80 years ago, on August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito of Japan surrendered, though the official ceremony took place later that year on September 2. Thus marked the end of World War II. This anniversary brings to mind an aspect of daily life on the home front during the war that many today may not know much about: rationing and salvaging. How the needs of WWII permeated daily life has not been seen in subsequent wars and is nearly inconceivable today. As you read this piece, consider how profoundly altered your daily life would be if a similar system were put in place today. In the United States, rationing began in early 1942 and formally ended in 1947.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, joining the war created an immediate and substantial need for metals, electricity, gasoline, food, clothing, tires—virtually everything—to support war production. This led to the rationing system which was designed to ensure that enough essential materials were available for weapons and troop support. Secondarily, rationing aimed to equalize the distribution system for all commodities among citizens and control inflation.
The Office of Price Administration (OPA) was created to administer the rationing system. Subsequent Acts of Congress further regulated rents and wages, and regulated the cost of living.
How did the system work?
It was very, very complicated. Administering the program required 8,000 Ration Boards in cities and towns across the country. Ration Books like those above included stamps which did not have a dollar value, but, in addition to dollars, they were required for every purchase. Each member of a family (including infants and children) was required to have a ration book in their name. A person registering for ration books for a whole family needed to present the names, height, weight, eye color, hair color, and sex of each family member and state their relationship to them (natural born, adopted, spouse, etc.).
The books were issued monthly: if the books were used up, the customer had to wait for the succeeding month’s book to get enough stamps to purchase the item. In addition, stamps were numbered to be used only for a specific period of time to prevent hoarding. When the time limit was reached, the stamp was voided. Information about where to get War Ration Books and how to use them was posted in the newspapers leading up to the distribution event. In Cambridge, the books were distributed at public schools.
Stamps had a variety of images: airplane, torch, tank, aircraft carrier, wheat, fruit, etc. as well as alphabetic lettering:
Point Rationing
In addition to ration stamps, the system of “Point” rationing was particularly complicated. The point value of a particular item was based on the current availability of the product. This meant that point values changed depending on the supply and demand. The Office of Price Administration published regular updates on changing values:
Eventually, the government also issued dime-sized tokens to enable vendors to make “change” for stamps. Red tokens were used as change for red stamps and blue tokens to make change for blue stamps.
The details in the articles below illustrate just how much there was to keep track of before you went to the grocery store!
Got it? When making purchases, the correct stamp had to be torn out of your book in front the cashier. You could not redeem detached stamps. This was to discourage the black-market stamp trade.
The first item rationed by the OPA, on December 21, 1941, was rubber. The quota for Cambridge was set at 300,000 lbs.
In addition to collecting the obvious objects like rubber tires, other items collected for this rubber drive included girdles, rubber shoes, bed pans, gloves, floor mats, and crutch tips. The Central Square Theatre put on a free show for children arriving with rubber scraps. They collected 2.5 tons!
In the case of toothpaste (which came in metal tubes), before you could purchase a new tube you had to hand over the empty tube so that the metal could be recycled for the war effort. One advertisement stated that “thirty-two toothpaste tubes contain the tin needed for a fighter plane.”
Rationing Food
“…one-fourth of all the food that is going to be produced here during 1943 will go to U. S. armed forces, outside of its boundaries to feed the peoples of the United Nations and those peoples in lands occupied by the Axis…”
The Cambridge Sentinel January 23, 1943
To address complaints of citizens about the privations of rationing system, and in particular, about the U.S. sending food to our allies, the Director of the Office of War Information (OFI) Elmer Davis, delivered a radio speech on December 27, 1942 explaining the reasoning behind this aspect of the system:
“This war can be won only by killing enough Germans to discourage the rest of them. Enough Japanese too, but we can leave them out of this discussion; since in the Pacific area we get food from our allies, instead of sending it to them. Now the Russians, so far, have killed more Germans than everybody else put together; and that is why it makes sense for us to send food to Russia…We send food to the Russian army, because every German who is killed by a Russian is a German whom we won’t have to kill; or, for that matter, a German who will never have a chance to kill American Soldiers.”
New York Times December 28, 1942
After rubber, the next item to be rationed was sugar. Alerts about sugar shortages went out about three months after Pearl Harbor.
“Consumers will have to certify the amount of sugar they have on hand when they register for war ration book No. 1…Each person was allowed to have two pounds of sugar prior to registration. For all sugar in excess of two pounds per person, stamps were torn out of the ration book, preventing further purchase of sugar until the hoards are used up….”
The Cambridge Sentinel March 7, 1942
Automobiles, Gas, and Mileage
As well as rationing fuel, gas and mileage rationing was another way to manage the use of rubber and the consumption of gasoline. All car owners had to register their cars for the relevant sticker determined by their car usage. Some of these included:
- A = Basic sticker for passenger cars. Allowed 3 to 4 US gallons of gas per week and max 150 miles/mo.
- B = For those who could prove that their job required driving more than 150 miles per month. They also had to carry 3 or more passengers. 8 gallons of gas/week.
- C = Supplemental sticker for those whose “professional” job required up to 470 miles/mo. (Doctors, dentists)
- D = Motorcyclists essential to the war effort. Same ratio of miles as the “A” sticker. 2 gallons/wk.
- R = Non-highway vehicles such as tractors.
- T = Commercial trucking: 5 gal/wk.
- X =Highest priority stickers for those with extraordinary mileage allowances. Some Congressmen also wrangled these. Unlimited gasoline.
Soon enough the joke was circulating that “OPA” stood for “Only A Puny A-Card.”
With the exception of shoes, (rationed beginning in 1943) clothing in general was not rationed. However, since textiles such as wool (for uniforms) and silk (for parachutes) were needed in the war effort, and because clothing factories switched from making civilian clothes to military uniforms, supply was limited. The War Production Board encouraged people to consider reusing, sewing, and mending clothes as their patriotic duty.
In addition, in 1942, the War Production Board did put restrictions on clothing manufacturers via a policy referred to as the “L-85 Regulations,” limiting how much fabric manufacturers could use to produce civilian clothing. This meant that women’s skirts became shorter, used fewer buttons, and eliminated flaps on pockets and “balloon” blouse sleeves. Men’s suits also had no pocket flaps, narrow labels, and were only single breasted.
The Salvage Operation
Salvaging materials to meet the needs of war production was immense and equally as important as rationing. The clips below effectively illuminate the reasoning, communications, and the systems for salvage collection. Most compelling were those articles that outlined how many pounds or tons of an item were needed to produce specific war necessities. For instance, in the “Save Scrap” advert below we learn that 25 pounds of wastepaper can make eight shell containers. Posters were excellently designed—look at the view down the barrel of an artillery gun (below) calling for saving waste fats. The language and images used to encourage salvaging are so vivid they speak for themselves. And don’t miss the last item in this news report re: ladies hosiery!
“One pound of kitchen fats makes enough dynamite to blow up a bridge.”
Poster: Save Waste Fats For Gunpowder, artist unknown. Courtesy PosterGroup.com
Cambridge aiming to collect 555,000 pounds of wastepaper:
Virtually all countries – Axis or Allied – had a rationing system during the war. In the United States, rationing was ended in stages as supply met demand, but goods remained in short supply after the war.
| Rationed Items | Rationing Duration |
| Tires | January 1942 to December 1945 |
| Cars | February 1942 to October 1945 |
| Bicycles | July 1942 to September 1945 |
| Gasoline | May 1942 to August 1945 |
| Fuel Oil & Kerosene | October 1942 to August 1945 |
| Solid Fuels | September 1943 to August 1945 |
| Stoves | December 1942 to August 1945 |
| Rubber Footwear | October 1942 to September 1945 |
| Shoes | February 1943 to October 1945 |
| Sugar | May 1942 to 1947 |
| Coffee | November 1942 to July 1943 |
| Processed Foods | March 1943 to August 1945 |
| Meats, canned fish | March 1943 to November 1945 |
| Cheese, canned milk, fats | March 1943 to November 1945 |
| Typewriters | March 1942 to April 1944 |
Duration of commodities rationed in the United States during WWII. Courtesy Ames History Museum.
After the War
The complexities of transitioning from wartime production to peacetime production was anticipated as early as 1942, as seen in this in this excerpt from an article just as rationing was beginning:
Manufacturers Do Their Part
Wartime needs produced a boom in manufacturing. Many American companies pivoted their manufacturing capabilities to support the war effort. One such company was Maidenform, a manufacturer of women’s bras, underwear, and shapewear. Maidenform began producing vests and parachutes for homing pigeons who accompanied paratroopers and often delivered critical messages. For more on this astonishing story, read “Pigeons in bras go to war” by Lindsay Keating: https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/pigeons-bras-go-war.
After the war, retooling factories for peacetime production presented a different sort of challenge such as shifting from making tanks to making cars. Nonetheless, celebration prevailed:
Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen M. Fox
SOURCES
“Black Markets during World War II” by Lauren Gronek. https://iu.pressbooks.pub/perspectives2/chapter/black-markets-during-world-war-ii/.
“Fashion on the ration- How WWII and clothes rationing affected fashion and street style in the 1940s” by Neil Patrick. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/07/13/fashion-ration-2-2/.
“How Gas Rationing Worked in World War II.” History Time Machine. https://historytimemachine.com/how-gas-rationing-worked-in-world-war-ii/.
John and Ruth Maki’s WWII Ration Books, Number 4. United States Office of Price Administration. https://archive.org/details/maki.war.ration.books.1943.
“Make It Do – Clothing in World War II” by Sarah Sundin. https://www.sarahsundin.com/make-it-do-clothing-restrictions-in-world-war-ii/.
“Make It Do – Rationing of Butter, Fats & Oils in World War II” by Sarah Sundin. https://www.sarahsundin.com/make-it-do-rationing-of-fats-oils-in-world-war-ii-2/.
“Office of Price Administration.” Encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/us-history/office-price-administration.
Ration Book Holder, Office of Price Administration (OPA). Compiled and formatted by Patrick Clancey, HyperWar Foundation. https://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ATO/Admin/OPA/RatBk/index.html.
“Ration Books.” The National WWII Museum. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/take-closer-look-ration-books.
“Rationed Goods in the U.S. During World War II.” Ames History Museum. https://ameshistory.org/content/rationed-goods-us-during-world-war-ii.
“Rationing during WW2: See war ration books, ration stamps, gas stamps, sugar coupons & more from the 1940s.” Click Americana. https://clickamericana.com/topics/war-topics/ration-stamps-ww2-war-ration-book-4.
“When Did Food Rationing Finally End in the United States? A Deliciously Detailed History.” Organize for Living. https://organizeforliving.com/when-did-food-rationing-end-in-the-us/.
“World War II ration stamps.” Alumni Brunswick High School. http://alumnibhs.com/old%20geezer%20photos/ww2%20ration%20stamps.htm.
“World War II Rationing on the U.S. Homefront.” Ames History Museum. https://ameshistory.org/content/world-war-ii-rationing-us-homefront.
