Wartime Rationing

And Vital Material Salvaging

By 1942, virtually every American civilian was regestered and had been issued ration books. The American Home Front reacted with enthusem and soon begin salvaging any type of material that would help the war effort.

Rationing

The wartime Americans could not purchase a new car after 1942. They just weren't being built and new ones were not on the market again until 1946. (Actually, there were a very few 1942 models were built in 1943 called "blackout model" because they didn't have any Chorminum, a vital war material.) Almost all automotive assembly lines had already been converted by then in order to build military vehicles, tanks and aircraft. Chevrolet, Buick and other companys also begin building aircraft engines.

Gasoline for use in cars at home was rationed, and a gas rationing sticker bearing the letter A, B or C was displayed in the windshield. "A" meant that trips were not essential, "B" indicated someone who needed to use the car for his work, and ""C"" was issued to those whose car was essential, such as doctors. Nonessential users were limited to three gallons of gas per week, and new tires were almost impossible to find. People drove below the speed limit to conserve gas and tires.

By 1943 many of the common food items came under the rationing program, including butter, coffee, dairy products and some meats. Each item was assigned a certain number of ration points in addition to the monatery price. Grocery shoppers had red and blue food rationing stamps along with red and blue tokens that were given as change if your stamp's value was higher then the points required.

The red stamps and tokens were for meat and animal products and the blue stamps and tokens were for vegatable products like sugar. You couldn't substutute one color in place of the other. The stamps and tokens had to be paid just like the money for those items that were rationed. Shoppers could earn extra stamps by turning in their meat drippings and other fats for bomb production. Thus, shoppers looked not only at the price of an item, but how many rationing points or stamps they cost.

A great many citizens dug up their backyards or the vacant lot next door to establish Victory Gardens. Many people kept a few chicken for the egges and meat and some even kept a cow for the milk and butter. They would tie the cow to a stake driven into the ground on a nearby vacant lot or right of way. At the gardening peak, there were more than 20,000 victory gardens in the country, producing 40% of all vegetables grown during World War II.

Salvaging

Though the production facilities were in place to build warplanes, the raw materials were not. Aircraft industries needed aluminum, rubber, and copper immediately. A ready-made source of raw materials was the American Home Front. Each household contained some non-essential items that could support the aircraft industry.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the American people declared emergency status on all materials. Metal Goes to War was a slogan by early 1942 which affected both household kitchen appliances and company office furniture.

Existing metal office furniture such as desks, file cabinets and chairs were salvaged for conversion into airplanes, bombs, weaponry and ships, then replaced with wood substitutes. Old tires were recycled and made into new tires, to conserve raw rubber. Rubber, along with aluminum and other strategic materials were collected and reused to build the weapons and equipment needed for defense.

Children salvaged tons of aluminum and rubber, and logged many hours in the factories as punch-clock labor. As a for instance, I started working the 3 month summer vacations at the age of 14. I started in a grocery warehouse. One summer in a bottling plant and another summer in an ice company.

Women joined the workforce for the first time in aircraft factories, shipyards, transportation centers, and any other job that would free a man for combat duty.

The older generation served on selective service boards, manned civilian defense jobs, bought and sold war bonds and many seniors came out of retirement to fill in the gaps left by younger men entering the armed services.

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