Apparently, a little danger can serve as a digestive aid! This sailor eats his sandwich as the torpedo overhead is loaded aboard a U.S. submarine in 1943.
Item from Record Group 80: General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1804 - 1983
Source: go.usa.gov
It’s the day after Labor Day, which can mean only one thing (well, other than post-vacation malaise): it’s back to school time! We’re dedicating this week’s posts to one of our favorite childhood memories—school lunches. This World War II-era poster from the Records of the Office of Government Reports promotes the adoption of school lunch programs.
Look how many groceries you could buy for $15 during World War II! Thanks to the Office of Price Administration, ceilings were placed on the prices of retail foods, allowing customers to buy much more for $15 than they could just two decades earlier.
Source: go.usa.gov
Posters like these were used as a recruiting tool during World War II to encourage women on the home front to join the Women’s Land Army.
Learn more about the WLA during World War II in this 1993 Prologue article entitled “‘To the Rescue of the Crops’: The Women’s Land Army During World War II.”
I noticed on the farms, mostly the little ones with just a shack for a house, there seems to be no one but the women left to do the work. You see them taking care of cattle, etc. It makes me proud to see how the women have picked up where the men left off and are keeping the home fires burning.
Frugal Friday
For those with a sweet tooth in the 1940s, strict sugar rations put a damper on dessert time. As a part of the campaign to ration foods in during World War II, the government showed the public how to make dessert for 6 people—using only a ¼ cup of sugar. I wonder what the mystery dessert was…
Frugal Friday
Food was just as valuable as ammunition in wartime America. To encourage rationing and discourage waste, the US ran a variety of print, radio and community campaigns featuring “Scuttlebutt Sam.” In this poster, Sam warns against a badge which designated its wearer as a “first class food waster.” You could help the war effort by clearing your plate.
“This Nazi officer is eating his words, and a can of C-rations, in the ruins of Saarbrucken.”
C-Rations contained meat, vegetables, sugar, crackers, and coffee for World War II soldiers to “enjoy” while in combat. The US used surplus C-rations during the Korean and Vietnam war. Today, the meals are known as MCI’s—Meal, Combat, Individual.
It’s Flashback Friday! Do you have a photograph of someone in your family in a powder blue tuxedo?
See more 1970s fashion in our new exhibit ...
“A patron of ‘Sammy’s Bowery Follies,’ a downtown bar, sleeping at his table while the resident cat laps at his beer, 12/1947”
Get it while it’s hot! You only have until January 3, 2012, to see “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam” before it closes. This photograph of a be-napkined...
December 16th is National Chocolate Covered Anything Day
Yummmm Chocolate!
