Use It Up. Wear It Out.

Make It Do, or Do Without!

American Women and Wartime Food Rationing

Kelly Cantrell

University of Mississippi

Women in the 1940s met a demanding challenge from the United States government during World War II.  American women fought World War II from their own kitchens by rationing and tailoring meals in order to provide nutrition.   Women viewed rationing as both a patriotic duty and a war job.  The American government and advertisement campaigns told women a combination of rationing and nutrition would supply the allies and ultimately end the war.  Rationing succeeded largely because women adhered to and embraced the program.

               Although Rosie the Riveter serves as the archetype for American women during World War II, housewives formed a much larger majority of the population.  Generally American culture and society expected all women, even Rosie, to go home and cook dinner after work.  Over fifty three million women ran households in 1944 with 58% working outside of the home.[1]  Although this seems like a high percent of women in the workforce these statistics include all types of work and women whose socio- economic status forced them to work in order to survive.  These statistics also hide a large shift; many women in domestic service simply left these jobs for wartime jobs, which paid more money.  In short most of the women working in 1944 were already a part of the workforce before the beginning of World War II, and a very small percent of women from the middle or better classes entered the war industries.  The majority of these women simply continued as housewives, only now housewifery constituted a patriotic duty.  Middle class and upper class women who voluntarily participated in rationing programs made up the group, which the government and advertisements targeted most.

These upper and especially middle class women acted as the base of consumer power, as they went to the market and actually purchased goods.  An advisory committee to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Food Habits pegged women as the ones in the family through which the government could influence and alter civilian eating and shopping habits as necessary during wartime.[2]  At the onset of American involvement in World War II the government instituted a voluntary rationing program similar to the program used during World War I, but by 1942 all that changed.  In 1942 local ration boards began issuing ration book number two and rationing became mandatory.  Sugar was the first food rationed in May of 1942, and by the end of that same year both coffee and red meat were also rationed. A bit later on due to severe shortages canned goods also joined the list of rationed foods. 

The government’s mandatory rationing took plenty of getting used to as the system was very complicated and symbolic.  Each person in a home received a certain allotment of rationed food coupons either for the week or the month.  In addition to the amount of a rationed food a housewife could purchase there were stamps controlling the quality of the rationed foods.  The government also set price ceilings on some foods, in order to discourage price gouging and black market activities.  Thus a woman at the grocery store not only needed to budget family funds, but also budget coupons, and remember the set prices of food staples.  On top of everything else a wartime woman had to keep in mind ration points actually expired after a certain number of days.  Some newspapers offered assistance to housewives in the form of regular columns, which listed expiration dates and other important ration dates.[3]  All this thinking did not stop at the grocery store, but continued in a woman’s own kitchen in the form of meal planning.

  In the midst of the confusion caused by rationing and its accompanying coupons, the government launched a campaign to bolster nutrition in the United States.  Between 1918 and 1940 advances in science led to the discovery of vitamins as important to a balanced healthful diet in addition to the accepted proteins, fats, and carbohydrates already present in the American diet and vocabulary.[4]  In an effort to increase general knowledge of nutrition in the United States the Food and Nutrition Board released a guide to daily eating and nutrition called the Basic Seven.  The original food groups included:

1.      Green and yellow vegetables

2.      Oranges, tomatoes, grapefruit or raw cabbage and salad greens

3.      Potatoes and other vegetables and fruits

4.      Milk and milk products

5.      Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, or dried beans, peas, nuts, or peanut butter

6.      Bread, flour, and cereals

7.      Butter and fortified margarine [5]

The Basic Seven also suggested caloric intake for different levels of activity, as well as becoming the basis for the construction of an ordered meal, which added up to the suggested intake from each group.[6]  Understandably, if every bite counted toward the nutritious meal the government expected women to provide, meal planning took on a new significance for the housewife.  In order to spread nutritional knowledge and better the American diet the government launched the “US needs us strong- eat the basic 7 every day” advertisement campaign.  Food producing companies displayed a small emblem with this slogan on their ads usually along with a blurb describing which food group the company’s product fell into.  Kellogg’s Corn Flakes proudly proclaimed that cereals were not only a “real wartime winner” but they also made up group six of the basic seven.[7]  The government and advertisers stressed that a woman’s primary war job consisted of serving healthy meals and saving food to send to overseas servicemen.  Grocery shopping, recipes, meal planning and kitchen conservation all added up to patriotic duty for World War II era women.

               At the end of both the war years and the need for rationing, scholarly journals unanimously decided that the success of rationing depended on the willingness of the public to abide by the rules.  In the arena of food, the rationing depended entirely on women since shopping and food preparation were seen as women’s work in the 1940s.  Luckily American women saw rationing, with the assistance of some masterful propaganda, as a patriotic duty.  Although rationing and food shortages meant changes in recipes, cooking, and shopping, most women willingly accepted the program.  As one magazine article phrased it “to achieve real war machine status women had to take on this war as their own- to conserve fats and tin and to just remember that everything a family consumes retards the war effort”.[8] 

Many advertisements placed the American housewife’s actions in the middle of the war effort, going so far as to suggest that rationing would end the war sooner so that more American boys could return home alive.  American women truly believed rationing and conservation held the answer to preserving American service men’s lives, and many women whose husbands, sons, or brothers were overseas thought their contribution to or noncompliance with war efforts might personally affect their loved one.   One Rhode Island mother, Saidee Leach, wrote “no, I am not envious of your eating steak for we want you men to have the best”.[9]  Housewives became well versed in the language of self -sacrifice during the war years, but their war job required more than just sacrifices; it required real thought and planning.

Even as women learned the rationing system and began to understand the new nutritional charts large shifts had already been made in the patterns of their lives.  Housewives in the period before the depression, much like women today, were seen as excessive shoppers.  Common knowledge and rumors convicted women of buying too many extras, from extra stockings to extra foodstuffs.  Rationing required women to carefully consider exactly which foods the family could afford in relation to both ration stamps and actual greenbacks.  In response women tightened their belts and started to look at shopping in a different light. 

Before the war many women shopped either every day or every few days.  Wartime shortages and rationing combined with the ability to store food for longer periods of time in refrigerators pushed women to shop less frequently.  Fewer shopping trips meant less gas used, less wear on rubber tires, and it was easier for the housewife to apportion ration stamps. Meal planning was virtually required if a woman only traveled to the store once a week, and by planning meals women could also assure that her family received all the nutrients recommended by the Basic Seven.  In effect meal planning guaranteed that a woman was fulfilling her war job by both making a concerned effort to provide optimum nutrition and to save as much “grade A” food as possible for service men.

  Advertisement campaigns fully recognized the American woman’s new shopping habits and offer helpful suggestions and tips in order to simplify meal planning.  The Del Monte food company offered a free wartime meal planner complete with a “US needs us strong” nutritional chart.  The campaign stressed that women needed the “buy for a week habit- save time, save work, save gas, and tires too”, the advertisement also promised that Del Monte foods provided “easier, better, and more healthful wartime meals”.[10]  Good Housekeeping magazine, much like many other women’s magazines, published hints for easier meal planning. They recommend the housewife put out a sheet of paper in the kitchen in order to jot down meal ideas and to formulate weekly Basic Seven adherent meals and calculate the ration points needed to purchase the food for those meals.  Good Housekeeping also suggested the housewife keep a file of favorite recipes that met rationing standards.[11]

In spite of all the recipes for non- rationed goods women found in magazines, women discovered a much larger problem on their grocer’s shelves.  Wartime women expected to see less red meat, sugar, coffee, and canned goods.  Unfortunately, across America grocers were also out of dairy products, fresh produce, frozen vegetables, baby food, and any foodstuffs included in military rations such as Jello gelatin or Hershey bars.  Moreover, shortages meant that even if a housewife possessed enough points and money for a good cut of red meat many times the butcher did not have any meat.  In May of 1943 the problem became so severe that one fourth of all consumers could not acquire beef, one tenth could not find steaks or lamb, and seven percent could not buy pork or bacon.[12]  These statistics are quite telling since overall during the war years American pig farmers maintained a good supply of pork, and lamb served as a substitute for beef.

 Many shortages of non-rationed or low ration point foods originated because women were encouraged to use these foods as high point substitutes.  For example, since canned fruits were scarce many women began incorporating non-rationed baby food into their family’s meals. This practice in conjunction with the beginnings of a baby boom soon precipitated empty grocery shelves.  Likewise, women unable to find fresh milk because of distribution problems bought canned milk causing a shortage of that product since the tin used to produce cans was rationed. The government proposed the victory garden in response to the shortages of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Victory gardens ideally contained enough food to feed one’s own family and provided extra for canning.

Housewives, especially rural and suburban housewives, were encouraged to can food from victory gardens so that it could be preserved for later use and perhaps prevent or relieve the acute shortages of fresh produce in markets.  This plan contained one fatal flaw. While glass jars and tops could be obtained, both pressure cookers and sugar were nearly impossible to find in many areas and on top of shortages sugar was too tightly rationed![13]  Although American women encountered hardships in participating in the canning program three fourths of housewives were canning vegetables, fruits, jams, jellies, and meats.[14]  Catherine Cole wrote to her husband about the tiresome work of canning tomatoes with her mother and sister all day, but inserted that “it’s a good thing to can though for if you get them in the stores by the can you have to use so many ration points”.[15] 

Out of all the shortages facing the World War II housewife butter ranked supreme.  Not only was butter a staple in most recipes and on every table, Americans did not take to eating oleo–margarine.  One of the most obvious reasons women exhibited dislike for margarine stemmed from aesthetic reasons, butter producers convinced the government to forbid grocers to sell colored margarine to the public.  Instead of a soft yellow butter color margarine arrived in the kitchen white with a small packet of food coloring.[16]  But as with many other products margarine soon became a staple in American homes since other imported cooking oils like palm or olive oil were unavailable to the housewife.[17]  As cooking oils grew more scant Americans began using more shortening in their frying and baking.  Spry pure vegetable shortening advertised that although their product might be a tad difficult to find, it made such “fine biscuits and gravy that a man doesn’t mind getting less chicken”.[18] In a related field Kraft Miracle Whip salad dressing opted to fill the vacancy left by traditional salad oils and emphasized not only the good flavor of the product but the healthy benefits of regularly eating salads.[19]  

At the onset of rationing and all throughout the war years women hoarded goods and kept the black market busy in response to the difficulties they experienced in acquiring goods.  The practice of hoarding became so wide spread it became the fodder for jokes.  One such joke has a young child proudly explaining to the teacher, after a lesson on the value of saving, that her mother had saved coffee for a long time and now had over one hundred pounds worth of the rationed commodity.[20]  Hoarding, while being a sort of guilty pleasure for women, created some of the very shortages housewives felt they were insuring against.  Hoarding meant the routine of owning more of a rationed food than one admitted to possessing, not simply stocking up on those products before the beginning of the ration program.  Hoarders would simply not declare their full supply of sugar or butter or meat when called for an accounting by the ration board, thus insuring they would receive a full booklet of ration stamps and benefit from their secreted surplus.[21]

 Many women got involved with the black market. On the black market a housewife would either pay more for a rationed item than was legal, supplementing extra money for stamps or buy in stores which obtained food dishonestly. These practices obviously hindered the “to each person a share” ideology, and on the surface seemed an unpatriotic response to a patriotic duty.  Not true, or at least World War II housewives did not think a little hoarding or black marketing hurt the war effort.  One third of the public admitted that they would pay a little extra for a scarce item, a fifth admitted to paying over ceiling prices for groceries or meat, and many more in the joy of finding a scarce item simply forgot to check ceiling prices and participated in the black market almost by accident.[22]  The black market for most housewives served as a backdoor way of either providing the nutrients the family needed or of preparing a special dish.  Hoarding and black market activities while publicly denounced by both the government and popular publications amounted to little more than a small cheat to most housewives.

As the war went on so too did the shortages facing housewives.  But in the patriotic spirit with which American women undertook rationing, they mastered the art of substitution and alteration within the confines of the family kitchen.  Some products like butter, although tightly rationed, seemed almost impossible to replace and shortages truly challenged the housewife’s creativity.  In order to assist the housewife companies like French’s mustard offered recipes for spreads to stretch butter.  This type of spread usually called for mixing equal parts butter and mustard, unflavored gelatin, or margarine until smooth.  Good Housekeeping suggested women provide homemade victory garden jelly, peanut butter, honey, or gravy on the table instead of butter to accompany bread.  The magazine also realized that many people just could not stomach these spreads or substitutes so the magazines simply advised women to cut the butter into smaller slices and to spread it thinner.[23] 

The rationing program called for meat to be rationed not only by amount but also by quality.  The program allotted two and a half pounds of meat per person each week, but housewives would receive few high point red stamps needed to buy the best cuts of meat.  In reality this meant housewives experienced great difficulty in obtaining grade A beef, and instead bought more low point, less desirable cuts of not only beef but all varieties of meats.  Meat rationing, perhaps more than any other foodstuff, seemed more patriotic to World War II era women since they were told that every pound of good meat they did not buy arrived in the quartermaster’s kitchens overseas.  Saidee Leach wrote her son about buying Utility Grade meat “which is so far below Grade A that no points were required” but she cheerfully added that her recipe made that meat the best they had eaten.[24]  Saidee Leach had plenty of company in the search for way to dress up undesirable meat, or stretch the good meat they found.

The most popular trick for stretching meat called for the housewife to add a cereal to the raw meat before cooking.  Kellogg’s Corn Flakes advertised that women could add the flakes to meat loaves and hamburgers[25], while Betty Crocker suggested Wheaties and a bit of water for “light fluffy patties”.[26]  Women also found that in addition to cereals, vegetables, gravies, sauces, noodles, spaghetti, macaroni, oatmeal, cornmeal, breadcrumbs, bread dressing, crackers, rice, dumplings, biscuits, bread, and toast could all be added to meat when a small amount of meat needed to provide dinner for empty stomachs.[27] 

Stews took on a greater significance in the American diet as they used little meat and cheaper cuts of meat could be easily masked.  Armour and Company offered three stew recipes with the recommendation that every woman learn to make a hearty stew since stews allowed more meat to be sent to the armed forces.[28]  The absence of beef roasts and other 1940s American staple cuts of meat created a large market for other varieties of meat, which required few or no ration points.  Home economist Jane Giesler suggested women utilize brains, tripe, liver sausage, pig’s feet, bacon squares, oxtails, liver, and heart.  Giesler went on to praise these organ meats for not only being good sources of protein but for also supplying iron, vitamin A, B- complex vitamins, and copper.[29] In a similar article Frank Ashbrook touted the all-white delicately flavored domestic rabbit meat, which could conveniently and “patriotically be raised in the backyard to help supplement short supplies of other meats”.[30] 

Women also found new and better used for less exotic meat sources.  Martha Luyster told women about the high protein benefits of fish and provided some interesting recipes, such as fish and cabbage chowder or seafood macaroni.[31]  Bacon also underwent a transformation during World War II, The lowly pork product progressed from being a breakfast item to a main course meat anytime of the day.  Both Swift and Company and Armour and Company meat packers offered recipes for burgers formed from various meats wrapped in bacon.   

Another trick to maintain protein in the wartime diet was to serve eggs, since they contained valuable nutrients and were cheaper than poultry or fish.  Byron MacFadyen offered up recipes in his article Don’t Put All Your Eggs in the Same Old Recipe for hamburgers with fried eggs, Spanish chili with scrambled eggs, and egg foo yeung.[32] Logically cheese would have made a perfect protein substitute, but cheese supplies were limited since cheese shipped overseas so well.  Regardless, Velveeta provided recipes that utilized the product as a meat replacement.  Velveeta offered recipes for rice and cheese main dishes along with the brand’s ever-popular macaroni and cheese dinner.[33]  American women felt great pressure to both conform to rationing standards and provide healthy balanced meals.  

In the quest to provide ever more healthy meals, and with three of the seven basic food groups devoted to vegetables, women attempted to make up for the lack of meat by serving meatless meals.  Good Housekeeping suggested vegetable plates, and even soy alternatives to meat.[34]  Since meat happened to be so difficult to acquire from the grocer, many women began serving meatless meals and using all their red points for the week to buy one good cut of meat.  One woman, Melisse Faulds Meeth, living in the war boomtown of Mobile Alabama said, “There was no meat.  If you found any it looked so bad that its source was questionable and you were afraid to buy it”.[35] 

Although canned and frozen vegetables required precious ration points, women living in the city had to purchase store bought vegetables.  City life presented few opportunities to plant large victory gardens as were more common outside of the cities.  Birds Eye Brand frosted foods advertised not only the freshness and quality of their vegetables but that one package contained more product than a canned competitor’s product.[36] Frozen foods did offer one further complication; freezers were rare in home kitchens- so rare that Good Housekeeping published an article called “What are Frozen Foods” in July 1943. Stokely’s canned vegetables also emphasized that one can of peas could be used to make two meals, such as peas and patties in chili gravy and hot potato pea salad.[37] 

Even though rationing made meal preparation and shopping a challenge to the housewife, women did find some real values.  In the spring of 1943 the government and the Office of Price Administration declared citrus fruit a victory special.  Victory specials simply meant that the country possessed a surplus of one good and ask the public to buy that good instead of other goods.[38]  In February of 1944, Good Housekeeping publicized the many varied used for the vitamin rich potato in the article “There are Plenty of Potatoes”, including recipes for potato rolls and lamb potato hot pot.[39]  Another strategy approved by the government involved canning summer vegetables as relishes, which was a wonderful way to inject some green veggies into winter diets.[40] 

While women busily searched for appetizing meats, and preserved fruits and vegetables, housewives continually worried over the shortages of sugar.  The yearly wartime allotment of sugar amounted to twenty-four pounds, two-thirds less than the pre-war years consumption of seventy-two pounds.[41] Sugar rationing formed an important worry for housewives since most women needed the product for canning as well as baking, two very patriotic duties for the kitchen warrior.  In addition to baking for the family, women often sent cookies overseas to servicemen.  American women depended heavily upon sugar.  Women would not be conquered by this shortage any more than the annoyances rationing meat and coffee precipitated.  Women found sugar substitutes, cut the amount of sugar in recipes or just did without the sweet stuff. 

Housewives altered fruit from being a healthy snack to an elegant accompaniment to simple dessert.  Fruit juices also added a bit of sweetness to dishes.  Catherine Renne Young wrote her husband about dreaming of bananas, saying that she didn’t “think anyone in America has seen a banana for over six months”.[42]  Mrs. Young brought up a good point.  America lost many of its overseas fruit plantations as well as the sugar plantations.  Loss of fields and crops to the war combined with the steady diversion of canned fruits for military use resulted in fruit, especially tropical fruit, becoming a treat. In her article, “Little Sugar –Much Dessert,” Margaret Ball publicized the already know benefits of corn syrup, honey, and molasses.[43]  Women living in the South had been using these sweeteners for generations and due to sugar rationing their secret became popular throughout the United States. 

Most wartime dessert recipes simply reduced the amount of sugar needed to achieve the desired results.  Betty Crocker’s frozen lemon dessert used one half cup of sugar[44] and Aunt Jenny’s homemade devil’s food cake calls for only seven eighths of a cup of sugar[45].  These recipes truly cut down on sugar since a pre-war and post war cake could use as much as two cups of sugar.  Jell-O pudding offered three flavors during World War II and in 1943 offered an ice cream recipe, which used only four tablespoons of sugar.[46] Likewise Minute Tapioca rose in popularity since it could be used as both a meat stretcher and with the addition of a little milk and four tablespoons of sugar a “nourishing dessert”.[47] 

Of course some recipes called for no sugar at all and instead relied on other sweeteners.  Spice cakes enjoyed new popularity for the duration since most used molasses instead of white sugar.  Brer Rabbit Green Label New Orleans Molasses advertised that it was not only sixty percent sugar, but also the best -known source of iron.  The advertisement also included a recipe for gingerbread, which used no sugar and no butter.[48] Borden’s Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk supplied yet another alternative in the form of magic recipes for the woman searching for a sweet treat to serve after the meal.  Borden advertised that their sweetened condensed milk took none of a woman’s sugar, and nearly guaranteed perfect ice creams, cookies, fudge, and frostings.[49]  Wartime women succeeded in surviving sugar rationing, while providing for the American sweet tooth both around the dinner table and overseas.

Women truly enlisted in World War II as home front warriors.  Many picked up jobs outside of the home, but all dealt with rationing at one time or another.  Women responded quickly to government edicts, which recognized the importance of women in the war effort.  Without these housewives’ assistance the United States government felt unsure that the country could survive the war, and luckily women took up the banner and made rationing a success.  The housewife’s mantra of “Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do, or do without!” went from being a catchy slogan to being a way of life for American women. Faced with shortages, and few ration coupons women learned not only to navigate a maze of red tape but to also provide healthier meals.  Substitutions and using altogether new or unusual goods meant women accomplished their patriotic duty with flying colors.  World War II housewives’ recipes did not disappear after the end of rationing, instead they form the basis of what many American’s today think of as comfort foods.