food and rationing in WWI in the US, and ghost-hunting/parapsychology in the 1910s

[erushi]

I've recently been trying to iron out all the small nitty gritty (background) details for a fic set in the US during WWI (albeit with some WWII-ish elements, because it's to be this alt-history steampunk thing), all in the name of authenticity. Unfortunately, I just don't seem to be able to find enough information about the following two topics, so

Comments

[erushi]

Oh, that's incredibly useful! *makes a note to look up this black sugar*

And the horses, eek.

Thank you very much!

[erushi]

From what I know, the turn of the century saw the forming of a few paranormal societies, and some of their members were rather established scientists, so scientific methods must have been employed. Or so I feel, anyway.

I'm getting a few titles of books to look at in the comments below - hopefully they'll tell me more. :)

[ovoretherainbow]

This might help.

[duckodeath]

That page is in reference to WWII when rationing was much more extensive

[duckodeath]

This is actually a better link because there are actually a bunch of articles on WWI food rationing:

http://iarchives.nysed.gov/Gallery/gallery.jsp?id=163&ss=WWI

[erushi]

Your comments have been incredibly, incredibly helpful. Thank you so very much!

[squeakymonkey]

There might be some stuff on ghosts in Spook by Mary Roach. In particular she talks about Charles Richet who was a scientist and who was interested in the paranormal.

http://maryroach.net/spookTOC.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Richet

It's kind of going to be maddening though, because most of it was spiritualist, even if it was embraced by a fair number of scientists at the time... this is the impression I've gotten from her book so far.... Roach does talk some about debunking in scientific terms though.

[erushi]

Given the number of scientists who were involved, I was expecting to find more about their scientific methods too than I actually did. 'tis most curious.

Thank you very much!

[anonymous]

For Canada homefront during WWI, see Montgomery's RILLA OF INGLESIDE. I don't recall anything about ration books or such, but it's been a while since I read it.

[nessaneko]

I was just about to suggest this! It covers scarcity of sugar, butter, eggs, etc as well as taking out flower gardens to plant vegetables.

[orthent]

That was my immediate thought too--and it was the pressure to take out flower borders and plant vegetables in their place that stuck in my mind. Didn't Susan sacrifice her cherished peonies for a potato patch?