The other night while talking with the family, the conversation came around to the “Green Movement” and how we are to reuse, recycle and generally use less. This got me thinking about when I was growing up in the Chicago area in the early 1940’s.

We lived in Willamette, a suburb North of Chicago. My dad worked in down town Chicago and commuted every day on the elevated electric train known as the “North Shore.”  This was one of two systems that served the area at the time. Very few people would commute into the city like we would today. Gas was in short supply, as it was needed for the war effort, and so civilian use was controlled by rationing. There were many places where the speed limit was 35 miles per hour in order to conserve fuel. This also helped with tire wear, as new tires were almost impossible to get.

We had one car in the family, a 1940 Oldsmobile station wagon ”woody,” that we kept until the early 1950’s. I can remember my dad would wash the car almost every weekend and would wax it every spring and every fall. In addition, every fall before the winter storms would start, he would “wet sand” and patch all of the wooden parts of the car and put a fresh coat of spar varnish on it. He said that he wanted to do all that he could to keep it in a serviceable and reliable condition.

We talk today about recycling.  At that time, most of the available resources were going to the war effort so there was a real need to reuse a number of materials that were commonly available.  A lot of this was done by having “drives” of one sort or another, many of them happening through the school.

In the early 1940’s we didn’t have aluminum or the pop-top cans for food that we have today, but we did have canned food in steel cans. Steel was in short supply for the war effort. I can remember the process that we went through to prepare the cans before turning them in for the war effort. After dinner, we would wash the cans out completely and remove the paper label. They didn’t print on the steel can. Then, my dad would take the can opener and take the bottom of the can out. He would take the top and bottom of the can, place them into the cylinder part of the can, and then he would let me step on it to make the whole thing flat and in one piece (see photos). These would be saved in a bag or basket until the next collection day. He wouldn’t let me use the can opener or handle the open cans because they were sharp and could cut.

Another material that was in short supply was aluminum. About the only source for it was cooking pots and pans. We were always on the look out for old or broken pots and pans that nobody wanted. When we were lucky enough to find some, we would gather them together and take them down to the local garage. The mechanic would weigh them on a scale like you see at the vegetable stand. On a good day we might get 10 or 15 cents. I remember a good haircut cost 60 cents then.

Sometimes at school we would have key drives where we were asked to bring in any old keys that we could find. You had to be careful not to take any of the keys that your family was still using or you would be in real trouble. Each class would collect their keys. The class that collected the most keys would get some kind of reward, such as sitting up front for an assembly. The old keys were then melted down and the brass was used to make cartridges for the war.

There were also paper drives on a monthly basis. You might take the bundled papers to some spot to be recycled, or very often they would be picked up at the curb by some group like the Boy Scouts.

Most food in those days was not processed to cook or eat and there were no microwaves. Around 1946, my father had a friend who worked for an electronics firm and had one of the first commercial microwave ovens built. It was about the size of a large refrigerator and the cooking area was about 6 inches by 6 inches by 12 inches deep.  It probably weighed several hundred pounds. He kept it in his garage.

Most food was prepared at home from scratch.  This probably lead to simpler meals and a more limited menu, but it also lead to a lot less fancy packaging and therefore a lot less stuff to throw away and go to a landfill. The other thing that happened was that even in the city we all started planting “victory gardens.”  Most of us could find an area in the back yard to grow something in the summer and almost all of the vacant lots had something growing too. Usually we had tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, and some corn. Because it was difficult to get fresh vegetables that were not in season, my mom would can as much as she could during the growing season. I can still remember lots of great winter meals that were started with a jar of canned tomatoes from the garden.

Another modern convenience that we didn’t have then was air conditioning.  Most of the houses back there had a screened in porch of some kind, often called a “sleeping porch.” In our case it was directly off of my folks’ bedroom, so on hot nights we could move out there and take advantage of any breeze that came off of the lake. We also used fans to help to circulate air within the house. It is amazing how much difference there is in the comfort level in a house if you can just get fresh air into it even if there is a minimal change in temperature. A lot of new houses are now installing “whole house fans” in order to take advantage of this and reduce the amount of energy that must be used to air-condition the house.

These same phenomena came into play in your automobile. Many people used what was called 2-55 air-conditioning. That was two windows down at 55 miles per hour.  I remember in those days most cars had what was called a vent window on the forward part of each front door. This window could be turned almost 180 degrees and used to direct a flow of air into the car. If you notice now, virtually all new cars have one-piece windows in their front doors. This makes a much more aerodynamic shape for the car and we don’t need to open them for comfort. Most cars of that era also had a vent that would popup in the cowling right in front of the windshield and would direct cool, fresh air that would come over the top of the hood directly, down on to the driver and front passenger’s feet. It was controlled by a lever in the cab and fresh air that had not been heated by the engine was directed into the car. As the automobile has evolved, the way we maintain comfort has made these types of vents obsolete.

When you take some time to stop and think about some of the things I have mentioned, lessons for the “Green Revolution” may have started sooner than you think. Just take a small step back to look at some of the practices that were part of the normal day to day life, only a few years ago. The reasons we were environmentally conscious may be very different than they are now: a war verses energy and environmental concerns. However, many of the solutions are surprisingly similar.

By Pete Holman, Printed with permission From Community Seeds Eco Magazine, www.communityseeds.com

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