On This Day in HistoryThe Ridiculous Reason Why the U.S. Enacted a Wartime Ban on Sliced Bread Salesand Why It Didnt Last LongDesigned to keep prices low and conserve wax paper, the ban, enacted on this day in 1943, only succeeded in making Americans furious A 1943 banprohibited bakeries from selling ready-sliced bread, among other directives regarding the baked goods manufacture and sale. Sujalajus via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0On January 18, 1943, the Associated Press advised readers on a lost art: bread slicing.Bakers advise housewives to keep their eye on the loaf and not bear down on the knife, the wire service declared.Food Distribution Order 1, which took effect that day, prohibited bakeries from selling ready-sliced bread, among other directives regarding the baked goods manufacture and sale. The order was a wartime move meant to keep increased flour costs from reaching the consumer. Officials also hoped it would shore up the nations supplies of wax paper, since sliced bread required more wrapping to remain fresh.Claude R. Wickard, the secretary of agriculture and head of the War Food Administration, said he was sure housewives wouldnt mind slicing their own bread at home if thereby they can contribute toward preventing a bread price increase and at the same time contribute to the war effort.But consumers soon proved Wickard wrong.Bakery clerks reported that some of the housewives were resigned, the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote on January 19. Others, still uncomprehending, stalked out of stores and a few flexed their cutting arms in a manner one proprietor described as trouble, and plenty of it.During World War II, rationing measures hit meat, sugar, gas and even shoes as officials tried to conserve crucial resources. Trips to the grocery store required ration books, and families had to get creative, whether it meant concocting meatless dinners or planting their own garden. Even though the commercial bread slicer had only skyrocketed in popularity about a decade earlier, Americans were loath to give up the newfound convenience of sliced bread on store shelves.Indeed, from the bans outset, critics were doubtful that the measure would achieve its aims. The Tribune reported that retail and wholesale bakers didnt expect any actual time or labor savings. The newspaper also contended that a loaf of sliced bread was known to outlast an unsliced one. (A sliced loaf could remain safe in its packaging, while unsliced bread needed to be opened completely for cutting, making it likely to grow stale sooner.)Shortly after the ban went into effect, the New York Times wrote that American citizens were fed up with irregularly cut bread burning in the toaster and ending up in the trash.By mid-February, the Harrisburg Telegraph reported that the ban hadnt saved bakers any money, either. In some cases, the order actually made bakers jobs harder, since it was incompatible with machines that combined wrapping and slicing equipment.The ban was unpopular with elected officials, too. New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia argued that the order wasted bread and created demand for steel knives, even as other government agencies declared a steel shortage. La Guardia said hed watched his own wife struggle to cut bread with a dull knife.On March 4, Forest Harness, a congressman from Indiana, called the ban wasteful and injurious on the floor of the House of Representatives, saying there were better approaches that didnt involve wasting bread. He described the ban as a dictatorial abuse of power.Harness and other detractors soon got their wish. Less than two months after instituting the ban, rationing authorities rescinded it. In a statement, Wickard didnt address the measures unpopularity directly. Instead, he simply said it hadnt saved as much as expected and that the nation had sufficient wax paper.On March 8, sliced bread went back on salea boon, the Times wrote, to housewives who have risked thumbs and tempers slicing bread at home.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: American History, Food, Food History, On This Day in History, World War II