A 1943 book of ration stamps
December 11, 1941: Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 3 days after declaring war on Japan, and on the day that the other Axis nations, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, declared war on America and America responded in kind, America begins wartime rationing of various items.
American civilians first received ration books -- War Ration Book Number One, or the Sugar Book -- on May 4, 1942, through more than 100,000 school teachers, Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA), and other volunteers. Sugar was the first consumer commodity rationed. Bakeries, ice cream makers, and other commercial users received rations of about 70 percent of normal usage.
On a 1994 Thanksgiving episode of the TV sitcom Mad About You, Sylvia Buchman (played by Cynthia Harris) explained to her son, Paul (Paul Reiser) and daughter-in-law, Jamie (Helen Hunt) that she loved sweet potatoes with marshmallows, but since marshmallows are mostly sugar, she didn't have them during "The War," so she made a vow that, when The War was over, she would never go without marshmallows on Thanksgiving again. And Jamie didn't have marshmallows.
Coffee was rationed on November 27, 1942 -- the day after Thanksgiving -- to 1 pound every 5 weeks. How the hell did we win The War with less coffee? We didn't: We shipped it to the soldiers and sailors, so they could operate with peak efficiency.
By the end of 1942, ration coupons were used for 9 other items. Typewriters, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, silk, nylon, fuel oil, stoves, meat, lard, shortening and cooking oils, cheese, butter, margarine, processed foods (canned, bottled, and frozen), dried fruits, canned milk, firewood and coal, jams, jellies, and fruit butters were rationed by November 1943.
Nylon stockings had only been put on the market in 1940, and women were upset over losing them. Some responded by drawing lines down their legs with a pen, to make it look like they were wearing stockings. Which led to a joke: One woman said to the other, "Your seams are crooked," and the second woman said, "That shows what you know: I'm not wearing stockings!"
Rubber was rationed, needed for the tires for military vehicles: Cars, trucks, jeeps, planes. Scrap metal was donated, to be converted for use in building such vehicles. The auto industry turned its attention to building trucks, jeeps and planes. Essentially, a 1946 automobile looked pretty much the same as a 1942 automobile.
The work of issuing ration books and exchanging used stamps for certificates was handled by some 5,500 local ration boards of mostly volunteers. As a result of the gasoline rationing, all forms of automobile racing, including the Indianapolis 500, were banned.
In addition, gasoline and oil rationing led to "wartime travel restrictions." This changed the way baseball schedules were handled, and led to Spring Training been held in the North instead of the South, and the cancellation of the All-Star Game in 1945, despite V-E Day (but not yet V-J Day) having already happened.
All rationing in the United States ended in 1946.
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December 11, 1941 was a Thursday. Rock singer J. Frank Wilson, hockey star Jean-Paul Parise and Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, were born.
Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat their then-co-tenants at Madison Square Garden, the Brooklyn Americans, 5-3. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Montreal Forum. Gerry Heffernan scored the winning goal, 6:50 into overtime.
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