When World War II broke out for the United States in 1941, America was inadequately prepared and quickly the conflict within the conflict became how to provide enough supplies for the American troops. The OPA and American president Franklin D. Roosevelt soon developed a solution in Ration Books, a way to limit the amount of products Americans could consume. Though this put strain on Americans at home, they were willing to compromise for the good of the American troops. The war had been going on for almost 3 years before the US entered the war. The US entered the war because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. The world was in the period of time called the Great depression, until the war created new jobs and the need for military supplies. But as the men left to fight in the war, the new jobs that were created needed to be filled again. Women stepped up and helped to fill the jobs. Rations reached every aspect of a family's life, from food, shoes, gas and even cooking fats. Ration books were a …show more content…
So to find the supplies they needed the government felt that the best option was to ration what the US citizens could buy and use what was left to support the troops. Other conflicts that were black markets were formed as people felt that the US government didn’t have the right to ration what people could buy. A black market is described as an illegal transaction in violation of the wartime plan for keeping prices down and prevention of serious wartime scarcity. The black markets were used to trade stamps that people didn’t want or didn’t use. They were also where people sold rationed items for lower prices and you didn’t need the stamps. The government was big on promoting that people pay only the legal ceiling price. Because if they don’t they can create inflation of