Thesis Template

I'm happy to say that I submitted over thirty pages of writing Wednesday afternoon.  This was preceded, on Tuesday, by writing over 5,000 words in under 24 hours, a feat which I have never before accomplished, and hope never again to be in the position to accomplish.  The document in question was the template for my senior honors history thesis (yes, I am a history major.  I think that that's even in the subtitle of my blog).  The tentative title is "Provisioning and Rationing in France in World War II."  I will be investigating the system of rationing which the Vichy regime put in place in September, 1940; specifically, I will try to ascertain how effective it was at distributing food equitably, and what the social effects of the system were.  It will be a social history, with a great deal of economic background, and I've divided it into four major sections.

In part one, I'll be looking at the macroeconomics of French agriculture and trade leading up to the war in the 1930s, and through the ravages of German occupation and requisitions associated with the war.  In the 1930s, France had some of the most modern farming techniques in the world, as well as the most agriculturally-productive region in all of Europe, the Departement du Nord.  The trade policy of the French Third Republic was liberal and outward-looking, and although France protected its native farmers with a certain level of trade barriers, it was very successful at keeping its citizens fed an prosperous through capitalism, thanks to its high-quality produce.  To cite just one statistic, in the international cheese trade, the French exported more than they imported, as measured by value, but imported more than they imported, as measured by mass.  When the Nazis swept in, they occupied two-thirds of France's arable land and 97% of its fisheries, and demanded vast amounts of food (especially wine) and labor from their victims (the Nazi war machine ran on the resources it looted from other countries).  By 1944, French agricultural production had dropped by one-third, its international channels of trade had dried up, and it was feeding an occupying army, its own army, and then some.

Part two will address the government response to the food crisis caused by the war.  Although it was the Third Republic which began measures to control consumption, it was the Vichy government which began the rationing system.  However, it only provided individuals rations equal to about half of their caloric and nutritional necessities (between 1250 and 1300 kilocalories per day, for a typical adult).  The government essentially subsidized half of one's diet; whereas one franc could buy about 216 kilocalories of rationed food, it could only purchase 45 kilocalories of unrationed food, even if intelligently spent.  This resulted in what historian has called a "reverse Robin Hood effect," in which the rationing system benefited the rich more than it did the poor.  I plan to investigate to what extent government interaction through its newly-established command economy (of which the rationing system was only an aspect) helped or hindered consumers in their quests to feed themselves.

The main topic of part three is the marginal food transactions of French society: familial packages of food sent from the countryside to the city, factory canteens, legal unrationed food, and, of course the black market.  The Resistance valorized participation in the black market as a patriotic means of preventing the German invaders from controlling the food supply, but the Germans themselves appear to have had agents acquiring food for them on the black market.  What explains these dynamics, and, of course, cui bono?

In part four, I will finally be able to speak about my favorite topic: social history.  The rationing system divided French society into eight main categories based on age and profession, and also included various special statuses (for pregnant and nursing mothers, members of families with five or more children, etc.).  Did these result at all in resentment and conflict?  Or did rationing and dearth bring together disparate parts of French society?  Food shortages created rising death rates; on average, the mortality rate in France more than doubled, but in Paris, it more than tripled.  Yet in some rural regions, where people had direct access to food, without the need for any middlemen, mortality rates actually fell; what were the social consequences of this.  According to one historian, during the war, "a great deal of time and ingenuity was required to find even insipid, poorly-nourishing produce such as rutabagas or cabbages, as well as basic necessities such as cloth, soap, washing powder, coal, petrol, string, or bicycle parts."  How did ordinary people overcome the obstacles, or, if necessary, overcome their lack of access to these resources?

There it is!  I hope that it will be amazing!  Special thanks, by the way, to Sam Moss for letting me visit him when the CJL lost power last night, to Marissa Angell for giving me tea and a blanket, to Ilan Rasooly for giving me one of the CJL movie tickets, and to Michael Zwillenberg for driving me (along with everyone else in the car).  Happy Slope Day, and please be safe!

~JD

"Considered the beef of the poor, horsemeat was sold at horsemeat butchers’ shops which multiplied in Paris and its proximity," (Alain Drouard, "Horsemeat in France: A Food Item that Appeared during the War of 1870 and Disappeared after the Second World War," p. 233).