Approaching a Dark Day in US History

[Subdeacon Joe]

When Sliced Bread Was Banned.

 

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The ban on sliced bread was just one of many resource-conserving campaigns during World War II. In May 1942, Americans received their first ration booklets and, within the year, commodities ranging from rubber tires to sugar were in short supply. Housewives, many of whom were also holding down demanding jobs to keep the labor force from collapsing, had to get creative. When the government rationed nylon, women resorted to drawing faux-nylon stockings using eyebrow pencils and when sugar and butter became scarce, they baked “victory cakes” sweetened with boiled raisins or whatever else was available.

So by January 18, 1943, when Claude R. Wickard, the secretary of agriculture and head of the War Foods Administration, declared the selling of sliced bread illegal, patience was already running thin. Since sliced bread required thicker wrapping to stay fresh, Wickard reasoned that the move would save wax paper, not to mention tons of alloyed steel used to make bread-slicing machines.

 

 

To say it was "unpopular" is a vast understatement.  An early example of "Trust the Experts."
 

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Sliced bread really took off in 1930, when the Continental Baking Company’s pre-sliced Wonder Bread made its way into American homes. After a few years of aggressive marketing, the pillowy, preservative-laced loaves were synonymous with modernity and convenience. Consumers had no desire to give them up.

The backlash to the ban on sliced bread was immediate. “I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household,” wrote an indignant Sue Forrester from Fairfield, Connecticut, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times. “My husband and four children are all in a rush before, during and after breakfast. Without ready-sliced bread I must do the slicing for toast—two pieces for each—that’s ten. For their lunches I must cut by hand at least twenty slices, for two sandwiches apiece. Afterward, I make my own toast. Twenty-two slices of bread to be cut in a hurry.”

By March 8, the government decided to abandon the wildly unpopular measure. “Housewives who have risked thumbs and tempers slicing bread at home for nearly two months will find sliced loaves back on the grocery store shelves tomorrow in most places,” noted the Associated Press. Wickard refused to acknowledge the ire of both housewives and bakers, saying simply that the savings were less than anticipated and that it turned out there was enough wax paper to go around after all.

 

An early example of "Trust the Experts."

Edited January 3 by Subdeacon Joe

[Pat Riot]

I remember my Nanny talking about this and not in glowing terms. She understood the need for conservation and rationing of goods like rubber, sugar, plastics and nylon but the sliced bread was a last straw for her. 
 

On another note my mom gave up her only doll for the war effort so they could use the rubber for airplane tires. She was 5 or 6 at the time. 
Years later she saw in a news show that all the rubber donated was dumped because once rubber was processed it couldn’t be reprocessed so her doll ended up in a trash dump. Even though at the time she learned this she was in her late 60’s she was very upset and angry about it. 

[Eyesa Horg]

Trust the science

[Trigger Mike]

My dads least favorite that he complained about for decades was Roosevelt demanding my grandfather drive his cattle into a large pit and kill them and bury them so the price of beef would go up to pull the country out of the depression.  Where is PITA when you want them?

[Alpo]

1 hour ago, Pat Riot said:

Years later she saw in a news show that all the rubber donated was dumped because once rubber was processed it couldn’t be reprocessed

I heard that most of the metal collected by boy scouts and whoever was also dumped because it was too much of a pain to try to separate it out into usable metal. Like a cooking pot for example, which might have aluminum sides and a copper bottom and a steel handle.

[Pat Riot]

31 minutes ago, Trigger Mike said:

My dads least favorite that he complained about for decades was Roosevelt demanding my grandfather drive his cattle into a large pit and kill them and bury them so the price of beef would go up to pull the country out of the depression.  Where is PITA when you want them?

PITA - Pain in the a**
PETA - People for the eating of tasty animals. 

[Springfield Slim SASS #24733]

I get my PITA from the World Market, along with the Hummus.

[Rooster Ron Wayne]

And It all began. 

And we got to the point of the Biden Administration  ! 

And the wheels fell off the Bus .