December 11, 1941: Wartime Rationing Begins In America

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.

September 20, 1938: The Success and Tragedy of Nylon

Wallace Hume Carothers

September 20, 1938: The chemical company DuPont de Nemours, Inc. obtains a patent for nylon, changing clothing forever.

Researchers at DuPont began developing cellulose-based fibers, culminating in the synthetic fiber rayon. Their experience with it was an important precursor to its development and marketing of nylon.

Their invention of nylon spanned an eleven-year period, ranging from the initial research program in polymers in 1927 to its announcement in 1938, shortly before the opening of the 1939 New York World's Fair. The project grew from a new organizational structure at DuPont, suggested by Charles Stine in 1927, in which the chemical department would be composed of several small research teams that would focus on "pioneering research" in chemistry and would "lead to practical applications."

Harvard instructor Wallace Hume Carothers was hired to direct the polymer research group. Initially he was allowed to focus on pure research, building on and testing the theories of German chemist Hermann Staudinger. Research he undertook greatly improved the knowledge of polymers and contributed to the science.

Nylon was the first commercially successful synthetic thermoplastic polymer. Nylon 66 was synthesized on February 28, 1935, by Carothers at DuPont's research facility at the DuPont Experimental Station, on the banks of the Brandywine Creek in Wilmington, Delaware. In response to Carothers' work, Paul Schlack at German company IG Farben developed Nylon 6, a different molecule, on January 29, 1938. But, with his 3-year head-start, Carothers got the patent first.

Or, rather, his estate got it: Plagued by depression, Carothers died in Philadelphia on April 29, 1937, one day after drinking potassium cyanide. He was only 41 years old, and had married a fellow chemist, Helen Sweetman, only the previous year. His sister Isobel had died a few weeks earlier, and that may have put him over the edge. His daughter Jane was born after his death.

Nylon was first used commercially in a nylon-bristled toothbrush that year, followed more famously in women's stockings or "nylons" which were shown at the 1939 World's Fair, and first sold commercially in 1940. They became an instant commercial success, with 64 million pairs sold during their first year on the market. During World War II, almost all nylon production was diverted to the military for use in parachutes and parachute cord. Wartime uses of nylon and other plastics greatly increased the market for the new materials.

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September 20, 1938 was a Tuesday. There were 4 baseball games played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 5-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Lou Gehrig went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-5 with an RBI. Monte Stratton outpitched Bump Hadley.

Stratton made only 1 more major league appearance. On November 27, he lost a leg in a hunting accident on his farm in Greenville, Texas, but came back to play again in the minor leagues, although not the majors. Jimmy Stewart starred in the 1949 film The Stratton Story.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 9-1 at League Park in Cleveland.

* And the Boston Red Sox swept the St. Louis Browns, 12-8 7-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Jimmie Foxx hit his 46th home run of the season in the nightcap. He would hit 50. Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers would hit 58, a total that Foxx had reached with the 1932 Philadelphia Athletics.