One of the most successful and longest-running commercials ever made came from Oscar Meyer, featuring a child fishing and singing a jingle about how his bologna is named Oscar Meyer.
In 1963, the New York Board of Education included bologna as an official lunch item, helping to feed the children in the country's largest public school system.
During the Great Depression, bologna was one of the most accessible foods to Americans. It was affordable and it kept well for long periods of time. This made the bologna sandwich a mainstay for many Americans and, also, how it garnered the reputation as something consumed during hard times.
In 1928, bread slicers were commercialized forever changing the way Americans eat. Going from something available almost exclusively at deli counters to a homemade, bagged-lunch, pushed bologna sandwiches into ubiquity in the pre-Depression America.