It is time for another history adventure. Charles and I will be living like 1944 the best we can. We have arrived at the year 1944. World War two is very intense now. The country is on their second year rationing, women, men and children on the home front are working to help the soldiers that are fighting.
Other parts of the world started rationing much earlier because of where the war started and traveled. The war started with Nazi German's attack on Poland in 1939. The United States did not enter the war until the Japanese bombed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor Hawaii December 7, 1941. My father was sent to Hawaii after the bombing.
Some women are working in factories and stepping in for the men that went off to war. Many women were helping at the red cross, children were doing what they could too to help the war efforts. People are buying war bonds, families are planting victory gardens to help the demand of food since much of the food was being shipped to feed our soldiers and our allies.
Women were saving cooking grease and oil to turn in for the war needs. Ladies were working in different groups to make bandages and knitting sweaters and socks and vests for the soldiers to keep them warm.
Factories around the country were converted to making ammunition and equipment for the war. Every necessary goods that could be salvaged were salvaged down to soap because the glycerin in soap was needed for ammunition and bombs and another reason they needed for women to save grease.
I thought with this post I would show the items and appliances found living in 1944 since this study is about the home front.
First off a household in 1944 would have been furnished with items from the 1920s and 1930s. The items I am going to show come from 1939 so these are fairly new items for 1944.
Many appliances were put on hold during ww2 because they needed the metal to fight the war, even typewriters were rationed.
I wanted to point out the small freezers in the small refrigerators of the time. Families often canned their food because as you can see there is no room to put much in the small freezers. It was not like you could go purchase a larger refrigerator and freezer because refrigerators had not been on the market for very long and during this time many people still did not have one.
With food shortages and rations everyone needed to grow a garden and preserve their food.
Washing machines and stoves were quite different than they are today. And we would not have had a clothes dryer. Clothes were dried on a clothesline.
There were choices in washers but to get the water out of the laundry it had to be squeezed out and the rollers on top of the washer was the new way to get the water out. When using a wringer washer one would fill the washer with either a hose or bucket and wash the load of laundry then drain the tub which would have been gravity drain nothing like we have today where water is pumped out.
Then the tub was filled again by hose or bucket and the clothes were rinsed and put back through the wringer. Doing the wash depended on the weather since the clothes would be hung to dry.
Chenille was very popular during this time and why Charles and I bought a vintage chenille bedspread for our Christmas gift for the both of us shown in my last post.
A little better look at that freezer space..
In 1939 this iron and hair dryer were sold. It is my understanding that the hair dryers were quite heavy so it was not like our lightweight dryers we have today and many women did not have hair dryers.
Pin curls were a popular way of curling a woman's hair during this time and why you would see women wearing the cute scarves around their hair in the 40s. Often under those scarves were pin curls so when they removed their scarf and removed the pins that kept the curls tightly wound close to the head their hair would fall into curls.
It was not always to hide the pin curls but often it was.
What this says in the picture above is, First New Year's resolution of RKO's pert Elaine Riley is to answer Uncle Sam's plea for a pound of waste kitchen fat per month for 1944 from every American housewife. Above, she has just fixed up 12 containers....an idea you, you and you might copy.
One thing to know here is that fats, oils, meat were rationed during this time so they had to be very frugal in the kitchen.
I have set up a ration office area for our home. This large ring binder is full of articles from research that we have been doing getting ready for this year. We will have to start on another book in March because this one is already full.
I will be sharing recipes and projects with you along the way and also much information on what the women did to help the war and what we can still do today.
The Christmas decorations have been put away...
Every minute has been filled with either organizing, researching and getting ready for this new year. I am happy that it has finally started. Grandma Donna
