Author Description

Victory gardens, ration books. While men fought overseas, women fought the war at home, by going to work and, more subtly, by feeding their families. Mandatory food rationing during World War II challenged, for the first time, the image of the United States as a land of plenty and collapsed the boundaries between women's public and private lives by declaring home production and consumption to be political activities. In this fascinating cultural history, Amy Bentley examines the food-related propaganda surrounding rationing. She also explores the dual message purveyed by government and the media that while mandatory rationing was necessary (enabling enough food to be sent to the U.S. military and Allies overseas), women, black and white, were also "required" to provide their families with nutritious food. Eating for Victory explores the role of the Wartime Homemaker (media counterpart to the more familiar Rosie the Riveter) as a pivotal component not only of World War II but of the development of the United States into a superpower.