RATIONING

Rationing refers to the equitable allocation of scarce or valuable resources among competing consumers who have varying degrees of demand or need. Resources can be rationed informally at the local level on a merchant-by-merchant basis, as was done by many U.S. businesses during the Great Depression. Resources can also be rationed systematically by the government. During World War II (1939–1945), President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) and Congress, in an effort to eliminate from the economy every ounce of excess and waste, enacted legislation (1942) authorizing the president to establish the War Production Board (WPB) and the Office of Price Administration (OPA).

WPB was assigned the task of dividing scarce resources between the military and civilian production sectors, while the OPA was responsible for administering rationing plans. Both agencies had regional and state branches of enforcement. More than 100 million Americans were issued ration cards, coupons, and certificates, which restricted the quantity of goods that could be purchased and the uses to which they could be put. Windshields were stamped to indicate how much gasoline car owners could buy during a given week. Civilians working outside the defense industry, for example, could buy no more than three gallons per week. Horses, trolley cars, and walking quickly became popular modes of transportation. Rubber, gasoline, and sugar were rationed in 1942, meat and shoes in 1943. By the end of the war the list of items rationed in the United States included typewriters, bicycles, stoves, tea, coffee, canned and processed foods, fats, coal, and an assortment of leather items. Manufacturing stopped altogether for other items deemed unnecessary to the war effort and daily subsistence, such as curlers, electric toasters, waffle irons, cocktail shakers, and lobster forks.

Most Americans understood that it was their patriotic duty to make ends meet within the rationing system, but violations did occur and black markets sprang up around the country. Some amusing blunders befell the system as well: a Pennsylvania rationing office had to close because it failed to ration enough fuel for itself. Nonetheless, domestic rationing played a significant role in increasing the resources available to Allied cause.