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Such signs of thrift and prudence have been popping up all over the country, but they have been closely monitored in California. There, in surveys and follow-ups, Stanford University Researchers Dorothy Leonard-Barton and Everett M. Rogers have been trying to get a fix on how Americans are voluntarily adjusting to the prospect of dwindling resources and limited buying power. Concludes Rogers: "It is possible that while our Federal Government talks a lot about conservation, we are seeing people voluntarily doing a great deal of frugal living. It's possible that these people represent a prototype for many Americans for tomorrow."
What is certain is that the people turning frugal today are returning to a prototype that was quite typical in the U.S. not so long ago. Indeed, most Americans once practiced frugality as though it were instinctive, or even religious. It may be well to recall those days for more than nostalgic reasons: they also offer proof that the country has a capability that it could need again if times get truly hard. Moreover, the old ways may even come as an amazement to younger Americans who grew up during the virtually invulnerable affluence that followed World War II.
Before that war, although the word recycling was seldom if ever heard, Americans individually recycled food, clothing and other civilized artifacts so assiduously that what was left could truly be called garbage and trash. Perishables and manufactured stuff alike were subjected to use, reuse and then, by transformation and mending, to yet more use. Food especially got treated as though there would never be quite enough. One day's chicken became next day's hash, and yesterday's leftover vegetable wound up with the bones and gristle in soups and stews. Stale bread got crushed into cooking crumbs, and egg shells were often used to settle the grounds in boiled coffee.
"Waste not" was more than a motto; it was law. Torn stockings wound up not in the trash but in the sewing basket. Trivial Slivers of soap were collected in little wire cages that could be swished through sink water to produce suds for dishwashing. Frayed shirt collars got turned and, when the garment became hopeless on the second go-round, the buttons were salvaged and the fabric was channeled into a rag bag, whence it might emerge as a dish cloth, a shoe wiper, a hand towel. Or it might wind up, along with parts of old skirts, dresses, blouses, pajamas and neckties, as part of a patchwork quilt or a rag rug.
Paper of all varieties was hoarded for reuse as though it were as valuable as fabric. Tissue went into a gift-wrapping kit. Waxy bread packaging became wrappers for school lunches. Brown paper was smoothed and folded for the day on which something had to go out by parcel post. Old newspapers served multiple purposes: they started fires, insulated cots and walls and, cut into convenient squares, assisted in personal hygiene. To want not was to salvage even the straight pins that fastened new garments into neat folds. And it was also to maintain bins, boxes and cans as storage vaults for old screws, nails, bolts, rubber bands, paper clips, thumbtacks and—well, name it. In those days every sort of container was coveted, with cigar boxes especially prized by children as chests for personal treasures that did not often fill up entire rooms.