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Remembering wartime rationing

By Eric Rush, For The Greene County Messenger 4 min read
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(EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the years, Eric Rush of Waynesburg has written many articles for the Greene County Messenger about important moments in local and U.S. history, particularly pertaining to the events, milestones and soldiers of the Civil War and the two World Wars. In his latest series, Rush writes about WWII’s impact on rationing.)

The U.S. had never experienced any wartime shortages in food or commercial products in its history prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In fact, the U.S. production was so overwhelming on all fronts that it was recognized early that some control was needed in wartime if the U.S. was not only to provide for itself but for the world in whole as well.

During the Civil War, U.S. food production was more focused on preservation, including the long-term preservation of food for the front, and was to see the wide introduction of canned food and hard crackers, all of which did not have any effect on local food stores. In the 50 years between the Civil War and World War I, both canning, now in metal tins, and refrigeration for meat products would take hold not only for domestic intake but for export as well.

At the same time in the early 1920s, the modern commercial society was emerging and new products were rising that would have an important wartime effect; chief of these was the growing importance of the automobile and those products which it was dependent on, namely tires and the rubber they were made of and gasoline and the crude oil which it was made of, not to mention the nameless other oil based products that were produced.

The large basket which was to feed the world is illustrated by the numbers for importation produced for Great Britain in 1939, where she imported 20 million tons of food for the nation per year as well as 50 percent of its meat, 70 percent of its cheese and sugar, close to 80 percent of its fruits and 70 percent of its cereals. While it is true that not all of those imports where solely American, the American contribution was large.

The U.S. economic war effort started in early 1941 with the creation of the Office of Price Administration (OPA), which warned Americans of the potential of future gasoline shortages, among many things. By the time of Pearl Harbor, several products had been identified for potential future shortages, chief among these being tires.

The first commodity to make an impact on the home front was to be those tires caused by an expectant shortage in rubber due to the Japanese occupation of the rubber producing areas in southeast Asia. The U.S. government moved early in December, banning all new tire sales in the U.S. The government then created new three-person boards to control the dispersion of the tires.

In Greene County, there were two boards made, one for the eastern end and one for the central and western ends. By January these boards were formed, and they were functioning by February. Greene County was initially given 78 auto tires and 51 truck tires. The names of those who received those tires were published in the newspaper. Another measure to conserve rubber and gas was to be the lowering of the speed limit to 35 mph nationwide to save the wear on tires.

Normal sales of automobiles came to an end on Jan. 1, 1942, leaving 500,000 cars still on the lots as of yet unsold. These too were to become objects which the boards were to control in handing out cars only to certain people with a need for a new car such as doctors and clergy. By February, all U.S. auto production ceased in favor of war production.

But it was to be in food distribution that rationing was to make its full effect on the home front.

NEXT WEEK: Greene County supports the war by initiating scrap metal drives.

(Some information for the article was obtained from “The History of Greene County, Pennsylvania” by Dr. G. Wayne Smith.)

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