Rationing during World War II

The last thing of my mother's (died October 28th, 2015 at the age of 99) for me to go through is her sewing chest. This 11 x 9 x 6 box contains letters from my father during WWII and numerous other letters and newspaper clippings. I'll post about some of the more interesting ones here. The first one is from the Wichita newspaper on January 25th, 1945.

The idea of rationing was pretty foreign to me, so I googled to get some more information on what was rationed. The following information is from the National WW2 Museum.

"World War II put a heavy burden on US supplies of basic materials like food, shoes, metal, paper, and rubber. The Army and Navy were growing, as was the nation’s effort to aid its allies overseas. Civilians still needed these materials for consumer goods as well. To meet this surging demand, the federal government took steps to conserve crucial supplies, including establishing a rationing system that impacted virtually every family in the United States." I also learned that in the US, most glycerin came from the production of soap... when fats and lye are combined, soap and glycerin were formed. Glycerin is a crucial ingredient in the manufacture of explosives such as nitroglycerin. Slogans like "One tablespoonful of kitchen grease fires five bullets" and "One pound of kitchen fats makes enough dynamite to blow up a bridge" were used to inspire housewives to save.