As the US Armed Forces began rationing nylon so they could use it to create parachutes for airmen and paratroopers, female civilians such as Mary Jane Rambo found new ways to wear their proud stockings.
Transcript
Rayon Stockings
I’d like to ask a bit about rationing. Do you remember that?
Oh yes, we had butter was rationed, and gasoline was rationed and shoes were rationed – you had to get a ticket to buy a pair of shoes. And of course they had a board in town, the rationing board it was called, and you had to go before them and see if you could get what you needed or what you wanted. Nylon stockings were completely, well, you had to wear rayon because you couldn’t get nylon. And food and gasoline were – and clothes. Clothes were not as – there was not as much on the market because there was so much was done to make uniforms for people in service so there were all kinds of limitations…
The rayon stockings… Were they comfortable?
Oh, they were comfortable, but they were not as sheer, they were not as pretty, they took much longer to dry. So if you didn’t have more than one or two pairs then you had to be careful with them because to get another pair might be hard to come by. But somehow we made it out.