Rationing did not burst into full blown effect on December 7. Months before the war, in mid-1940, President Roosevelt recognized that the prosperity coming out of the Depression plus the huge influx of factory orders for arms placed by war torn Britain, were driving prices up and causing inflation and in some cases profiteering. With some factories converted to the manufacture of war goods, Americans found shortages of cars, refrigerators, stoves and other appliances. President Roosevelt chose to reinstate a World War I advisory board and reshaped it as OPAC (Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply) later simply called OPA, as the vehicle to regulate the economy, now boasting 10 percent inflation.
The government’s pre-war actions were erratic and amounted to simply strong jawboning as it tried to control prices voluntarily on raw materials, rents, and groceries. Americans were enjoying the economic good times and pretty much ignored the efforts of the OPA. However, these pre-war actions permitted the OPA to find its footing and notch a few successes, making it more prepared for the real thing.
Soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor it became apparent that voluntary conservation on the home front was not going to suffice. Americans felt the pinch of shortages coming on slowly. There were already restrictions on imported foods and limitations on the transportation of goods due to a shortage of rubber tires. Added to that was the diversion of agricultural harvests to soldiers overseas. All of this contributed to the government’s decision to ration certain essential items. On January 30, 1942, the Emergency Price Control Act granted the OPA the authority “to set price limits and ration food and other commodities in order to discourage hoarding and ensure the equitable distribution of scarce resources.”
Price limits or “ceiling prices” were set, limiting the price that stores could charge for items. Stores could not raise prices above what the price was in March of 1942.
In a task that would be difficult even today with computer resources, rationing boards were set up in every county in the US. The government wanted the American people to understand the reasons for rationing and so it cranked up a huge propaganda machine.
Americans on the home front had the uneasy feeling of what was to come and encountered rationing in full force in the spring of 1942. In simple terms, two ration books were distributed to “every eligible man, woman, child, and baby in the United States.” One contained blue coupons for processed goods while the other contained red coupons for meat, fish, and dairy products. Each person started with 48 blue points and 64 red points each month.
Americans did not purchase items with ration coupons alone, the coupons had no monetary value. Cash was still required.
The ration books contained removable certificates for some special items like tires, as well as stamps that could be used for certain other rationed items, such as shoes, sugar, and coffee, and points that were good for a variety of items. A person could not buy a rationed item without giving the seller the right ration coupon.
Institutions such as restaurants, hotels, and hospitals were instructed to apply for their ration books at the high schools. Restaurants were allocated between 20–30 percent more ration coupons than private citizens were for sugar, flour, processed foods, canned goods, and meat. Receiving more sugar, flour, and meat was important because it meant they could keep on making their signature dishes and baked goods. The length of time the coupons were valid changed every three to four months, to prevent any counterfeiting. When the new ration book coupons appeared, then everyone went back to the OPA authority to officially sign up for the new coupons and restaurant owners would then restock their supplies.
The instructions that came with the first ration book are as follows:
Your first ration book has been issued to you, originally containing 28 war ration stamps. Other books may be issued at later dates. The following instructions apply to your first book and will apply to any later books, unless otherwise ordered by the Office of Price Administration. In order to obtain a later book, the first book must be turned in. You should preserve War Rations Books with the greatest possible care.
1 – From the time the Office of Price Administration may issue orders rationing certain products. After the dates indicated by such orders, these products can be purchased only through the use of War rations Books containing valid War Ration Stamps.
2 – The orders of the Office of Price Administration will designate the stamps to be used for the purchase of a particular rationed product, the period during which each of these stamps may be used, and the amounts which may be bought with each stamp.
3 – Stamps become valid for use only when and as directed by the Orders of the Office of Price Administration.
4 – Unless otherwise announced, the Ration Week is from Saturday midnight to the following Saturday midnight.
5 – War Ration stamps may be used in any retail store in the United States.
6 – War Ration Stamps may be used only by or for the person named and described in the War Ration Book.
7 – Every person must see that this War Ration Book is kept in a safe place and properly used. Parents are responsible for the safekeeping and use of their children’s War Ration Book.
8 – When you buy any rationed product, the proper stamp must be detached in the presence of the storekeeper, his employee, or the person making the delivery on his behalf. If a stamp is torn out of the War Ration Book in any other way than above indicated, it becomes void. If a stamp is partly torn or mutilated and more than one half of it remains in the book, it is valid. Otherwise it becomes void.
9 – If your War Ration Book is lost, destroyed, stolen or mutilated, you should report that fact to the local Ration Board.
10 – If you enter a hospital, or other institution, and expect to be there for more than 10 days, you must turn your War Ration Book over to the person in charge. It will be returned to you upon your request when you leave.
11 – When a person dies, his War Ration Book must be returned to the local Ration Board, in accordance with the regulations.
12 – If you have any complaints, questions, or difficulties regarding your War Ration Book, consult your local Ration Board.
The first stamps in War Ration Book One will be used for the purchase of sugar. When this book was issued, the registrar asked you, or the person who applied for your book, how much sugar you owned on that date. If you had any sugar, you were allowed to keep it, but stamps representing this quantity were torn from your group (except for a small amount which you were allowed to keep without losing any stamps). If your War Ration Book one was issued to you on application by a member of your family, the number of stamps torn from the books of the family was based on the amount of sugar owned by the family and was divided as equally as possible among all the books.
To enable change from ration stamps, the government issued “red point” tokens to be given as change for red stamps, and “blue point” tokens as change for blue stamps. These dime-sized tokens were made of thin compressed wood fiber material, because metals were in short supply.
The OPA allotted a certain number of points to each food item based on its availability. For example, customers were allowed to use 48 “blue points” to buy canned, bottled or dried foods, and 64 “red points” to buy meat, fish and dairy each month – that is, if the items were in stock. Due to changes in the supply and demand of various goods, the OPA periodically adjusted point values, which often further complicated an already complex system that required shoppers to plan well in advance to prepare meals.
The middle-class household of pre-war America had a strong focus on meals and mealtimes. It began with almost daily grocery shopping required by the small refrigerators of the day. Presentation at mealtime included china dishes and full place settings. Working men and schoolchildren often came home for lunch, which meant that the housewife was expected to spend several hours preparing three full meals a day.
With the advent of the war and women joining the workforce, home front America underwent a change. Time for meal preparation grew tight. The housewife no longer had the time to shop every day and learned how to use the refrigerator more efficiently and cut her trips to the store. Cereal breakfasts and bag lunches became the norm. Some companies arranged for markets to send representatives into their factory to take orders which women could pick up at the end of their shift.
The pressure cooker entered the scene, originally for use at high altitudes, to shorten food preparation time. They were made of metal and hard to obtain. In addition, they required some instruction for use to avoid accidents.
Americans faced a flood of new cookbooks based on rationing with recipes for meatless Tuesdays, endless ways to substitute eggs, mock fish, rice and flour combinations, and more. Cooking soups and casseroles helped stretch food and leftovers. Molasses, corn syrup, and honey substituted for sugar. (The pressure of the shortages caused black market thieves to ransack beehives for the honey.)
Each ration stamp had a generic drawing of an airplane, gun, tank, aircraft carrier, ear of wheat, fruit, etc. and a serial number. Some stamps also had alphabetic lettering. The stamps did not define any specific commodity or value. Americans learned what the stamps could buy from announcements in the newspapers. For example, the paper might announce that next Tuesday one airplane stamp was required (in addition to cash) to buy one pair of shoes and one stamp number 30 from ration book four was required to buy five pounds of sugar. The commodity amounts changed from time to time depending on availability. Red stamps were used to ration meat and butter, and blue stamps were used to ration processed foods.
With the rapid changes in food availability, newspapers were an important resource for home cooks as they tried to navigate the new world of rationing. Consider the workload of the typical American home front shopper. First, she had to set her food budget. Next, she had to plan her menu and create her shopping list. Working with information from the newspaper, she tried to budget the ration stamps she would need. She might then spend time trying to swap stamps with family or neighbors to get the type of stamps she needed. It was with great frustration that after all that work, she might find that the store was out of stock on items she had planned on – and may have had to wait in line to find out!
Newspapers also published a wide variety of tips for cooking under rationing. They published column after column about how to cook with reduced amounts of rationed ingredients and educated readers about which ingredients could be used as substitutes. Honey and corn syrup, for instance, were commonly suggested replacements for sugar. Wartime recipes were in high demand, so many newspapers asked readers to send in their favorite recipes or even held contests for the best wartime dishes. Food companies jumped on the bandwagon as well, publishing ads that included rationing recipes using their products. Many learned about Kraft’s macaroni and cheese.
A special response to the meat shortages had enterprising American neighbors forming food growing co-ops. The following is one example.
Dovey Sommers (b. 1936):
grew up near Delmar, NY, south of Albany. We weren’t a poor village, but we weren’t well off. My mother and the other women around spent a lot of time trying to keep food in the house using ration coupons and scrimping with what we had. We shifted over to margarine or salted lard instead of butter sometimes and one neighbor’s son could get us powered eggs.
Most important was we couldn’t waste anything. It was a minister in town who came up with the idea of “pig clubs,” which were just like it sounds. Three or four families would get together and buy a pig and fatten it up with everyone’s leftover scraps. When the pig grew to size the families butchered it and shared the meat.
Our pig club would start a second pig a month or so before the first one was grown. Some people had “chicken clubs,” too, with hutches in their backyards.
It seems funny to talk about that now, but at the time it seemed like just something you had to do to help win the war.1
The co-op idea included labor, too. A group of women would divide up tasks such as shopping and childcare and thus free up much needed time for household tasks and volunteering.
A very American response to these shortages was the victory garden. After initial resistance by the Department of Agriculture, who feared “radishy” gardens, and calls for coffee seeds, the government called for 18 million Victory Gardens and churned out a full blown patriotic promotional program to encourage Americans to plant vegetables. In schools throughout the country children were encouraged to knock on doors and sell packages of seeds. Contests and prizes energized the junior sales people. Nearly 20 million Americans answered the call. They planted gardens in backyards, empty lots and even city rooftops. Neighbors pooled their resources, planted different kinds of foods and formed cooperatives, all in the name of patriotism. With the call up of agricultural labor, victory gardens offset millions of tons of food for the American home front.2
by Jim Kelly (b. 1936):
My memory was raiding the Victory Gardens. Most of the empty lots in Chicago were converted to vegetable gardens because of shortages caused by the war and were called Victory Gardens. We kids would sneak into the gardens at night and eat radishes, carrots and kohlrabies. We saved the tomatoes to throw at street cars!
Canning the vegetables grown in the Victory Gardens became a way of life for some families. The government sponsored more than 6000 community canning centers though out the country. Women were encouraged to support their families and the nation by canning produce grown in their Victory Garden. Canning, like gardening, was presented in official propaganda as a patriotic and unifying act, linking soldiers’ activities to women’s roles in the kitchen. No other war time endeavor, except perhaps war bonds, received so much push from propaganda as did Victory Gardens and canning. Hundreds of posters were commissioned, radio scripts developed, movie shorts produced, pamphlets printed, and advertisements placed. It seemed to work.
Government officials asked individuals to organize their garden activities in conjunction with the canning outcomes that they envisioned, urging them to “plan your canning budget when you order your garden seeds.” The interconnectivity of the two activities ensured that just as Victory Garden yields reached their peak in 1943, so too did canning levels. The USDA estimates that approximately 4 billion cans and jars of food, both sweet and savory, were produced that year. Community canning centers aided in the process of reaching record levels of preserved food in the United States during the war.3
While ration books were, by law, intended for the person who received it, many systems arose to sell and barter the stamps, which by the way, were not supposed to be removed until making a purchase. Some schemes were simply neighbors swapping or buying stamps from one another. Others involved the storekeeper acting as a bank and receiving unwanted or excess coupons and trading or selling them with buyers. For the poor, rationing, with its “make it last, wear it out, make do or do without” was just a continuation of the shortages of the Depression. Americans chafed under rationing now that they had money to spend, but overall accepted it as a way to provide fairness and support the war effort.
Perhaps nothing represents the response to shortages and the patriotism of the US home front in World War II better than the scrap drive.
The following is from An Emergency Statement to the People of the United States published by the US War Production Board in the Des Moines Register on April 20, 1942:
The steel industry has been rapidly stepping up its production…but we need to get production up to the industry’s full capacity of 90,000,000 tons – a total equal to the output of the rest of the world combined. This volume of production cannot be attained or increased unless an additional 6,000,000 tons of scrap iron and steel is obtained promptly. We are faced with the fact that some steel furnaces have been allowed to cool down and that many of them are operating from day to day and hand to mouth, due only to the lack of scrap.
The rubber situation is also critical. In spite of the recent rubber drive, there is a continuing need for large quantities of scrap rubber. We are collecting every possible pound from the factories, arsenals and shipyards; we are speeding up the flow of material from automobile graveyards; we are tearing up abandoned railroad tracks and bridges, but unless we dig out an additional 6,000,000 tons of steel and great quantities of rubber, copper, brass, zinc and tin, our boys may not get all the fighting weapons they need in time…Even one old shovel will help make 4 hand grenades.
Enemy conquests cut off supplies of crucial raw materials such as tin and rubber, and the need for products made from these materials skyrocketed due to the war. Since useful materials often ended up in the trash can or languished unused in homes and on farms, the War Production Board encouraged scrap drives throughout the war. Drives were held for metal, tin cans, rags, tires, and paper.
Metal shortages especially posed a threat to the war effort. The government launched a “Salvage for Victory” program. Americans scoured their homes, farms, and businesses for metal. Housewives donated pots and pans, farmers turned in farm equipment, and children even sacrificed their metal toys.
by Janet O (b. 1932):
I’m glad to talk about a memory I have of those years. We were all so patriotic back then. My special memory is about the day my town, Springfield, closed all the schools and told the kids to go collect scrap for the war effort. First we cleaned out our own houses and farms. But then we started going alongside the roads and found so much stuff like tires, cans and even old stoves. We had so much fun yelling to each other about what we found. Adults helped us haul stuff to the central collection place. We stayed out all day until dark. We wanted to do it again the next day, but we had to go back to school. Besides, we had collected a mountain of scrap. I only remember doing it once.4
Many people removed bumpers and fenders from their cars for the war effort. Communities melted down Civil War cannons and tore down wrought iron fences. These drives were often great community events, with performers, speeches, and opportunities to throw your scrap metal at a bust of Hitler.
Competitions were held to see which town, county, and state produced the most scrap, and the winners boasted of their feats. However, these drives had mixed results. Used aluminum was found to be useless for aircraft, but used tin, steel, and copper were easily melted down and reused. One unlikely source came from prisoners in the Great Falls, Montana jail who offered the bars on their cells.5
By June 1942 companies stopped manufacturing metal office furniture, radios, television sets, phonographs, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and sewing machines for civilians.6
The use of tin packaging was greatly reduced during the war, due to the use of alternative packaging materials and to the rationing of canned goods. However, consumer use of tin continued throughout the war, and this irreplaceable resource needed to be recovered. Starting in March of 1942, dog food could no longer be sold in tin cans, and manufacturers switched to dehydrated versions. Beginning in April 1942, anyone wishing to purchase a new toothpaste tube, then made from tin, had to turn in an empty one.
Most communities collected tin cans once a month. In some towns, people placed boxes of cleaned and crushed tin cans by the curb for collection, and other towns had central collection sites. Youth groups, especially the Boy Scouts, were highly involved in these drives.
One of the most remembered parts of these drives was the peeling and collection of the silvery paper on gum wrappers. The material was rolled into a ball and brought for collection at schools and stores where it was rolled into a bigger ball and then…well it turned out the stuff was of no value in war production, but the effort remained a good prop for patriotism.
A lot of the scrap collected proved to be worth very little. One very worthwhile collection was for reclaimed fats and oils. The residue was useful in manufacturing glycerin. Americans were diligent about saving and collecting household fat.
Tight paper allocations meant that Americans found fewer pages in their papers and magazines and thinner pages in books that also employed wider page margins. The shortage of paper fostered one of the most comprehensive home front shortage programs of the war: the paper drive. These drives were often conducted like a milk route in reverse. Americans would bundle up their paper and place it for collection along the road (or elsewhere) and a truck would regularly collect the paper and bring it to the recycling center.
It’s interesting to note that regardless of the rationing situation, books enjoyed explosive growth. Restricted in their activities, Americans turned to housebound activities including books. Buoyed by the introduction of compact “pocketbooks,” sales rose from just several hundred thousand to more than 10,000,000 in 1941 and to 40,000,000 in 1943. All those books took 100,000 tons of paper while advertising managed to lay claim to 1,000,000 tons.7
During WWII, the Japanese cut off America’s access to Java plantations where “kapok” was grown. Typically, kapok was the material used as filler for life jackets. When it was no longer available, an alternate fiber was desperately needed. How else could we keep a downed aviator or soaking-wet sailor from drowning?
A Chicago physician and inventor named Dr Boris Berkman proposed that milkweed floss would be even better than kapok for the job. The US Navy then conducted extensive tests, proving that a pound of the floss (equivalent to two open-mesh bushel sacks) could keep a 150-pound man floating in the water for more than forty hours. And so it was that the common milkweed lost its lowly “weed” status and was elevated to being a strategic wartime material.
When Petoskey, Michigan’s first official milkweed crop, was ready for picking by Sept 16, 1942, the call went out to families, community organizations, and schoolchildren, and that call was answered with gusto. It is reported that at least 1000 bags were picked before rain ended the day. Local fairgrounds were used as drying stations where bags of pods were hung over every available fence and building.
The pod-picking operation relied heavily on the labor of children as well as adults and was testament to a civilian army encompassing people in twenty-five states and two Canadian provinces. The government’s slogan “Two Bags Save One Life” provided a simple message to all involved: that they were doing their part for the war effort. And most of them understood this.8
Clothing fashions underwent drastic changes to conserve cloth needed for the military. The government put forth detailed standards and restrictions, though rationing was not imposed except for shoes.
American men could suit up in the Victory Suit, a single-breasted model with no lapels, no patch pockets, no vest, no cuffs, and an adjustable waist band. He could also feel like a hero in the new, short Eisenhower jacket.
For women, the War Production Board produced a poster that became ubiquitous, if somewhat ridiculed, showing the new standards for dresses, coats, jackets, suits, blouses, and skirts. Under the WPB standards, wide shoulders were out, replaced by natural shoulders or bare arms. Long evening dresses vanished while one piece jump suits made their appearance. Turbans became popular, particularly with women working in factories. Shoe styles became simpler, almost slipper-like. The girdle-free dress hit the market.
Americans were advised to purchase or make warmer and more durable clothes. Knitting made a strong comeback on the home front with mothers and wives knitting for a loved one overseas. The government promoted sewing and went so far as to sponsor regional and national contests for clothes sewn at home. Young people in 4H clubs could earn awards. Scouts had merit badges based on sewing.
The uniforms for WACS and WAVES attracted the attention of top designers. Mainboucher provided the WAVES with stylish uniforms while WACS uniforms were cut by Russell Patterson and Philip Mangone. Fashion shows introduced the new military couture to the American public.
Coco Chanel closed her studio in Paris and the fashion industry moved to New York where it took on an American look. Claire McCardell, for example, made use of fabrics that were not in demand by the military such as cotton denim, jersey, striped mattress ticking, gingham, and calico.
The fashion showings of New York offered these 100 percent American fabrics in styles influenced by the military including the colors Navy blue and Marine green. Along with the military influence went assorted patriotic badges, pins, and flags.
Hair was worn long and curled at the ends for a soft, feminine look. Beauty salons were expensive and American women saved money by having their hair cut less often. As so many women enlisted in the military or took factory jobs, it was easy to tie long hair back for safety. Then, the long hair could be worn down for casual or dress occasions.
Women in America often knitted or crocheted snoods which were a combination of a hair net and a veil. Some American women wore corsages made of artificial flowers or gathered netting.
Girdles were out as the rubber was needed for the war effort. Skirts and dresses were often fitted with adjustable waistlines. Shoe heels were lower and shoe designers thought to add interest with the introduction of the wedge shoe. Many women wore flat heeled shoes for safety and comfort in the workplace.
Pants gained widespread acceptance for wear at defense work, for casual wear, and for work at home in the garden. Katherine Hepburn helped make trousers popular by appearing in several movies wearing elegant, wide-legged trousers. College girls quickly copied the style.
One of the most publicized impacts involved nylon stockings. They were a relatively new fashion item introduced by DuPont at the World’s Fair in 1939. Demand skyrocketed when Japan cut off supplies of silk early in 1940. The boom for DuPont did not last long. On the day after Pearl Harbor the government declared that DuPont would produce nylon strictly for government purposes. Nylon would go into parachutes, surgical sutures, and other military necessities. The price of nylon stockings immediately jumped from about $1.25 a pair to $25 on the black market. One of the few stores that had nylons hired guards to prevent trouble.
The home front American woman, now absolutely sold on nylons and dissatisfied with several fabric alternatives, found a simple solution: she put tan liquid make up on her legs and took an eyebrow pencil and scribed a line down the back of her legs. The scheme required a steady hand and created a big fashion gaffe in the rain.
Women treated their remaining stockings with great care, often reserving them for special occasions. Rayon or cotton stockings were worn, but not fondly, as they tended to sag around the knees and ankles.
Rubber products, including tires, were the first items to be rationed. They deserve special mention because of the far-reaching impact they have on so many other products and activities.
George A. (b. 1932):
I grew up between Charlton and Huntington, WVA, and my home front changed in a big way because of rubber, which was needed for the war.
All of us in West Virginia, like everywhere I guess, were getting used to the news about all the new programs and plans to mobilize for the war effort. Rubber was one of the things the government really needed. In our town we could turn in old tires for a penny a pound at the gas station. My cousin William and his friends used to go up and down alongside the roads looking for old tires.
When the government said they were going to build a rubber plant near us we couldn’t imagine why. It turned out it was for synthetic rubber and I figured the coal was important.
All our local boys and men who weren’t in the service got hired in lots of different jobs to help build the factory. Women, too, got hired on, and not just for secretary jobs. Some people worried that it would take too long to build the factory and we needed rubber right away.
But what happened is what I like most to remember – and that is that everybody pulled together to get it built. “Just get it done!” everybody said. The United States Rubber Company opened the factory less than a year after construction started. I was about 10 years old.
We were proud to make such a big contribution to the war effort. It was a good feeling. I still feel pride when I think back on it.
By mid-1941 the Japanese had cut off rubber supplies from the Far East. Our cargo ships were needed for military purposes making importation from South America difficult. Fortunately, the prescient synthetic rubber program had already begun but didn’t yet produce enough to meet either civilian or military needs.
The administration, hungry for substitutes, entertained suggestions ranging from inefficient to downright crazy but chose to continue to rely on oil-based technology. (Even though housewives complained that the oil-based synthetic left black marks on their floors!)
Stockpiling was attempted, but the on-hand inventory of crude rubber was barely enough to last a year. In addition to tires, rubber was being used for other civilian goods – boots and shoes, gloves, raincoats, girdles, garden hoses, and even toys. Now the military required rubber for truck, Jeep, and aircraft tires and a host of military supplies.
To ensure rubber supplies for military and vital civilian purposes, a freeze on tires and recapping tires was slapped on almost immediately. Americans were allowed to have only five tires per owned car and were to turn in all others.
Americans had to go through yet another new process and apply to their local tire rationing boards for an application to get a tire or to get a tire recapped. Approvals for new tires were kept to medical, fire, police, garbage, and mail services, trucking (for food, ice, fuel), and for public transportation.
Men’s rubber boots and work shoes were soon rationed while other nonmilitary products were simply no longer produced. The now ubiquitous “make it last, wear it out, make do or do without” applied. Americans simply had to make do.
The government martialed major public service announcements directed at the rubber shortage. Americans read and heard about ways to properly care for rubber products – protecting them from heat and cold, proper cleaning, proper inflation, and avoiding contact with chemicals.
People saw posters and heard radio announcements to drive slower. They were told to drive at the “Victory Speed” of 35 mph. They were also told to drive less by using public transportation and by carpooling. They were told to check tire pressure and alignment to prolong tire life.
One well intentioned effort was a national rubber collection drive nicknamed “the penny a pound drive.” The drive collected old tires, boots, raincoats and even hot water bottles. Unfortunately, the 400,000 tons of used scrap rubber that Americans brought in was unusable. Rubber was just too complex a material to recycle.
Due to one side effect of the ban on rubber, Americans could no longer view auto racing, now banned for the duration.
A truly iconic image of the home front in America was that of the automobile up on blocks in the driveway for the duration. On January 1, 1942, all sales of cars, as well as the delivery of cars to customers who had previously contracted for them, were frozen by the government’s Office of Production Management. The result was a huge rise in auto repair businesses.
The tire situation, with such blatant opportunities for illegal gain, attracted hoarders, black marketeers, and out and out criminals. Tire bearing wheels were stolen off cars in broad daylight. Several states elevated tire theft to be a felony with prison terms of more than five years. Firestone offered to “brand” their tires with the owner’s initials, much as cattle were branded in the old West.9
Another result was the beginning of waiting lists which every car dealer would maintain throughout the war.
Even more than rubber rationing, gas shortages and gas rationing made deep impacts on everyday life for Americans.
Much of America’s crude oil was produced along the gulf coast and sent by oil tanker ships to the refineries in the northeast. But early in 1942 German submarines began attacking these oil tankers as they made way up the East Coast and supplies of crude were cut sharply.
According to historian, Michael Gannon, in his book Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany’s First U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II, “The U-boat assault on merchant shipping in United States waters during 1942 constituted a greater strategic setback for the Allied war effort than the attack at Pearl Harbor.”
With Nazi submarines now targeting tankers off the Atlantic coast, sea shipping routes became vulnerable. To make up for the lost tankers, oil from Texas was sent to the northeast using trains and river barges. But those modes could not replace the large volume of petroleum that had been shipped by tanker. East Coast refiners had been receiving roughly 300,000 barrels of oil daily by ship. Trains and barges were only able to deliver about half of that.
To address the problem Washington, after monumental political wrangling, directed the construction of the longest pipeline ever built up to that time. It was named the War Emergency Pipeline. It passed through ten states and connected Baytown, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, with Linden, New Jersey. The pipeline was actually two pipelines running parallel. One was 24 inches in diameter and carried crude oil while the other was 20 inches in diameter and carried refined products. Because of its size, the War Emergency Pipeline was named “the Big Inch.” (The 20-inch line was dubbed “the Little Big Inch.”)
In an incredible feat of engineering and political collaboration, the line was completed in only one year; from June 1942 to June 1943. Americans followed the progress of the construction closely in newspapers and in short features at the movies. The pipelines delivered more than 500,000 barrels of oil per day, far more than the 300,000 barrels a day the tankers had been delivering and all of it safe from Nazi submarines.
The early shortages of crude quickly translated to shortages of gasoline and rationing was installed for seventeen eastern states. From the beginning, this special rationing effort caused confusion among Americans and lit a political firestorm. As gasoline was being restricted to the East Coast, the US was still shipping oil to Japan – more oil than was being sent to Britain. FDR stated he wanted to have some bargaining power with Japan, but the whole matter of rationing caused a policy change and exports to Japan were closed off.10
The fact that only eastern states were rationed chafed Americans who lived there. Adding to the resentment was the very complicated and, many thought, unfair rationing categories, trumpeted by colored stickers pasted on car windshields.
• A: most motorists – 3 gallons/week, reduced to 2 gal/week March 22, 1944
• B: for war workers who shared rides with 3 or more passengers — 8 gal/week
• C: essential occupational use, such as physicians, clergy, and mail carriers
• D: motorcycles
• E: emergency vehicles such as ambulances, police, fire – unlimited
• R: non-highway use, such as farm vehicles — unlimited
• T: truckers, instituted January 1, 1944 — unlimited
• X: a controversial sticker for VIPs – unlimited
Americans received gas ration cards which they presented at the pump where the card was punched to denote gas was purchased.
Home front Americans were not above misrepresenting themselves and their needs in order to upgrade their stickers from A to B, C or X. Doctors asked for X stickers for their wives. Station wagons were presented as ambulances. Cheating became so widespread that officials feared rationing was producing a nation of liars. Prompted by fears that local rationing boards practiced favoritism, FDR opened all rationing records to public inspection. OPA authorities warned that they would investigate gas ration application forms for false statements.11
All the typical behavior surrounding the rationing of food quickly carried over to gasoline. Americans waited in lines (sometimes lines of fifty or more cars), followed tanker trucks, and schemed to barter their rations. Siphoning was common enough that some Americans sought locking gas caps.
Because gas was so vital to so many, illegal schemes involving the theft of government coupons and even the paper on which they were printed were reported. The government sought and gained fraud and theft convictions. One black marketeer of gasoline made national headlines in Colliers magazine. He drove from Texas to the Canadian border without one ration coupon. In fact, he was able to barter for extra coupons along the way. (The OPA revoked his 1944 ration book and gave him a warning.)
Because gasoline had no easy substitute (wood burning cars and compressed natural gas were not practical on a mass basis) Americans resorted to mass transportation, carpooling, bicycling, walking, and finally just staying home.
One substitute existed for those living near natural gas wells. Those wells were fixed with condensation lines and the liquid that condensed was called drip. Drip could be used in cars if it was strained and mixed with regular gasoline. Those using drip were easily identified by the smoky exhaust.
Heating fuel oil rationing arrived in late 1942. The war effort demanded fuel oil as did the railroad industry where the oil was converted to diesel. The rationing formula was very complicated and ended up just being a percentage of a homeowner’s 1941 usage. The northwestern states were faced with more than just oil rationing, they were also to be rationed for firewood and coal.12
But even with oil stocks restored in the east, gas rationing was to become nationwide. The event that started the movement to nationwide rationing was The Baruch Rubber Report presented to President Roosevelt in September of 1942. It decried the rubber shortage and called out the need for rubber by the military. The report demanded drastically reducing non-essential civilian driving as crucial to conserve tire wear and rubber consumption.
So, it was not the shortage of gasoline, but the national shortage of rubber that led to nationwide gas rationing in December of 1942. In fact, the US remained a major oil exporter all through the war.
Americans in the Midwest, Southwest and on the West Coast – and their representatives in Washington – sent up a howl. They had oil fields and refining capacity and no shortage of gasoline. Whether they never read the Rubber Report or whether they just didn’t share its findings, they felt put upon for the great inconveniences.
In addition to reducing Americans’ rubber consumption, gas rationing had other effects. Tax revenues from sales fell dramatically as did traffic accidents and fatalities. Dating underwent changes. A young man planning a date had to be certain he had enough gas to make it back to his date’s house. Long drives in the country were given over to short trips to the corner movie house. Though gas was only 19 cents a gallon, most cars got barely 15 miles a gallon, even at the 35 MPH Victory speed.
The importance of US oil went beyond the home front. “Without the prodigious delivery of oil from the U.S.,” stated historian Keith Miller, “this global war [WWII], quite frankly, could never have been won.”13
Most Americans adapted to rationing and, except for sporadic shelf-clearing hoarding and some minor stamp trading, complied with the intent of the effort. Retailers bent the rules just a bit too. They sometimes offered scarce goods in “tie-in sales” where the buyers had to purchase something the seller wanted to offload in order to purchase what they really wanted to buy.
However, some did engage in genuine fraud. Counterfeiting was the nemesis of the OPA and its 3100 investigators. The OPA would issue different colored books hoping to stick the counterfeiters with books of the voided color, at least until they caught up to the new color.
Many businesses couldn’t legally raise prices, and “skimpflation” seems to have been one way they tried to maintain profitability. For example, meatpackers began filling sausages and hot dogs with soybeans, potatoes, or cracker meal. Meatpackers and butchers added more fat to hamburgers. They sold steaks with extra bone. They began selling horse meat, muskrat meat, and other alternative meats. Other manufacturers went to smaller packages and cheaper ingredients but still sold at the ceiling prices.
The largest illegal enterprise was the black market. The term black market covered sales of goods at higher prices, sales with no ration certificates, short weighting to obtain higher prices for less goods, and sales of stolen goods. (Hijacking trucks and pilfering rail cars attracted professional criminals.) While the black market was widespread, it was essentially a local affair. Many Americans felt it was OK to wiggle around regulations to get some cigarettes or some beef or gasoline.
One person who did not think it was OK was Mrs E.W. St. Pierre of the Oregon State Defense Council. She wrote:
The American public is being rationed on sugar and rubber today, and tomorrow many more things may be added to this list…From this situation has arisen a genie which may undermine our whole war effort, unless an understanding American people lend a hand. It is obvious that there are not sufficient law enforcement officers in the land to detect all evasions of these regulations. A “black market” has sprung up, bootlegging these materials to persons willing to pay the price. Buyer and seller are equally guilty; they are both disloyal, dishonest, and traitorous to their country. Great hidden stocks of materials, undeclared by their owners when the Government made its check of essential materials, are now finding their way into these markets.
Only a person secretly in sympathy with Hitler or Hirohito would knowingly buy from such a source, for dealers in such hidden supplies are part of a great fifth column movement of the Axis powers. Every loyal American must be aware of this situation. Report at once any suspected infringement of these regulations. “I know where you can get a tire”…well, find out where and report it at once to your nearest Office of Price Administration or War Production Board. The American people must keep eyes and ears open to defeat this attempt to undermine the war effort of our country.14
In 1943, when analysts predicted a close end to the war, a selection of items – canned goods and meat – was taken off the rationed list. This move was very unpopular as Americans feared a rise in stockpiling would take place and that would lead to the terrible scarcities seen during World War I. This worry lasted only a short time, however, as the war did not end, and the items were rationed again a few months later.
Scarce medicines such as penicillin were rationed by triage officers in the US military during World War II. Civilian hospitals received only small amounts of penicillin during the war, because it was not mass-produced for civilian use until after the war. A triage panel at each hospital decided which patients would receive the penicillin.
• Ration coupons became gift items, especially for weddings.
• The Army ran short of chicken.
• A new phrase entered the American lexicon: For the duration.
• Trucks carrying cattle, pigs, or chicken were subject to “stop and search” looking for black marketeers.
• The government pressured retailers to stop using phrases like “Buy Now” in their advertising.
• Horse racing was cancelled because it was felt it required too much unneeded transportation.
• Macy’s canceled their traditional Thanksgiving Day parade from 1942 through 1944 to conserve rubber and helium. In November 1942, Macy’s ceremonially handed over their rubber balloons for the war effort.
• Horsemeat, rabbit, and game ended up on some American dinner plates.
• In 1943, 50 million boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese were purchased because only one food ration stamp was required for two boxes. Kraft inserted contest calls for “mac and cheese” menu ideas in each box.
• Phonograph records relied on difficult to get resin for shellack from India and so went to recycling. People were offered 2 cents for every old record turned in. The quality of the recycled recording was affected (scratchy) but most record players of the day were not good enough to pick it up. Later, records became a subject of scrap drives where both consumers and record companies pitched out their old records. (To the sorrow of later collectors.)
• Employers, battling a shortage of workers, developed employee cafeterias as an attraction.
• Coca Cola managed to convince rationing board members that Coke was essential for soldiers and sailors and so received large sugar rations. Wrigley’s gum did the same. Lucky Strike replaced its iconic dark-green signature pack with a white pack in 1942. American Tobacco claimed the change was made because copper was needed for the war effort. Their ads at the time proudly boasted, “Lucky Strike Green has Gone to War!” The green ink was actually made from chromium, though the gold trim was made from copper. At any rate, supplies of both were limited, and substitute materials made the package appear less appealing.15
• The sugar shortage had a cascading effect putting hardships on bakeries and restaurants.
• Although Great Plains farmers produced an abundance of sugar beets, much of the sugar went from the processing plants to the munitions industry where it was converted into alcohol for the making of smokeless powder. Soon sugar supplies for consumers dwindled. Normally well-behaved diners could be seen slipping an extra sugar cube or two into their pockets.
• Sugar bowls disappeared from restaurants.
• “Café Sugar Bowls to Vanish Thursday Until War is Ended,” reported the Denver Post, February 10, 1942.
• Butchers had to follow the dizzying 40,000-word wholesale beef regulations. Some workers, such as miners and lumberjacks, went on strike to get higher meat allocations.
• Meat rationing carried a class perversion. The well to do ate three times as much meat as the poor. When meat became rationed at two-and one-half pounds per person, it meant that more than half the population would be entitled to more meat than they currently bought.17
• Labor shortages brought about a sharp contraction in domestic servant availability as maids and others flooded into the higher paying defense jobs. This was of particular benefit to African Americans as well as women.
• Whiskey and cigarettes went unscathed by regulations, although shortages appeared from time to time. Canned beer disappeared because of the tin shortage. Americans rejected most of the foul-tasting beer and alcohol imports and substitutes brought to market.
• Americans endured the same taste situation with coffee. Pamphlets recommended chicory as an extender, an idea rejected by the public, as was the suggestion to use soybeans. A not-so-popular alternative drink was called Postum, a mixture of wheat bran, wheat, molasses, and malt. A crew of door-to-door salespeople offered a powdered coffee substitute – it was pretty bad. FDR himself suggested that Americans reuse their coffee grounds to a second cup. The coffee lobby disabused him of that recommendation.
• A curious case revolved around the substitution of margarine for butter. Margarine makers could easily have colored their margarine yellow, but the dairy industry protested and so margarine had to be packaged white. But the margarine makers got around the situation by packaging margarine in plastic bags which included within a small round yellow dye capsule. The housewife would knead the package, break the dye capsule, and knead the package until it was yellow! Children in the family clambered to have the chore.
• To save both rubber and gasoline, horse-drawn milk wagons reappeared with every other day deliveries. The author’s mother delivered milk in a horse drawn wagon.
• Sales of sliced bread were banned supposedly to conserve steel used in industrial slicing machines. Not surprisingly, the ban produced a buying run on steel kitchen knives. The ban proved so unpopular that it was lifted after two months.
• Americans dealt with an unusual buying dynamic as rationing took hold. During the Depression with little money to spend, shoppers worked diligently to find the least expensive item that would meet their needs. Now, with plenty of cash to spend and few choices to make, Americans were scrambling after higher quality goods that would have been far beyond their means just a short time ago.
Rationing was not without an important, though narrow, positive side. Poor Americans were already enduring shortages and had since the Depression. Now they faced market discrimination. Without rationing and in a free market, they would have easily been out bid for the scarce food and other goods. Rationing put a lid on prices in a way that allowed these poorer, often minority Americans, to have at least somewhat more equal buying power.
Rationing was designed to distribute scarce goods fairly. OPA official, E.W. Eggen, put the issue in practical terms while he was a guest on a 1943 KGW radio show in Portland: “Suppose the demand for coffee exceeded the supply (which it does) and there were no rationing. What would happen then is that the woman who got [to] the grocery store first would get coffee and the woman who arrived late would get none. That means that the woman working in a defense plant, with not much time for shopping around, would be coffee-less so that the woman who has little else to do but shop would have more. It means that the woman who has no children to tie her home would have plenty of time to stand in line and get coffee, whereas the mother of a family would not. The same principle would apply to towels, sheets, shoes, dresses, any other type of commodity in which shortages might develop.”
Mrs. E.W. St. Pierre of the Oregon State Defense Council, put it another way: “Rationing is essentially democratic…[it] protects the ‘little man’ who is unable to pay exorbitant prices for articles of which limited quantities exist.”
The OPA had a base of consumer support that included different socio-economic classes and racial groups who supported the agency because of their belief it would bring about a post-war vision of “broad popular participation and consumer rights.” The OPA worked to defend consumers from exploitation by businesses while also acting as a space for citizens to become involved in politics.
Rationing was billed as a time of sacrifice, but how much was really being sacrificed? More Americans were earning more money and living better than they had in years. Many kinds of consumer goods could no longer be had, but enough remained to make daily life more comfortable than it had been during the recent Depression. John Kenneth Galbraith concluded that “never in the long history of human combat have so many talked so much about sacrifice with so little deprivation as in the United States during WWII.”
It may be true that Americans were, in some sense, living better, but having only one pair of shoes a year for your child, or scrambling to conform to myriad regulations while at the same time worrying about a family member at the front could feel heavy. Perhaps the idea of sacrifice arose from the fact that rationing and all the wartime regulations created a very un-American feeling not so much of sacrifice, but of impotence. Americans were simply not used to being told what to do. In any event, they rose to the task with overwhelming spirit. The mantra of the times was, “Use it up/Wear it out/Make it do/Or do without.”
Rationing extended its powerful influence into post-war America by creating a population with money piled up and with the eagerness to spend it to satisfy its huge pent-up demand.