Up Next
Back to Show
The War
Rationing and Recycling on the Home Front
As the country mobilized for total war, Americans did without gasoline, rubber, sugar, coffee, nylons and more. Families saved kitchen fat to make explosives, and children collected scrap metal: Mobile gathered 22 million pounds in a single year, Luverne offered up its Civil War memorial cannonballs, and Waterbury collected more than 280,000 pounds of tin.
Support Provided By
Unlock with PBS Passport
1:28:19
President Johnson escalates the war while promising the public that victory is in sight.
Unlock with PBS Passport
2:07:27
Germany and the Japanese surrender too and millions try to learn to live without war.
Unlock with PBS Passport
1:59:26
By mid March, 1945, they are across the Rhine, while Russians are 50 miles from Berlin.
Unlock with PBS Passport
2:19:15
On D-Day, 1.5 million Allied troops take part in the greatest invasion in history.
