Rationing.

This is coolbert:

On this date seventy years ago!

Thanks to the Chicago Tribune almanac:

" In 1942 gasoline rationing went into effect in 17 states, limiting sales to three gallons a week for nonessential vehicles."

The United States in 1939 and all for the duration of the war [WW2] an OIL EXPORTING NATION, IN MARKED CONTRAST TO THE SITUATION AS EXISTS TODAY!!

All for the war effort, that privately owned family automobile rarely used during the war,  travel severely curtailed if not outright more or less ended.

And as has been mentioned but in a cursory manner, American culture and society as existing in 1947 markedly different as that culture and society that was present prior to the start of WW2!

And most epitomized by ownership of the private family automobile.

In 1939 only one in four American adult males able to own a car,.

By 1947 almost 100 % of adult American males able to own a car.

America in 1945 the ONLY nation on the planet having more food that it could eat, more oil than it could pump, more steel than was needed for building. That consumer society and overall prosperity on a mass basis the trend and THE EXPECTED NORM FROM 1945 ONWARDS!!

coolbert.