Rationing

Economic mobilization for World War II created the need to ration consumer goods on the World War II home front. Military material and production requirements meant limited supplies of a variety of consumer goods, as did also the inability to import sufficient quantities of some raw materials. The higher incomes created by wartime prosperity and the price controls imposed to restrain inflation meant that people could afford consumer goods—and they wanted to buy them after a decade of deprivation. A rationing system was thus necessary to ensure that essential goods were allocated fairly. Wartime rationing, administered by the Office of Price Administration (OPA), was generally effective, but it was never popular.

The OPA implemented rationing when requested by various supply agencies, with the War Production Board ultimately gaining the authority to determine which goods would be rationed, when, and in what amounts. Ten rationing programs were begun in 1942, with more following in the remainder of the war. They involved a number of products for a variety of reasons. Rationing of tires, for example, came because of the near total cutoff of the importation of rubber from Japanese-controlled Asia and the need for rubber for the military and essential civilian uses. Gasoline rationing was implemented largely to save rubber and tires, fuel oil rationing because of the needs of railroads as well as the military. Shoes were rationed because of military needs. Canned foods rationing came because of military requirements for tin; coffee and sugar rationing, because shipping was diverted to other purposes; meat and butter rationing, to ensure adequate supplies for the military and for Lend-Lease shipments to the Allies. Some goods in short supply were not rationed. Automobile production, for example, was shut down during the war as the automobile industry converted to wartime production, and no rationing was needed. Clothing (except for shoes) was not rationed, nor were fresh fruits and vegetables, nor whiskey and cigarettes.

Consistent with the OPA’s grassroots organization principles, every county had a rationing board and tens of thousands of volunteers implemented a changing system of ration books, coupons, colored stamps, stickers, and certificates for various goods and amounts. Merchants could not get new supplies until they turned in coupons, certificates, and so forth for the inventories they had sold. OPA also employed a complicated and variable point system to try better to balance supply and demand.

Poster advocating food rationing during World War II (Library of Congress)

While most Americans understood the need for rationing and supported the principle, the system seemed complicated and confused and susceptible to arbitrary and unfair decisions. And inevitably, board members sometimes (many Americans thought usually) showed favoritism to friends and family, or to those with influence.

Moreover, rationing seemed somehow un-American, depriving people of their right to buy what they wanted in the amounts they wanted, especially after the decade-long Great Depression. The scarcity and rationing of some items was especially galling—above all, perhaps, for gasoline and meat, which struck at driving and eating preferences. Indeed, President Franklin D. Roosevelt postponed gasoline rationing until after the 1942 elections because he knew how unpopular it would be. Rationing gave rise to the flourishing black market of the American home front, most notably in such items as gasoline and meat. Panicked buying and hoarding preceded the imposition of rationing on sugar, coffee, meat, canned foods, and other items.

The wartime mantra of shortages and sacrifice was “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”—but few

Americans wanted to do without, and when they used it up or wore it out they wanted to buy more. Often they could not buy more—not only was automobile production stopped but other consumer durables requiring metal (refrigerators and other appliances, for example) were in short supply, and rationing restricted purchases of many other items. Still, overall consumer spending and production of consumer goods increased during the war, despite the shortages and rationing, and despite grumbling about deprivation. The United States devoted only about 40 percent of its GNP to war production, as compared to more than half in Germany and Britain. Quality and choice often declined, but buying did not, and nutritional standards rose. Where annual per capita meat consumption fell in Britain from 132 to 115 pounds during the war, for example, it rose from 134 to 162 in the United States. Corrected for inflation, consumer spending rose by 12 percent in the United States from 1939 to 1943 and fell by about 30 percent in Britain.

Rationing, then, became an accepted though never popular feature of wartime American life, accepted in principle but criticized and sometimes resisted or evaded in application. And while rationing produced inconvenience and frustration, it did not prevent generally rising living standards, and it created little real hardship.

Further reading: Richard Lingeman, Don’-t You Know There’s a War On? The American Home Front, 1941-1945 (New York: Putnam, 1970).

Recent Social Trends in the United States (1933) Soon after assuming office in 1929, President Herbert C. Hoover commissioned the first statistical analysis of the United States to help formulate what his administration deemed “sound national policies.” In 1930 he approached noted sociologist William Fielding Ogburn to undertake this extensive project as head of the President’s Research Committee on Social Trends. Ogburn enthusiastically embraced his duties and solicited help from no less than 34 fellow scholars. His efforts were also abetted and underwritten by a half-million-dollar grant provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. The resulting product, entitled Recent Social Trends in the United States, was finally published in 1933, the year after Hoover had been voted out of office in the election Of 1932 as a consequence of the Great Depression. It consisted of two volumes of thirty-four chapters, each penned by an expert in the field, in addition to 13 separate monographs. The study, 1,500 pages in length, was extremely wide-ranging in scope and covered such topics as science, inventions, marriage, family life, and economics in precise detail. It remains one of the leading sources on American society from 1890 to the cusp of the depression era and highlights the manifold dramatic changes experienced by the nation during that interval.

One of the major findings was the glaring dichotomy in wealth and opportunity existing between urban and rural areas. The former, comprising 56 percent of the population, enjoyed relative prosperity and affluence in contrast to the remaining 44 percent living in rural areas. Stark statistics proved that most country dwellers subsisted largely without the amenities of modern life, including electricity and indoor plumbing, with little basic improvement in lifestyles since the previous century. Another disturbing finding was that, while the consumer economy produced an ever-widening variety of products such as automobiles, radios, and refrigerators, trends throughout the 1920s reflected a diminishing ability of many to purchase these products. Hoover ultimately interpreted Recent Social Trends as a backhanded assault upon his presidency, and he officially distanced himself from the report he had so enthusiastically commissioned. Nonetheless, it represented the first modern application of statistical analysis on a national basis and remains a respected and important source of data on America through the 1920s. Its acute methodology and erudite conclusions also influenced a generation of sociologists in terms of information-gathering techniques and interpretation.

See also Hoover presidency.

Further reading: Bulmer, Martin. “The Methodology of Early Social Indicator Research: William Field Ogburn and ‘Recent Social Trends,’ 1933,” Social Indicators Research 13, no. 2 (August 1983): 109-130; Neil J. Smelser and Dean R. Gerstein, Behavior and Social Science: Fifty Years of Discovery (Washington, D. C.: National Academy Press, 1986).

—John C. Fredriksen