosters indecision in people’s minds when deciding what to order. A customer could then finish their meal and regret they ordered it because it not up to their standards. Jealousy could also result if family, friends, or strangers in the vicinity were expressing delight and that the different item they ordered was tastier.
            The Big Boy menu, however, did offer a wider variety of healthier products including salads, beans, tomatoes, and deserts of which McDonald’s did not serve until decades later. As the speed and pace of life increased throughout the 1950s, the convenience of eating McDonald's food would only increase once it was offered and promoted to more people. As people's lives became more fast-paced, in order to supply people with the food they demanded, the fast service that McDonald's provided surely created temptations that made it almost impossible for people pressed for time and on a low budget to resist. As Love explains, “there are many reasons why McDonald's wound up dominating an industry where no one had a special advantage, its competitors agree on only one: McDonald's took more seriously the task of building a uniform operating system … same quality of food and service time after time, restaurant after restaurant "13 Therefore, uniformity of operation matched with uniform food serving, created a competitive food service environment which McDonald’s competitors would find difficult to compete against.
            Uniformity was the key to Kroc’s early success at the Des Plaines location as the popularity of his store and profits it accumulated soared beyond his expectations. The emphasis on continually perfecting his product, while sticking to the same menu items, was due to him making unconventional preparations methods conventional. Success resulted from uniformity, detailed study, and usage of the latest technological advancements. Love writes that Kroc's success was due to him "showering the lowly hamburger, french fry, and milk shake with more attention, more study, and more research than anyone had dreamed of doing." With such a limited amount of offerings that required perfecting, Kroc structured his early operating staff with people who had no background at all in the restaurant business. One of the pioneers in mastering the production process was Fred Turner, who together with Kroc, forever revolutionized how food was prepared. As Love writes, “the lack of conventional restaurant training became a plus, not a handicap” as McDonald's was the first to achieve efficiencies in food service in part because it was the first to benefit from specialization.14
            Although Kroc’s emphasis on simplicity and uniformity menu items aided in McDonald’s success, the exterior of the restaurant and the implementing of the, now famously recognized, symbol of the “golden arches” also dramatically aided in the future growth and continued profitability of new establishments. Alan Hess provides one of the best studies of design of the arches. He writes, the simple symbol was inviting, welcoming, and comforting to highway motorists who, by visually recognizing the arches, had a reliable low-cost restaurant that always quickly satisfied their appetites.15
            The architectural design of the inside of the restaurant enabled the first Des Plaines McDonald’s to serve customers year round. Again utilizing the skills of architects, Kroc added a basement that preserved the freshness of all nine food items while still preserving the quality of the product. By freezing items and still serving them fresh, Kroc and his architectural planners were successfully able to duplicate the items sold in California.
            Perfecting all nine items on the menu was a monumental accomplishment. Yet, we notice that the majority of the menu items sold before the 1950s, (milk products, soda, and coffee) already had earned the trust of most people as they saw them safe and pure beverages to drink. As a result, the drink offerings presented customers with a sense of familiarity. Along with Milk, the Coca-Cola, Orange, and Root Beer sold provided families with a safe, non-alcoholic, and pure beverage, which all family members could enjoy. All that was necessary when McDonald's first opened was to perfect the hamburger and french fries.
            While the beverages on the menu were accepted long before McDonald's opened in Des Plaines, mid-westerners (unlike Californians who at the time had far less concerns about hamburger consumption) who were previously hesitant to consume meat because they were afraid the product may contaminated, not fresh, and/or not to their liking had to have their fears eased. Easing middle-class fears was one of the greatest obstacles that McDonald's overcame and which White Castle did not. The success of McDonald's would eventually break down any remaining barriers that people had towards eating hamburger in the decades prior to 1950.
            After studying the production techniques of Chicago area butchers, Kroc and restaurant planners decided that the beef in their hamburgers would be strictly comprised of 83% lean-chuck shoulder and 17% choice-plate lower ribcage all obtained from grain-fed cattle. While other restaurants at the time claimed to sell 100% natural beef hamburgers that was not the case. In the 1950s, lax government regulations existed which verified the quality and safeness of beef products. As Love claims, during the 1950s, "cheating was the rule, not the exception"16 as to what type of beef made up a hamburger patty. Rather than purchasing the beef from different butchers in the area, Kroc, with his salesman background, convinced and rewarded individual butchers would who provide his restaurants with consistent and never changing beef that would not alter the taste making people afraid that they may obtain a bad piece of meat.
            While the hamburger was the centerpiece and focus in the early days of McDonald's, it was far easier to perfect compared to french fries of which uniformity was near impossible before McDonald's devised a way to accomplish the task. Schlosser explains that perfecting a uniform size, taste, and even smell of fries was difficult because achieving french-fry perfection depended not on the “type of potatoes that McDonald's buys, the technology that processes them, or the restaurant equipment that fries them." Instead, the mouthwatering taste of fries is "largely determined by the cooking oil."17
            Kroc knew what people demanded, and as hamburgers demonstrated, the same uniformity needed accomplishing to guarantee consistency. Kroc, together with Turner, went as far as creating a laboratory in suburban Chicago to devise a method for making the perfect fried potato in the late 1950s. They determined that the perfect formula would be using 7% cottonseed oil and 93% beef tallow, which would cook potatoes to perfection albeit the fries had more beef fat per ounce than the McDonald’s hamburger.18 In addition, to make sure people always received desirable fresh fries, Kroc implemented a rule that fries not served within seven minutes were never sold. With the ends already determined, all that mattered was finding a way to perfect the means to making the perfect french fry. Together Kroc and Turner mastered the art of producing the now famous fries consumed by billions across the globe. Their success is evident as today four out of five people who visit McDonalds’s order fries with a hamburger. Kroc is quoted as once saying, “french fries gave us an identity and exclusiveness because you couldn't buy french fries anywhere to compete with ours. You could tell the results of the tender loving care.”19
            Kroc bettered his competitors because he also continually adapted and improved his production methods based on the studies and advice he sought and received from individuals outside the restaurant business. Kroc grasped scientific advances in the years after World War II immediately and as a result, the emphasis on producing a clean, quality, and tasty product were the original keys to McDonald’s success. Schlosser agrees, as he writes that McDonald’s was the first fast-food restaurant to utilize new technological inventions and nowadays "the leading fast food chains still embrace a boundless faith in science – and as a result have changed not just what Americans eat, but also how their food is made."20
            By appealing to families instead of teenagers or lower-class citizens, McDonald's sales soared because they earned the trust of the middle-class. However, more importantly, they convinced parents as well as children that their food was safe. Therefore, once they begin to add new items to the menu, baby-boomer area children would grow to accept new items added to the menu without any fear. Margaret Visser explains this well as she argues that “the language one learns to speak, and the food one is accustomed to eat in childhood, are two of the most fundamental preservers of an adult's social and racial identity.”21
            By keeping the menu items the same for so long of a time, the middle-class population willingly accepted McDonald's into their lives and they trusted the restaurant and knew that any new menu items would be welcomed and many people would be eager to try. As Visser argues, the sense of adventurousness people have when consuming new foods for the first time “has become an aspect of consumerism; it is in addition a cultural expression of one cardinal principles of modern ideology, which is mobility.”22
            Conrad P. Kottak argues that the success of McDonald's also was based on the security offered in ordering and consuming the food rather than the taste of the food itself. Kottak argues that Americans who consume McDonald's products are “experiencing something comparable in some respects to a religious ritual.” Also, he believes that while “McDonald's is definitely a mundane, secular institution – just a place to eat – it also assumes some of the attributes of a sacred place.” While frequenting McDonald's, he found that there was a “degree of formality and behavioral uniformity on the part of both staff and customers.”23
            Kottak's findings suggest that McDonald's indeed is similar to a place of worship. As people migrate from one place to another (both foreign and/or domestic), by patronizing a church of their religious denomination, they feel a sense of comfort and acceptance. Similarly, wherever a McDonald's exists, fears of consuming contaminated or undesirably foods are eliminated and the restaurant becomes “a home away from home (where) Americans know how to behave, what to expect, what they will eat, and what they will pay.”24 In addition, by easing the fears of foreigners visiting a new area, McDonald’s speed of service also allows people to escape the freighting prospect of having to eat around others. The original menu used in San Bernardino, and then Des Plaines, demonstrates that the uniformity that Kroc implemented while building new franchises created a global restaurant chain where the setting, architecture, food, ambiance, acts, and utterances were all familiar therefore creating a safe-haven of which little or no fear of the unknown would exist.
            Visser also agrees with Kottak as she believes that the uniformity McDonald's products offer accomplish the peace that people so instinctively need. Visser writes, “travel as far as you like, and it will always be as though you were still at home, in the arms of the parent company … uniformity, as every chain retailer is aware, makes good economic sense.” In addition, the “uniformity and the sheer volume of the food supplied by fast-food chains are also expressions of our democratic aspirations. Everybody gets the same list of choices, everywhere.”25
            George Ritzer further proves that the cultural relevance of the first McDonald’s menu changed the eating habits of people across the nation (and eventually the world). Ritzer concludes that since McDonald's (as well as other similar fast-food restaurants) began serving food, predictability is the driving motive for repeat visitors because people want to know what to expect when they enter a given setting.
                Regardless of race, gender, nationality, and age, McDonald's has helped to unite the nation as a whole as their logo and cultural impact has made the hamburgers and fries they sell a symbol of American influence in the world. Kottak summarizes this brilliantly as he suggests:

By eating at McDonald's, not only do we communicate that we are hungry, enjoy hamburgers, and have inexpensive tastes but also that we are willing to adhere to a value system and a series of behaviors dictated by an exterior entity. In a land of tremendous ethnic, social, economic, and religious diversity, we proclaim that we share something with millions of other Americans.26

            The nine menu items originally sold by McDonald’s has provided people with uniformity and freedom from fear of which, in the twenty-first century, as international transportation and the Internet has aided in allowing, such uniformity is now shared globally and serves to unite people rather than divide. McDonald's has indeed helped play a role in uniting people of different backgrounds. In this context, Kottak writes that McDonald’s:

Has become one of many new and powerful elements of American culture that provide common expectations, experience, and behavior - overriding region, class, formal religious affiliation, political sentiments, gender, age, ethnic group, sexual preference, and urban, suburban, or rural residence.27

            Nonetheless, there are times when eating at McDonald's is not appropriate. While it serves to appeal highly to the middle-class, Kottak reaffirms that a meal at McDonald's is usually confined to ordinary, everyday life. Although fast-food restaurants are open virtually every day of the year, most Americans do not go there on Thanksgiving, Easter, Passover, or other religious and quasi-religious days. As was in early cultures, traditional home-cooked meals are still formal events at which fast food is rarely, if ever, served to family and friends. Therefore, if given the time, it is possible that people would eat fast food less if the demands of everyday life were not so dependent upon working eight or more hours a day five or more days a week.
            Indeed, it is commonly accepted by all that there is a general acceptance for everybody that there are specific times when fast-food is inappropriate and (even shameful to consume) as formal family meals at home or at sit-down restaurants will always exist as a legitimize and more formal option for people to go.
            The ability to eat hamburgers and fries, when combined with low price and lack of threatening utensils, has made cutting up and distributing the tastiest portions of a food item outdated. The art of carving has historically has been a worthy skill for men to learn. However, that skill is no longer necessary, as often dividing the number of hamburgers up amongst family members now suffices. The informalities fast food has provides have removed the constraints that previously prevented people more freely and casually enjoying their food. The necessity of having to sit at a table and eat with plates is now not necessary as eating and drinking fast food allows people to eat while standing up, driving, or performing other non-sitting actions.
            McDonald’s has also influenced and changed the gender roles of male and females as fast food has eliminated the traditional hierarchical or patriarchy rituals that women have historically performed in feeding their family and being subordinate to providing food to men. Visser brilliantly summarizes the informalities of fast-food restaurants best. She explains:

There is no involvement with the personnel of the restaurant (whether male or female). Everything is impersonal; the very language used in ordering and serving may be pre-learned, almost ritualized. The method prevents time waiting and possibly complex exchanges, and irrelevant chat. It is all so honed-down, rational, and predictable that it is difficult to imagine how we could further mechanize the process.28

            As McDonald’s has now spread across the world, some people view McDonald's as a corrupting and invading conquering force out to impose Western consumer culture throughout the world. Johan Goldberg argues to the contrary as he concludes that the reality is a McDonald's sprouts up naturally wherever socioeconomic conditions have resulted in the stability for a franchise to be built. In addition, when McDonald's spreads globally, it is not as much as a sign that McDonald's is spreading Americanism, but rather that a country is raising its own standards.
            As demonstrated in 1950s America, the expansion of McDonald's franchise was the natural product of postwar American prosperity. Once McDonald’s spread to Des Plaines, the simple nine-item menu has grew exponentially in the decades that followed and the continued success of the restaurant around the world has forever changed the course of history.29
            As argued by Goldberg, his study of anti-McDonald's movements since the end of the Cold War demonstrate show us that as societies transform into more consumer-orientated economies, the seeds are planted therein and rather than fertile soil resulting where food can grow, a McDonald's is erected as modern technology makes it possible for instantaneous year round food to be served to so many people. However, global climate change since the 1950s will threaten McDonald’s and other restaurants future success. Nearly all of the items on a McDonald’s menu utilize some form of corn products. With the price of corn always fluctuating due to global warming and more dramatic climate change, the world economy so highly dependent upon corn could threaten the low costs of food that McDonald’s has perpetually provided.
            A further analysis of the Des Plaines nine-item menu allows us to note what staple food items were not on the menu. Although McDonald’s had it’s origins in California, despite the climate there being perfect for fruit and vegetable growth year round, the more nutritious staple items that could have been provided to people were missing from the menu. The results of not adding healthier items has increased the obesity rate of the country and fruit and vegetable intake since the 1950s has steadily declined in adults and children while diabetes has increased. Had the McDonald brothers and Kroc decided to add fruits and vegetables as a tenth and eleventh items on the original menu, the appeal of the restaurant would have been even greater as health-conscious citizens would also have an option to visit. Also, while burgers and fries can be easily consumed by using only the hands, so too can a large amount of fruits and vegetables.
            The original McDonald's menu, as demonstrated by the analysis conducted on the Des Plaines menu, now serves as a foundation of modern businesses everywhere. The means of production and emphasis on speedy service has resulted in all restaurants and even other businesses constantly altering and improving their products so the most desirable end product results. The original McDonald’s menu has set the standards that all restaurants and businesses in our modern society follow. The readily available foods, which Ray Kroc first envisioned in Des Plaines, have not only changed the way the world eats, but also the way cultures of the world live. No matter where one resides or travels throughout the world, when the golden arches are in sight, hunger can be easily satisfied as people need not have any fear when they know a McDonald’s is near.
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Footnotes:

1 Des Plaines Journal, “McDonald's Advertisement,” April 14, 1955, 8. Advertisement is also available at http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/09/worlds-first-mcdonald-restaurant.html.
2 Rick Schlosser, Fast-Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001), 16.
3 John F. Love, McDonald's: Behind the Arches, rev. ed. (New York: Bantam Books, 1995), 19.
4 John C. Super, “Food and History,” Journal of Social History 36, no. 1 (2002).
5 John Guarini, “McDonald's First Location in San Bernardino,” Huffington Post, last modified October 10, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/mcdonalds-first-location_n_1940249.html.
6 Love, 41-42.
7 Schlosser, 9.
8 Ray Kroc, Grinding it Out: The Making of McDonald's, ed. Robert Anderson, rev. ed. (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1987), 84.
9 Love, 18-19.
10 White Castle Hamburger Menu: 1985, last modified September 28, 2009, http://chuckmanplaces.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/white-castle-hamburger-menu-1952/.
11 Schlosser, 197-198.
12 Bob's Big Big Boy Menu from the 50s, last modified August 5, 2006, http://www.nhhs54.org/gallery/main.php? g2_itemId=1668.
13 Love, 114.
14 Love, 120.
15 Alan Hess, “The Origin's of McDonald's Golden Arches,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 45, no. 1 (1986): 60-67.
16 Love, 130.
17 Schlosser, 120.
18 In 1990, amid a public barrage of criticism, McDonald's switched to pure vegetable oil.
19 Ray Kroc, quoted in John F. Love, McDonald's: Behind the Arches, rev. ed. (New York: Bantam Books, 1995), 121.
20 Schlosser, 6.
21 Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner (New York: Penguin, 1991), 42.
22 Visser, The Rituals of Dinner, 44.
23 Conrad P. Kottak, “Rituals at McDonald's,” Natural History 87, no. 1 (2002), 75.
24 Kottak, 75.
25 Margaret Visser, Much Depends on Dinner, 2nd ed. (New York: Grove Press, 2008), 118.
26 Kottak, 82.
27 Kottak, 82.
28 Visser, Much Depends on Dinner, 119.
29 Johan Goldberg, “The Specter of McDonald's: An Object of Bottomless Hatred,” National Review, June 5, 2000.
Bibliography:

Bob's Big Big Boy Menu from the 50s. Last modified August 5, 2006. http://www.nhhs54.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=1668.
Des Plaines Journal. “McDonald’s Advertisement.” April 14, 1955 http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/09/worlds-first-mcdonald-restaurant.html.
Fischler, Claude. “Food, Self, and Identity.” Social Science Information 27, no. 2 (1988): 275-92.
Goldberg, Johan. “The Specter of McDonald's: An Object of Bottomless Hatred.” National Review. June 5, 2000, 29-32.
Guarini, Drew. “McDonald's First Location in San Bernardino.” Huffington Post. Last modified October 10, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/mcdonalds-first-location_n_1940249.html.
Hess, Alan. “The Origins of McDonald's Golden Arches.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 45, no. 1 (1986): 60-67.
Kottak, Conrad P. “Rituals at McDonald's.” Natural History 87, no. 1 (1978) 75-83.
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Love, John F. McDonald's: Behind the Arches. Rev. Ed. New York: Bantam Books, Revised Ed. 1995.
Ritzer, George. “The McDonaldization of Society.” Journal of American Culture 6, no. 1 (1983): 100-107.
Schlosser, Rick. Fast-Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.
Super, John C. “Food and History.” Journal of Social History 36, no. 1 (2002): 165-178.
Visser, Margaret. Much Depends on Dinner. New York: MacMillan, 1986. ... The Rituals of Dinner. New York: Penguin, 1991.
White Castle Hamburger Menu: 1985. Last modified September 28, 2009. http://chuckmanplaces.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/white-castle-hamburger-menu-1952/.
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