The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor dramatically ended the debate over America's entrance into the war that raged around the world. As eager volunteers flooded local draft board offices, ordinary citizens soon felt the impact of the war.
Almost overnight, the economy shifted to war production. Consumer goods took a back seat to military production as nationwide rationing began almost immediately.
In May 1942, the U.S. Office of Price Administration (OPA) froze prices on practically all everyday goods, starting with sugar and coffee.
War ration books and tokens were issued to each American family, dictating how much gasoline, tires, sugar, meat, silk, shoes, nylon and other items any one person could buy. Across the country, 8,000 rationing boards were created to administer these restrictions.
The first nonfood item rationed was rubber. The Japanese had seized plantations in the Dutch East Indies that produced 90 percent of America's raw rubber. President Franklin Roosevelt called on citizens to help by contributing scrap rubber to be recycled, old tires, old rubber raincoats, garden hose, rubber shoes, bathing caps.
The OPA established the Idle Tire Purchase Plan, and could deny mileage rations to anyone owning passenger tires not in use. Voluntary gas rationing proved ineffective, and by the spring of 1942, mandatory rationing was needed. To get your classification and ration stamps, you had to certify to a local board that you needed gas and owned no more than five tires.
A wide variety of commodities were rationed:
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 and kerosene October 1942 to August 1945
Solid fuels September 1943 to August 1945
Stoves December 1942 to August 1945
Rubber footware 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 Nov. 1945
Typewriters March 1942 to April 1944
By 1944, whiskey had disappeared from liquor store shelves as distilleries converted to the production of industrial alcohol.
New car production was banned beginning Jan. 1, 1942, as former auto plants switched to the production of military vehicles.
Thirty percent of all cigarettes produced were allocated for servicemen, making cigarettes a scarce commodity on the home front by 1944.
By the end of the war, rationing limited consumption of almost every product with the exception of eggs and dairy foods.
For many who served on the home front, rationing may be the most remembered daily aspect of the war.
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