The Ration Book

The story of this hall

For four years the American kitchen ran on arithmetic. War Ration Book One arrived in May 1942, and after it came the blue points and the red points, the tiny fiber tokens, the stamps clipped for sugar, coffee, shoes, meat, butter. Every man, woman, and infant held a book; every grocer counted the nation's dinner. It was the most intimate reach of a global war - the front line drawn at the pantry shelf. The books here are creased the way wallets crease, because that is where they lived. This hall dead-ends the way rationing did: abruptly, in 1946, with half the stamps unused and saved anyway. Turn back the way you came.

1942–1946