THE RIBBON COLLECTOR
A
newsletter for those who value the bits of colored cloth
and
similar or associated items made of other materials
intended
as awards of recognition in the
ISSUE No. 6
FEBRUARY 2018
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(This version has been modified and reformatted for compatibility with Webpage
display) <<<<<<
PUBLISHED BY
Garreteer Press (formerly Patriot Press)
Office of Price
Administration Awards
by Greg Ogletree
Executive Order 8875
established the Office of Price Administration (OPA) on 28 August 1941. It had initially been established on 11 April
1941 as the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply, but no awards are
known to have been created for its employees during the four and one-half month
interim before the name change.
The functions of the OPA were
originally to control money (price controls) and rents after the outbreak of
World War II. It became an independent
agency under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, signed into law on 30
January 1942. The OPA had the power to
place ceilings on all prices except agricultural commodities, and to ration
scarce supplies of other items, including automobiles, bicycles, tires, shoes,
nylon, sugar, gasoline, fuel oil, coffee, meats, and processed foods. At the peak, almost 90 percent of retail food
prices were frozen. The OPA could also
authorize subsidies for production of some of those commodities, and it controlled
wages.
The greatest challenge of such
massive war-related production was the permanent scarcity of resources. In response to it, the
On 1 January 1942 the War Production
Board ordered the temporary end of civilian automobile sales. Automobile factories stopped making cars and retooled
the assembly lines to produce tanks, aircraft, weapons, and other military
products, with the federal government as the only customer. As of 1 March, dog food could no longer be
sold in tin cans so the manufacturers switched to dehydrated versions. A month later, anyone wishing to buy
toothpaste, which was sold in metal tubes, had to turn in an empty one. By June 1942, companies also stopped
manufacturing metal office furniture, radios, phonographs, vacuum cleaners,
sewing machines, washing machines, and refrigerators for American homes and
began making war-related products. And
it wasn’t just vehicles and appliances that were affected.
Sugar was the first consumer
commodity rationed, with all unlimited sales ended on 27 April 1942. Coffee was next, with national rationing beginning
on 29 November 1942. As the war
progressed, ration coupons and tokens were used for many other items in
addition to gasoline, sugar, and coffee, including: butter, margarine, cheese, meat, lard,
shortening and food oils, processed foods (canned, bottled, and frozen), dried
fruits, canned milk, jams, jellies, fruit butter, fuel oil, wood-burning and
coal-fired stoves, bicycles, footwear, silk, nylon, and even typewriters—the
personal computers of that era. Board
permission was required just to rent a typewriter, regardless of whether the
rental was to a business or an individual!
The mobilization for war
brought unemployment to an all-time low of just 700,000 in the fall of 1944. The wartime production created millions of new
jobs, while the draft reduced the number of young men available for those jobs.
So great was the demand for labor that
millions of retired people, housewives, and even students entered the labor
force, lured by patriotism and wages.
The impact of this was far-reaching and, in many cases, permanent. For example, the shortage of grocery clerks
caused retailers to convert from service at the counter to self-service, with
customers using baskets to collect what they needed directly from the shelves. Also, before the war most groceries, dry
cleaners, drugstores, and department stores offered home delivery service. The labor shortage and rationing of gasoline
and tires caused most retailers to discontinue this service. An added bonus was discovering that having customers
buy their products in person after wandering through the aisles increased sales
as a result of what today is called impulse purchases!
Labor shortages were felt in
agriculture too, even though most farmers were given an exemption and few were
drafted. Large numbers volunteered or
moved to cities for factory jobs. At the
same time, many agricultural commodities were in greater demand by the
military, and for the civilian populations of allies. Production was encouraged and prices and
markets were under tight federal control.
In the thick of all of this was the OPA and its thousands of workers scattered
across the nation.
Because rationing had been expanded to include far more than just
tires, the three-person boards established initially were enlarged and, in most
cases, divided into panels devoted to just one rationed item or one group of
closely related items. Thus, the
original tire rationing board was divided into a tire panel and an automobile
panel, soon to be followed by a food panel, a gasoline panel, a fuel-oil panel,
and so on. Board size grew as the number
of rationed commodities grew. So, how
many people are we talking about? In an analysis
recorded in July 1944, one writer provided the following numbers:
In its
Volunteers serving on the OPA’s
War Price and Rationing Boards were identified by plastic lapel pins (Figure
1). These measured about one inch by one
inch and had a simple V-catch pin on the back for easy attachment to clothing.
Figure 1
All board members and most
board assistants (the number of assistants varied depending on locale) were
volunteers who served without compensation.
These people included politicians, businessmen, doctors, labor
representatives, factory workers, teachers, housewives, high school students,
and farmers. In most cases, they came
into the board offices to make their contributions of service after putting in
a full day at their own work. Generally
speaking, board members were decision-makers and board assistants were
functionaries. Assistants’ tasks ranged
from answering telephones, filing cards, and manning information desks (most
board offices were open daily, except Sundays, from 8am to 8pm) to issuing
gasoline rations and assisting price panels in their work of holding down the
cost of living. Most boards also had one
or two paid workers, who did the typing,
As the war progressed, someone
decided that OPA volunteers deserved more than just a plastic pin and a pat on
the back for their volunteer work in the War Price and Rationing Program so a
“Voluntary Service Award” certificate (Figure 2) was created in 1942. These certificates were signed by the OPA
Administrator, Regional Administrator, and State Director.
Figure 2
Before long, additional
recognition was bestowed in the form of a “War Service Award” (Figure 3),
presented to those who completed 100 hours of service, “with one seal added for
each additional 100 hours, or [for those] who have served for one year or
more.”[2] In spite of this statement, other sources say
additional hours were denoted using red ribbon:
“On the certificates for volunteers who have served 200 hours there will
be a red stripe diagonally across the corner, with an additional stripe for
each 100 hours.”[3] Certificates with additional seals or red
stripes have not been observed by the author so it is unclear which method was
actually used (or maybe “seal” was the term used for the red stripe?). These certificates carried the signatures of
the OPA Administrator, Regional Administrator, District Director, and the local
Board Chairman. The name of the
recipient, date of award, and the number of volunteer hours were entered by
hand on each certificate.[4] Not obvious to readers of this article who
can’t hold one of these certificates in their hands and therefore must rely on
what is seen in the illustration, below, is the fact that these certificates
are quite large, measuring 11 x 14 inches.
Figure 3
In
addition to a certificate, workers who donated 500 hours of volunteer service
were awarded an OPA Meritorious Service lapel pin (Figure 4). The pin is described as a “silver lapel pin”
in newspaper articles but observed specimens appear to be silver-toned and are
not marked
Figure 4
The
chairman of one of the local boards, who spoke at a presentation ceremony, said
of the volunteers who were receiving these pins:
It is a real honor to be part of an organization so
largely staffed with volunteers. In the
trials and annoyances so often associated with both rationing and price
control, the public sometimes forgets that the service rendered at our board
office is in most cases a voluntary contribution to the community war effort by
the clerk on the other side of the counter.
Without these local volunteers I doubt if the OPA programs could carry
on in [this city]. Now when someone
comes in to the board and sees a silver pin on the clerk, he will know that
this clerk has personally contributed over 500 hours of labor to our war
effort. This award is a real badge of
honor and can be worn proudly. I hope
that everyone recognizes the contribution these volunteers have made to all of
us.[6]
In
addition to being awarded to board assistants
for completion of 500 hours of service, these pins were also awarded to board members for meritorious service. In fact, far more pins were awarded to
recognize service by board members than were awarded to board assistants for
hitting the 500-hour mark. How
many? During the first week of January 1944,
when the first mass awarding of OPA War Service Award certificates (85,300 were
awarded) and pins occurred across the nation, 9,060 pins were presented to
volunteers for 500 hours or more of service, and 76,000 board members received
the pins for meritorious service, regardless of the number of volunteer hours
served—though it is likely that most, if not all, had served far more than 500
hours.[7] Once again, to be clear, all board members
were volunteers, serving without pay, and most—but not all—board assistants
also were unpaid volunteers. At the time
of the aforementioned mass awarding of certificates and pins, 234,000 people (i.e.,
assistants) worked with the price and rationing boards and, of that number,
about 200,000 were unpaid volunteers.[8] Given this information, we know that fewer
than half of the volunteers qualified for the certificates, but about an
equivalent number received the pins, so 170,360 received some type of special
recognition—about 85 percent of the total number of volunteers.
When
a volunteer worker reached the 1,000-hour milestone, an OPA war service ribbon
bar was awarded, with a silver “V” device added for each additional 500 hours
(Figure 5).[9]
1,000
Hours
1,500 Hours 2,000 Hours 2,500 Hours 3,000 Hours
Figure 5
As
the ribbons above show, awards were presented for as many as 3,000 hours of
volunteer service, and an individual wearing the bar with four devices could
have had as many as 3,499 hours of service.
It is not known if any volunteer ever reached the 3,500-hours mark, and
if so, how that was symbolized, but there is room on the ribbon for five “V”
devices on its blue portion, although none has been observed by the
author. One possibility is the use of
“X” devices to symbolize 1,000 hours, either alone or in combination with the “V”
devices, but no evidence of the use of “X” devices has been found so this is
mere speculation. Another possible
option for a very high number of hours is an entirely different type of award, something
other than a ribbon bar. That is
doubtful though, as the historical record is mum on that topic.
Wording in some newspaper articles that
publicized awards made to local OPA volunteers suggests the awards were created
late in the war. For example, an item
published in January 1945 contained the statement “…war service certificates,
recently made available by the Office of Price Administration…” and a companion
article in the same paper on the same date said, “…awards in the form of war
service ribbons and pins, lately made available by the Office of Price
Administration….”[10] However, the record shows that silver pins
and War Service Award certificates were presented to OPA volunteers as early as
July 1943.[11] Considering this, the probable time of
creation of the certificates and pins was early 1943, or possibly even sometime
in 1942. The ribbon bars, however,
appear to have been introduced later, probably late 1944 but definitely not
later than January 1945 when they were described in newspaper articles.[12]
Hopefully, OPA documents will eventually
surface that reveal the exact date(s).
Figure 6
Unlike some other civilian ribbon bars
awarded during World War II (e.g., by the American Red Cross and the War
Department) that were often presented attached to or with an accompanying
document mentioning the award, that does not appear to be the case for the OPA
ribbons. However, a letter from
President Truman, dated 26 October 1945, addressed “TO MY FRIENDS IN THE OPA”
was the vehicle used to distribute OPA ribbons to recipients shortly after the
war ended. The ribbons were affixed to
the bottom of the letters, as seen in Figure 6, above. Even so, it’s important to note there is no
mention of the award in the text of the letter—it’s almost as if its inclusion
was an afterthought. One possible
explanation for this may be that not all recipients of the letter qualified for
an award (i.e., some had fewer than 1,000 hours of service).
Figure 7
While
board assistants received a War Service Award certificate (Figure 3) for hours
served, board members received a Certificate of Award for meritorious service
(Figure 7). In addition to the portrait
rather than landscape format and the different wording, these certificates
carried the facsimile signature of our country’s president in addition to the
signatures of the OPA Administrator, Regional Administrator, and District
(i.e., state) Director. Indications are
that these were not awarded during the ceremonies conducted on the second
anniversary of the creation of OPA’s War Price and Rationing Boards, when the
pins were presented, but sometime later in January.[13] One of these certificates, awarded to a board
member in Maryland shortly after the war ended, was adorned with ribbons and
described as follows: “Across the upper
left-hand corner of the certificate are three half-inch satin strips, in the
national colors, one for each year of service.”[14] Others elsewhere may have been similarly adorned,
but as the certificate in Figure 6 demonstrates, not all were.
Following the end of World War II, most
functions of the OPA were transferred to the newly established Office of
Temporary Controls (OTC) by Executive Order 9809, 12 December 1946. The OPA was abolished on 29 May 1947 and its
remaining functions were assumed by various successor agencies. The only reminders of the OPA today are stories
told by some of the people who worked behind the counters; the certificates,
pins, and ribbon bars illustrated in this article that many of those volunteers
were awarded; and the memories of those on the front side of the counters who
endured the rationing and remember the price, rent, and wage controls enforced
by the Office of Price Administration—the wartime organization that directly
impacted the life of every man, woman, and child in this country during World
War II. v
Sources:
“Certificates Are Awarded” – The Wellsboro Gazette (Wellsboro PA), 17
Jan 1945.
“OPA Honors Helpers” – The Van Nuys News (Van Nuys CA), 30 Dec
1943.
“Question Box” – Homemakers’
“Ration Board Clerks Given Silver Pins”
– The Times (
“Service Pins and Ribbons” – The Wellsboro Gazette (Wellsboro PA), 17
Jan 1945.
“Some Observations on Rationing” by
Charles F. Phillips – American Economic
Growth: The Historic Challenge,
edited by William F. Donnelly, S.J., University of Santa Clara, MSS Information
Corporation, New York NY: 1973.
“State OPA Honors Merchant on
“Volunteers for OPA Duty to Receive 482
Awards in District” – The Clare Sentinel
(Clare MI), 7 Jan 1944.
“War Price and Ration Boards to Get
Awards” –
“500 Eligible for Citations” – The News Journal (