U.S. At War: Trouble on the Bread Line

To high-minded, non-slicing WPBers it was just a routine order: no more sliced bread for the duration, a consequent yearly saving of 100 tons of slicing-machine alloy steel. But to U.S. housewives it was almost as bad as gas rationing—and a whale of a lot more trouble. They vainly searched for grandmother’s serrated bread knife, routed sleepy husbands out of bed, held dawn conferences over bakery handouts which read like a golf lesson: “Keep your head down. Keep your eye on the loaf. And don’t bear down.” Then came grief, cussing, lopsided slices which even the toaster refused, often a mad dash to the corner bakery for rolls. But most housewives sawed, grimly on—this war was getting pretty awful.