The eighteen years between the end of the first FSP, DSP and the inception of the next were filled with studies, reports and legislative proposals. Prominent U.S. Senators actively associated with attempts to enact a food stamp program during this period are George Aiken, Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Hubert Humphrey, Estes Kefauver and Stuart Symington. From 1954 on, U.S. Representative Leonor Sullivan strove unceasingly to pass food-stamp-program legislation. On September 21, 1959, P.L. 86-341 authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to operate a food-stamp system through January 31, 1962. The Eisenhower Administration never used the authority. However, in fulfillment of a campaign promise made in West Virginia, President Kennedy's first Executive Order called for expanded food distribution and, on February 2, 1961, he announced that food stamp pilot programs would be initiated. The pilot programs would retain the requirement that the food stamps be purchased, but eliminated the concept of special stamps for surplus foods. A Department spokesman indicated the emphasis would be on increasing the consumption of perishables.
Mr. and Mrs. Alderson Muncy of Paynesville, West Virginia, were the first food stamp recipients on May 29, 1961. They purchased US$95 in food stamps for their 15-person household. In the first food stamp transaction, they bought a can of pork and beans at Henderson's Supermarket. By January 1964, the pilot programs had expanded from eight areas to 43 (40 counties, Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) in 22 States with 380,000 participants.
Of the program, U.S. House Representative Leonor K. Sullivan asserted, "...the Department of Agriculture seemed bent on outlining a possible food stamp plan of such scope and magnitude, involving some 25 million persons, as to make the whole idea seem ridiculous and tear food stamp plans to smithereens."