Cooper Food Ration Summary

In her article Cooper focuses on post-war austerity focusing on food rations and aims to take the perspective of a housewife and how austerity caused ‘the trials and tribulations of the British Housewife’ (Cooper, 1964, p.35), however she does not always succeed in this endeavour.
Cooper notes that ‘by 1948 rations had fallen well below the wartime average’ (Cooper, 1964, p.38), she argues that these effects could be felt by housewives even two years prior, as in 1946 the dried egg, which was a product of austerity, was taken off the shelves because of problems with the ‘post war American loan’ (Cooper, 1964, p.38). The result of this was a public consensus that they would rather face cuts in film, tobacco, fruit or milk in order to keep the

In response, the government put it back on the shelves. It can be argued that this is representative of the connection between food and the morale of the British people, as a ‘nation which had been mildly hungry for five years and now saw itself getting hungrier still’. Other writers on this topic support Cooper’s writings, ‘Low food morale after the war was a consequence of small and volatile rations which amounted to a traumatic experience. The psychological effect of these cuts undermined the faith in the adequacy of the diet among the majority of the population’ (Zweiniger-Bargielowska, 2004, p.261) Zweiniger-Bargielowska’s argument highlights how rations had affected morale in a much more concise way than Cooper, therefore indicating a weakness of Cooper’s article which is vague on the social implications of the events she highlights such as the withdrawal of the dried egg. Although Cooper’s narrative of the removal and restoration of the dried egg is detailed, the relevance of it is ambiguous and can only be assumed. This may mean that her writing is not very convincing as an academic text and may not be of

Her article documents how the rationing of bread into Bread Units the size of half a small loaf was a ‘symbol of austerity’ (Cooper, 1964, p.42). She notes accounts of public outcry which emphasise the extremes of the situation, a Baker argued ‘this country is getting worse than Germany under the Nazis’ and another noted ‘the women have gone mad’ (Cooper, 1964, p.42-43). Cooper captures the mood of the nation well during her article, specifically during her description of the reception of V.E Day ‘although it was declared a public holiday, the mood of the British was not of festivity but of bleak resignation'(Cooper, 1964, p.44). Her description and contemporary accounts of the British atmosphere are well sourced and seemingly accurate. She is highlighting events and tensions that may have caused problems for the family extremely well, but fails to convey their significance to the British housewife specifically, of which was the point of her article. However, Zweiniger-Bargielowska provides an insight into how this did affect the British housewife, she argues that ‘Housewives were more concerned about the food situation than any other social group’ (Zweiniger-Bargielowska, 2004, p.113) and that a mass observation survey of 400 working class London housewives in 1940 found that there was a ‘good