In February 1943, University of Wisconsin students lined up in Madison to register for “ration book number two.” Jack Delano photographed the scene for the Office of War Information, and the Library of Congress catalogue preserves the purpose of the queue in its title.
A ration book belonged to an earlier stage than the line for a particular commodity. Registration created the document that would establish a person’s entitlement to buy restricted goods later. University life was not outside the wartime economy: students entered an administrative sequence separate from lectures and examinations.
The catalogue does not provide a headcount, registration time or the name of the room, so those details remain unstated. The secure facts are Madison, February 1943, university students and registration for the second ration book. What waited at the front of this line was not food itself, but a booklet recording future access to scarce goods. Wartime shortage produced queues not only at shop counters, but at the offices that created purchasing rights.