Thanksgiving Dinner in 1943
During World War II, the Office of Price Administration (OPA) instituted rationing, limiting the amount of goods, including food items, that civilians could purchase, affecting daily life and traditions on the homefront. What was it like to plan a holiday meal in 1943?
Turkey
Difficult. Beef, pork, and lamb were rationed, except for organ meats 
(which could not be easily preserved and shipped to the troops). Poultry was not rationed because it, too, was difficult to preserve and ship, but turkey shortages were widespread during the holiday season of 1943. This was partly because farmers were obliged to offer their turkeys first to the government before selling them on the open market. Cooks who were not prepared to hunt wild turkeys were encouraged to roast a duck or a chicken for Thanksgiving.
Dressing
Not difficult. Flour and bread were not rationed. Nor were fresh vegetables—onions and celery, for example, or chestnuts. Fresh fish was not rationed either, so adding oysters would have been no problem, depending on one's proximity to the coast.
Cranberry sauce
Difficult. Fresh fruit was not rationed, so cranberries could be found in the market, but sugar was rationed (two lbs. per person per month). You could use rationed sugar to make cranberry sauce, but that would not leave much for the rest of the month. Having several people pool their ration was a possible solution. Canned cranberry sauce was available, but the government rationed almost all processed and canned, bottled, or frozen food, so it would cost precious points. Consumers were strongly urged to recycle metal cans for the war effort.
Green beans with cheese sauce
Difficult. Green beans (and other fresh vegetables) were not rationed (unless in cans), and milk for the cheese sauce was available. Hard cheese, however, was rationed because it was easy to ship overseas.
Mashed potatoes
Not difficult. Fresh vegetables were not rationed.
Rolls
Not difficult. Flour was not rationed; neither were fresh eggs.
Butter
Difficult. Butter was rationed, along with all other oils and fats. Margarine was somewhat easier to get than butter. Factories and farms focused on supplying the military first. Factories used oils and fats to manufacture soap and munitions (using glycerin). Whiskey distilleries turned to making industrial alcohol.
Fresh tropical fruit salad with cottage cheese
Difficult. Cottage cheese and other soft cheeses were not rationed, and fresh fruit was not rationed (although canned fruit was); however, fresh tropical fruit, such as bananas, was almost unavailable due to the disruption in Caribbean shipping by naval warfare. In addition, railroads and trucks were detailed to move military supplies. A Waldorf salad would have been a better choice.
Pumpkin pie
Difficult. Sugar and shortening were both rationed (some people used fat rendered from their rationed meat for shortening). Fresh pumpkin was freely available, but canned pumpkin was rationed because of the can.
Coffee
Difficult. Coffee was rationed until 1943, but even after that, it was scarce, as was tea. Other scarce products on the home front included chocolate and cigarettes, both of which were shipped overseas to the army.
The public was encouraged to grow produce in "Victory Gardens" and to conserve and collect metal, paper, and rubber. They were also encouraged to carpool whenever possible. Besides gasoline and automobiles, other rationed non-food items included clothing, shoes, typewriters, stoves, refrigerators, bicycles, tires, fuel oil, farm equipment, and wire fencing.
Genealogy Today's digital collection WWII War Ration Books introduces visitors to the history of ration books, provides contemporary newspaper clippings and government publications on rationing, and lets visitors browse digital images of more than 9,000 ration book covers.
Click through the Ames, IA Historical Society's exhibit on WWII rationing for examples of rationing stamps, wartime propaganda supporting rationing, and pages from a rationing-friendly cookbook.
The National Archives and Research Administration (NARA)'s Pictures of World War II includes some images and documents related to rationing—click on "The Home Front."
In her Lessons Learned entry, "The Power of Primary Sources: How Teaching American History Grants Changed My Classroom," Kansas high school teacher Tracy Hutton describes how using engaging primary sources, including materials on rationing, has enhanced her teaching.
- "Facts the younger generation of marketers should know are taught this class in the Murch Elementary School, Washington, D.C. Catherine M. Rooney, 6th grade teacher instructs her alert pupils on the way and how of War Ration Book Two," Feb. 1943, National Archives and Records Administration (accessed October 13, 2009).
- Office for Emergency Management, "I Pay No More Than Top Legal Prices, I Accept No Rationed Goods Without Giving Up Ration Stamps," National Archives and Records Administration (accessed October 13, 2009).
a pushcart ice cream vendor in New York, in 1896, who also, perhaps, invented the ice cream sandwich by putting a slice of ice cream between waffle squares cut from a sheet. Other sources say the ice cream cone has its origins in the mists of history, but was first described in Mrs. Marshall's Cookery Book, whose author, Agnes Marshall, published it in London in 1888. Still others discern a woman licking an ice cream cone in an 1807 picturing fashionable customers eating at the Frascati café in Paris, although this is uncertain because cone-shaped ice cream bowls were not unknown at the time.
False. Moses Fleetwood Walker, an Oberlin College star, played for one season, in 1884, with the Toledo team of the American Association, before he was forced out the following year because of racism.
False. Robinson, although generally regarded as an excellent player, was not seen as even the best player on his team, the Kansas City Monarchs. Rickey signed him because of a combination of qualities--not only his proven and potential talent and skill at the game, but also his personal integrity and his likely strength (as Rickey saw it) at withstanding the abuse that Rickey thought Robinson would face on and off the field for breaking the color barrier in major league baseball.
Teenagers today play a central role in American culture and society. They exist not only as high school students, but as closely watched consumers and trendsetters. Yet in 1900, teenagers did not exist. There were young people in their teens, but there was no distinct teenage culture.
Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) was the most renowned food reformer of the 19th century. He wrote The Philosophy of Sacred History Considered in Relation to Human Aliment and the Wines of Scripture. Graham was known by the nickname of "Doctor Sawdust" because of his promotion of the virtues of bread made with whole-wheat ("Graham") flour. His followers set up "Graham hotels," like small, provisional utopias, where guests following Graham's dietary regimen could board with like-minded progressive reformers.
Business partners Henry D. Seymour and William Heston of Ravenna, Ohio, registered the Quaker Man as a trademark in 1877 (the first trademark registered for a breakfast cereal). They made Quaker Oats, steel-cut oats packaged in 2-pound paper boxes with cooking directions on the outside, an innovation for the time. The name "Quaker Oats" would seem to tie the product to the owners' religious views, but Seymour said he chose it simply because he found an encyclopedia article on Quakers and decided that the qualities described there—integrity, honesty, and purity—were ones he wanted to link to his company's product. Heston credited himself with the name, saying that while walking on the streets of Cincinnati, he had seen a picture of Quaker William Penn, whose clothes and character inspired him to choose the name. Nevertheless, either way, it couldn't have hurt to conjure the figure of a religious Nonconformist, waving a scroll inscribed "Pure," on the package of a breakfast cereal. Potential customers would have associated it with the other Progressive health food items, especially wholegrain breakfast foods, that were being urged by food reformers descended from Protestant Nonconformists and Inner Light advocates.
Ellen Gould White (1827-1915), the Seventh-Day Adventist prophetess, had a vision in 1863 in which the relation of physical health to spiritual health, the body to the spirit, was revealed to her. She set up the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, as well as other sanitariums. She published the pamphlet, Health, or How to Live. Don't trust the appetite, she said, which has become perverted, or the dietary customs of society. She counseled eating grains, nuts, fruit, and whole-grain flour.
In 1898, they founded the Sanitas Food Company, to sell health food via mail order. In 1906, Will established the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes Company. When J. H. sold to W. K. his interest in the corn flakes company, J. H. used the proceeds in 1911 to create the influential Race Betterment Foundation, in order to prepare the way for a super race of "new men," and to set up a "eugenic registry" that evaluated couples for breeding based on their genetic pedigrees in order to stop the propagation of "defectives." 
Danforth then contacted "Dr. Everett Ralston," whose real name was Albert Webster Edgerly (aka Edmund Shaftsbury or Shaftesbury) (1852-1926), a debarred lawyer, con man, cult leader, self-appointed health expert, and elocution teacher, who had founded perhaps the world's first multilevel marketing scheme. This was the Ralston Health Club, a Washington, D.C.-based, national membership health products club, with 800,000 members in 1898.The Club required its members to pay large amounts for a series of books that told the secret of how to live for 200 years by collecting and preserving in the body the occult force of "Glame" and learning to speak his invented "Adam-Man tongue." Danforth secured "Dr. Ralston's" endorsement of Purina Wheat, and added his name to Danforth's company—Ralston-Purina. Danforth's cereal became Ralston Health Club Breakfast Food, then Ralston Purina Wheat, then Instant Ralston. 