ration books
Scarcity distribution tokens
Ration books were government-issued booklets containing coupons that entitled holders to fixed quantities of scarce goods during wartime or other emergencies.
Most familiar from World War II, they controlled distribution of food, fuel, and clothing when supplies were limited: My grandmother still has her old ration book.
The phrase evokes wartime austerity and collective sacrifice.
- black marketsIllegal trading networks
- victory gardensCivilian wartime food plots
- make do and mendPhilosophy of resourceful repair
- home frontCivilian sector during war
- keep the home fires burningMaintain home during absence
rationing system · food distribution · World War II · ersatz · wartime rationing · shopkeeper · war bonds · resource allocation · civil defense · shortages · powdered eggs · tin cans · fuel rationing · points system · coupon clipping · weekly allowance · queue · wartime economy
- 1940sWWII, D-Day, Pearl Harbor, Normandy, VE Day
- wartimerationing, war economy, war bonds, war effort, evacuations
- WWIID-Day, Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Hiroshima, Holocaust
- postwarrebuilding, demobilization, peace treaties, treaty signing, war reparations
- Postwar BritainAttlee, NHS, National Health Service, rationing, nationalisation
- postwar eraMarshall Plan, prosperity, reconstruction, Cold War, iron curtain
ration booksabundance
Ample supply, overflowing
plenty · surplus · cornucopia · glut · supermarket shelves
ration booksfree market
Commerce without state intervention
open market · laissez-faire · deregulation · consumer choice · free enterprise
ration booksconsumer boom
Period of increased buying
economic boom · conspicuous consumption · luxury goods · department stores · mass consumption