University of Virginia Library

IV
Salvaging Scarce Materials

Certain articles, usually discarded by a proverbially wasteful
American public, assumed a new value when the United States was
drawn into the war. The salvage of waste paper, scrap metals,
rubber, fats, and cloth, all needed by factories in the war effort,
became one of the major activities of the civilian population as
sources of supply were cut off or because the manpower which normally
produced them was transferred to other war industries and the
armed forces. In Charlottesville and Albemarle County the salvage
drives were successful not only because of the leadership of public
spirited older citizens but also because of the assistance of many of the
younger residents of the community. Children were able to hunt
and collect waste materials during hours which they spared from
sports and other recreational activities of peacetime. Only in the
purchase and sale of war bonds and war stamps was the younger
generation, working through its schools and clubs, as helpful.

Their value in salvage campaigns became apparent before Pearl
Harbor in the aluminum drive held in July, 1941, as part of the
national defense program. Charlottesville Boy and Girl Scouts collected
old aluminum, needed for aircraft production, in a house-to-house
canvass directed by an executive committee elected at a Court
House meeting. Large heaps were also collected at Scottsville, Crozet,
Miller School, and designated stores throughout the county.[1]

In December, 1941, the Northern Virginia Regional Defense
Council called upon all citizens of Charlottesville and Albemarle
County to begin immediately saving waste paper, scrap iron, rubber,
copper, and rags as well as aluminum. This council had received its
direction from Leon Henderson, administrator of the Office of Price
Administration, by way of the Virginia Defense Council. Charitable
organizations and other clubs were urged to collect scrap and
sell direct to dealers for profit.

In January, 1942, the War Production Board was created with
Donald Nelson as chairman. He improved salvage activities by organizing
in the War Production Board a Salvage Division, which
cooperated with the Civilian Defense Councils in the states. This

Salvage Division issued instructions to the Virginia State Salvage
Committee in Richmond. In turn this committee relayed information
and inspiration through the medium of its mimeographed Salvage
Bulletins, beginning in March, 1942, to the local Civilian
Defense Council. A city and a county Salvage Committee had been
organized in the early days of that agency. Consequently, the committee
members were informed promptly as to the nation's needs.
Suggestions were made as to practical methods of salvaging critically
scarce materials. Posters and pamphlets were provided to portray
the need for particular materials and to explain their importance in
the war effort. Having gained in this way an understanding of
each shortage, the residents of this city and county gave a full measure
of cooperation in most of the salvage campaigns.

For the duration City Manager Seth Burnley served as head of the
Salvage Committee for Charlottesville. He was assisted by Mrs.
Lyttelton Waddell, who served from June, 1942, until January,
1944, and then for some time by Mrs. Randolph Harrison. Larned
Randolph served as county chairman until January, 1944, when he
was succeeded by Henry McComb Bush.[2]

Waste Paper

Number one on the list of serious shortages was paper. Enormous
quantities of waste paper were used to make cartons in which
food, clothing, and war goods were shipped to servicemen. As early
as December 22, 1941, Leon Henderson, administrator of the Office
of Price Administration, wrote Mayor W. D. Haden of Charlottesville
urging a renewed and active effort to collect as much waste
paper and cardboard as possible. At that time the Salvage Committees
for Charlottesville and Albemarle County asked people to
send their waste paper to R. E. Hall, Jr., at the City Yards. The
local junk dealers, L. E. Coiner, Henry Hill, and Harry Wright,
shipped the paper to pulp mills, which paid an average of forty
cents per hundred pounds. About thirty tons of waste paper and
cardboard were collected by the city for each of the months of
January, February, and March, 1942; and from January through
May a total of 368 tons was collected in the county and shipped by
only two dealers. In August 73,020 pounds were collected by the
city and county.[3] During the two years 1942 and 1943 city trucks
collected only 258 tons of which Charlottesville Boy Scouts contributed
two and one-half tons for the year 1943.[4]

Beginning with 1944, however, much larger quantities of paper
were salvaged when city collections were supplemented by increasingly
large contributions from the county and the Boy Scouts. A need
for containers had become acute, with millions of servicemen on the
far sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific being supplied as no other
armies had ever been supplied before.

The city collected 87,930 pounds in April. In July the City Fire
Department became the collection depot when a bin made especially
for the purpose was installed in front of the fire house. The firemen,
using the baler given them by a patriotic citizen, converted the accumulated
paper into 150-pound bales and shipped it to a pulp mill
in Richmond. By November 15 they had sent sixty tons. During
November 8–22 Charlottesville retail merchants cooperated with local
salvage officials by declaring a Paper Holiday. Throughout that
period their customers were asked to help conserve wrapping paper
by accepting as many packages as possible unwrapped.[5]

Contributing greatly to the success of paper salvage in 1944 and
1945 were the Boy Scout drives directed by Earl Snyder. In January,
1944, the Scouts set out to “Salvage More in '44” and load two
railroad cars in that month. With the help of trucks loaned by sixteen
business firms, they filled three freight cars: seventy-five tons,
an amount well above their goal, were shipped to the paper mill
A drive in April totaled 73,900 pounds, another in July 76,120
pounds. In honor of the Scouts, business men, and truck drivers
who had cooperated to make these drives a success, a picnic supper
was given at McIntire Park. Troop Number 5 received an award
for having the highest percentage of its membership enrolled in the
drives.[6] The Executive Secretary of the Virginia State Salvage
Committee observed in a letter praising the Scouts's accomplishment.
“The amount of waste paper collected since the first of the year by
your organization, 310,000 pounds has caused the salvaging of
paper in Charlottesville to be outstanding in the State of Virginia.”[7]
A fourth drive in October totaled 65,000 pounds and filled two more
railroad cars. Three cars were filled with the 90,000 pounds gathered
in the fifth drive of February, 1945; and the April drive topped
them all with the imposing figure of 210,000 pounds. At a Boy
Scout Court of Honor on June 7, 1945, thirty-two Scouts, each of
whom had collected a minimum of 1,000 pounds, were presented
the General Eisenhower award by Lieutenant J. L. Bridges of the
School of Military Government at the University of Virginia.[8]

As a part of the annual Clean-Up, Paint-Up Campaign, the
county schools launched a special paper drive in April of 1944. A
county truck made the rounds of the schools, and additional depots
were set up for people far out in the country. In two weeks 20,000
pounds of paper were collected. Quite apart from this amount, as
was pointed out by Paul H. Cale, principal of the Greenwood High
School, was the exceptionally large collection made by the Boy
Scouts of Greenwood and Crozet. It totaled 37,500 pounds: 21,000
from Greenwood, 16,500 from Crozet. Final figures for the
county during the month of April were 73,132 pounds. May

brought only 6,840 pounds, and June still less, 2,240 pounds, with
the close of school.[9]

The national supply of paper was critically low in the summer
of 1944. Each monthly collection had fallen an average of 67,000
tons short of the national quota. The invasion of France had begun.
In response to a special plea from Washington salvage activities
in the county were intensified. The total collection for July was
33,878 pounds. A Scout drive at Crozet netted 100,000 pounds,
another brought in 110,000 pounds, and in addition to these drives,
the county salvaged 110,000 pounds between February of 1944 and
June of 1945. Proceeds of the sale made by L. E. Coiner were divided
between the county schools, which received $534.16, and the
Community Fund and Red Cross, which together received $280.00.[10]

Other groups were also active in the county. The 4-H Club of
Earlysville collected 15,900 pounds of paper. With the $40.00
received from its sale the club bought a war bond and paid for certain
other club objectives. Home Demonstration and 4-H Club
members throughout the county collected 59,600 pounds of paper
during 1944, 12,000 in 1945.[11]

In August of 1945 the State Salvage Committee announced that
waste paper, along with tin cans and household fats, would continue
to be salvaged even though the war had come to an end.[12]

Scrap Metals

Metal was second on the list of materials which the Federal government
desired to recover through salvage. The United States had
lived to regret its policy during the 1930's which had encouraged
the Japanese to buy American scrap iron for their war machine. In
December, 1941, American rearmament necessitated a hunt for scrap
metal; but it was in February of 1942, when thirty-nine blast furnaces
of the steel industries in the nation were compelled to shut
down due to a lack of scrap, that collecting metal became imperative.
The knowledge that twenty-five per cent of the metal used in the
manufacture of essential steel was scrap iron gave meaning to the
Salvage for Victory Program launched in March of 1942.[13]

Residents of the community were asked to search their garrets for
worn out household metals of all kinds, including everything except
tin cans and razor blades, the first then being considered non-reclaimable,
the second, too hazardous to handle. City junk dealers were
to ship the scrap through channels established by the War Production
Board to plants where its weight, however depleted in the process
of melting, would compensate in some measure for the shortage
at the steel mills. Heavy iron sold for fifty cents per hundred
pounds, less heavy iron for forty cents, light iron, fifteen cents and
upwards, making an average of about thirty-five cents per hundred

pounds. Copper and brass sold for from three to five cents per
pound.

One dealer shipped 186 tons of scrap metals collected through the
efforts of the United States Department of Agriculture War Board in
Albemarle County and the County Board of Agriculture between
January and May, 1942. Their work was independent of that
carried out by the county Salvage Committee, which reported having
sent to two of the local dealers 646 tons of iron and twelve and a
half tons of brass and copper. The city and county collections for
June totaled 168 tons.[14]

In preparation for the local July drive the local Salvage Committees
designated four conveniently located places for the reception
of scrap, called to public attention by spot announcements over
radio station WCHV: the Texaco Service Station at 14th and Main
Streets, Whiting Oil Station, East End Parking Lot, and the Gulf
Service Station at Farmington Crossing. City refuse trucks offered
“curb service,” making their rounds once a week during the month's
drive to pick up piles of scrap deposited on the curb in front of people's
houses. Over 144 tons of scrap iron and steel were collected
in July.[15]

Old tracks of the Southern Railway Company were torn up at
Preston Turning, and the metal was shipped for salvage late in the
summer. Henry H. Hill, owner of the Hill Wrecking Company of
Charlottesville, received an automobile “graveyard” banner from the
War Production Board, the first such award in Virginia. Between
June 25 and September 15, 1942, he directed over 600 tons of scrap
to the mills for war production. He further accomplished a complete
turnover of scrap every sixty days. Total collection for the
city during the month of August was 292.5 tons, whereas the
county had salvaged 1,800 tons in all from January to September
24, 1942.[16]

Early in September Donald Nelson called on all newspaper publishers
to attend a meeting in Washington at which Army and Navy
officials were present. The publishers were informed that a supply
of scrap adequate for only two weeks was available, and that unless
the collection was greatly increased it would mean that many mills
and furnaces would be forced to shut down, thereby seriously reducing
the amount of ammunition and equipment needed for the
armed forces. The publishers were asked to call the attention of the
nation to this alarming state of affairs. Soon after the meeting the
Virginia Newspapers' Scrap Campaign, sponsored by the Virginia
Press Association, was launched as part of a national drive from
September 21 through October 10. Governor Darden extended
Junk Rally Week, originally the first week in September, to a three-week
period, Junk Rally Weeks, to correspond with this period.[17]

The Daily Progress opened the drive for Charlottesville with a
full-page advertisement titled “Virginia's Scrap Can Lick the Jap.”
War bond prizes amounting to $4,000 were offered for the best
contributions made by the county, city, agricultural organizations,
women's, men's, and children's groups, churches, school organizations,
business firms, and individuals in collecting scrap or giving information
as to where hidden quantities of metal could be procured.
More depots for collection were assigned, including the fire station
and Haynes Settle's service station in the Fry's Spring area.[18]

City activities included the distribution of lists of the names and
locations of scrap depots along with gas and water bills, and again
the services of the city trucks were enlisted. Old gas fixtures were
taken from houses which antedated electric wiring. Some 300 tons
of street car rails buried under the asphalt pavement of West Main
Street from the University to the Union Station were removed by
the Works Progress Administration. The difficult job of disinterment
proved to be too expensive in relation to the sale price of the
recovered metal at junk yards, so it was discontinued at a point less
than half of the distance to the announced goal at the Chesapeake
and Ohio Railway Station. Another activity was a two-day contest
between residents of the two sides of Main Street; the four tons
gathered by the South side bested the three tons gathered by the
North side. Civic clubs, too, joined in the drive, outstanding among
them being the Kiwanians, who contributed forty tons of scrap collected
on their lot back of the Whiting Service Station at Fifth and
West Main Streets. The proceeds went to the club's crippled children's
fund. The Paramount Theatre received five tons of scrap
from the special production of “Ride 'em Cowboy” when the price
of admission was three pounds of metal. A week's campaign at the
University, directed by Frank E. Hartman, Superintendent of
Grounds, and joined in by the students netted about ten tons of scrap
and 500 pounds of brass. This was piled in a roped-off area in
front of the new Naval R. O. T. C. building, Maury Hall.[19]

Each school in the city took part in the scrap drive. The Lane
High School Student Council, whose goal was one hundred tons,
was assisted by the Lions Club, which succeeded in obtaining the
loan of twenty-five delivery trucks from business firms to haul scrap.
This group collected 158 tons and won a $100 war bond in the
State Newspaper Contest. The new Jefferson High School brought
in twenty tons. Junior Commando scrap collectors of Clark School
gathered seven tons, reaching a higher average per capita than that
later attained by the city. Venable School gathered three tons. The
McGuffey School had a one-day drive to which every child responded;
and the “G. B.” Club made up of boys and girls from six to

twelve years old, mostly from McGuffey School, raised $9.53 from
its sales toward the purchase of a bond.[20]

By September 30 the firemen had a motley assortment of museum
pieces totaling over twelve tons. There were old iron kettles, such
as swung from cranes over the open hearth; a French, a German, and
an American helmet from World War I; a pre-Civil War tobacco
press; an old Plymouth; a discarded Nash; an antique tricycle; the
complete equipment of a former Charlottesville business donated by
Mrs. A. R. Michtom; and a 600-pound chunk of iron rescued from
a creek bed. From the Old Ladies' Home came the entire iron fence
which had encircled their property. An unbattered Confederate
cannon was the gift of Miss Mary Perley. Though never used in the
Civil War, it had been fired on the University Lawn when South
Carolina seceded from the Union, April 17, 1861, by its owner, C.
C. Wertenbaker, and again later to commemorate Virginia's secession.
The American Legion also contributed a cannon, but the Confederate
cannon on the lawn of the Court House, eyed by enthusiastic
salvagers, did not join the scrap pile. A sign set up by the firemen
read: “The Japs Got All They Could Pay For—Now Let's Give
Them the Rest.”[21]

The fascination of the scrap pile led to at least two instances of
theft. Three helmets, American, French, and German, were stolen
one night from the firemen's collection, and a piece of brass worth
$5.00 was taken from the Henry Hill Junk Yard.[22]

In the county a Scrap Harvest Drive led by Larned Randolph was
being conducted at the same time. Fourteen representatives from
sections of the county had organized after September 25 and obtained
the use of state highway trucks furnished by R. C. Ambler,
county resident engineer, for the transportation of scrap to the
dealers in Charlottesville. Ed Bain and Linden Shroyer, aided by four
teams from the Crozet Fire Department, made a house-to-house
canvass, and the proceeds were divided between the final payment
for a new aircraft observation post and a gift to the U. S. O. Stephen
Kelsey directed the drive for Ivy, Grover Van Devender for Owensville,
and John Faris for Red Hill, where school boys helped locate
and haul scrap in their local drive.[23]

The potentialities of industrial salvage were evident when John
S. Graves of the Alberene Stone Corporation at Schuyler reported
that nine carloads of scrap, aggregating about 450 tons and representing
a fifty-year accumulation of worn-out machinery, cars, rails,
and other articles of iron, were sent to the nation's scrap heap.
Frank Ix and Sons, Inc., gave twenty-four and one half tons and the
Southern Welding and Machine Company three and one half tons.[24]

The 500-ton goal for city and county collections was not only
reached but exceeded at the end of the three-week drive. C. D. Searson,
county drive statistician, announced on October 17 that the

collections since August had been about 801.5 tons. Charlottesville
alone had collected 443 tons, representing an average of 45.7 pounds
per capita. With a population of 380 people Scottsville had raised over
fifty tons, equivalent to a per capita average of 266.6 pounds. This
figure compared very favorably with the goal of 100 pounds per capita
which had been set for every locality in the state. Moreover, it
rivalled the 286.3 pounds per capita recorded in Lynchburg, which
led all Virginia communities. The Reverend Oscar E. Northen and
E. B. Meredith, together with Homer Thacker, were leaders responsible
for Scottsville's remarkable record. The Keswick and Proffit
areas were among sections of the community in which heavy rains
prevented the completion of the drive within the allotted period.
First place for individual entrants was won by F. F. Critzer of Ivy,
whose total was 11,146 pounds; S. J. Robinson, Jr., of Charlottesville
was second with 7,226 pounds.[25]

These local results constituted a helpful minority of the nation's
total collections of more than 6,000,000 tons of scrap metals which
were brought into war production as a result of the three-week campaign
led by American newspapers.

At the close of 1942, owing to the heavy toll of ships sunk and
material abandoned on battlefields in the course of the Pacific campaigns
and the North African invasion, the scrap situation remained
critical. Industries were asked to pledge themselves to continue the
salvage of metal until the war's end. A local Industrial Salvage
Committee began functioning in November, 1942. It worked with
manufacturers, garages, and other business firms in which larger
amounts of scrap metal were usually found. One of the specific
duties of this group, of which Frank Ix, Jr., was chairman, was to
follow up on the disposal of recurrent scrap and to forward monthly
reports on sales of scrap to the War Production Board. At the end
of the second quarter after its organization the committee reported
300,000 pounds more scrap than during its first quarter. By April,
1944, it had reported well over a million pounds of various kinds of
scrap. “We have found industries in Charlottesville most cooperative,
and we are confident that they will continue in their splendid
work,” wrote Alex F. Ryland of Richmond, district industrial salvage
representative. Over a period of six months the Southern
Welding and Machine Company salvaged 721,000 pounds of iron
and steel and 64,000 pounds of brass.[26]

During the first six months of 1943 the national quota was
13,000,000 tons, over fifty per cent of this amount to be supplied
by industries and farms. All Charlottesville industries participated
throughout 1943. The quota for Virginia's farm scrap was 87,000
tons, to be collected not later than June 30. The Home Demonstration
Clubs in Albemarle County collected 39,448 pounds of iron
and steel during the first half of the year. The Home Demonstration

and 4-H Clubs jointly collected 36,764 pounds of scrap in 1944
and 20,314 pounds in 1945.[27]

Tin Cans

At the beginning of the war it was deemed impracticable to reclaim
tin from ordinary tin cans. Not until October, 1942, were housekeepers
instructed to prepare tin cans for salvage by placing the cutout
ends between the flattened sides. The one per cent coating of
tin could be separated at certain mills by a detinning process from the
ninety-nine per cent steel of the commercial tin can, and both metals
could be salvaged. Even relatively small amounts of tin could be
of use when the chief source of the United States supply was cut off
by the Japanese seizure of the Malayan Peninsula and the Dutch
East Indies.

Tin was essential to many types of goods produced in wartime.
Most of the food for the armed forces was shipped in tin cans because
of the durability of this non-corrosive metal, which can be made to
withstand moisture, excessive heat, and severe cold and to be impenetrable
to poison gas. It was used in the manufacture of cannon
mounts, airplane motors, electrical machinery, and communications
equipment. Not only was tin a fighting metal, but it also made the
best container for many kinds of medical supplies, such as blood
plasma and sulfa-ointments.

At the beginning of the tin salvage campaign in Charlottesville the
soft drink bottlers collected the used cans. Part of the metal they
thus obtained was allocated to them for the manufacture of the caps
on their bottles. The local bottlers of Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and
the Nehi products gathered up cans which were forwarded by the
firm of Dettor, Edwards, and Morris to detinning concerns. In December
arrangements were made for city trucks to collect the cans on
their regular routes, together with other salvaged materials, and to
carry them to the City Yards. When properly prepared tin cans
were sent to a detinning plant, the city received $15.50 per long ton
for them. During the first year of tin can salvage the city trucks
collected 94,400 pounds, an average of almost 8,000 pounds per
month.[28]

This average rose during the first part of 1944, although it was
estimated that in January only half the housewives in Charlottesville
consistently saved their tin cans. In April three months' collections
aggregating 36,000 pounds, an amount which averaged 12,000
pounds per month, were shipped away. Charlottesville collected
6,000 pounds during that month, and the county salvaged 940
pounds in May and 400 pounds in June. The city and county together
turned in 70,200 pounds for July, August, and September.
To these accumulations were added 34,200 pounds shipped to the
Vulcan Detinning Company, Sewaren, New Jersey, in December.[29]

No figures covering the quantity of tin cans salvaged in 1945 are
available. As late as August 20 collections continued despite the
fact that the struggle was drawing to a close. Large shipments of
supplies were still being made overseas, and the stockpiles for civilian
use could not be reduced.[30]

Rubber

The salvage of rubber started in 1941 along with paper, scrap
metals, rags, and aluminum. From January through May, 1942,
twenty-two and one half tons were collected by two dealers in
Charlottesville and Albemarle. With the loss of the Dutch East
Indies, ninety per cent of the nation's crude rubber supply was cut
off, and President Roosevelt proposed a nationwide campaign for
the salvage of rubber during the last two weeks of June, 1942. The
oil industries were called upon by the War Production Board to
lend their personnel, offer their service stations as collection depots,
and buy all types of reclaimable rubber at a uniform price. People
were urged, however, to conserve usable goods such as galoshes and
overshoes in order to prevent a rush demand for them when their
production became impossible.[31]

In Charlottesville Mrs. Lyttelton Waddell launched the drive on
June 18, and Scouts and school children, all called Commandos for
this particular occasion, worked and “raided” until July 10. The
local Salvage Committee unofficially predicted a pile of over 400,000
pounds. On July 3 the committee telegraphed Richmond: “Gasoline
distributors here want to know what to do with rubber. Haven't
enough storage space. Quota exceeded.” More than half a million
pounds had been turned in to the oil companies, which served as
collecting stations. The local organization having the highest record
was the Charlottesville Oil Corporation, which received more than
160,000 pounds. Between August 1 and October 15 a total of
250.5 tons of rubber was collected from the city and county, according
to a report from C. D. Searson.[32]

As the national stockpile of reclaimed natural rubber was well
supplied from the 1942 drives and the manufacture of synthetic
rubber made headway, systematic salvage of natural rubber products
was suspended in June, 1943, until further notice. For this reason
the collection of little more than one ton of scrap rubber was reported
by the city at the end of 1943.[33]

Kitchen Fats

In addition to other items, the householder was asked to save
kitchen fats. Loss of the Philippines, the main source of vegetable
fats for the United States before the war, had caused a shortage of this
essential component of munitions. It was announced that two pounds
of cooking grease would provide enough glycerine to make five

pounds of antiaircraft ammunition. The national program for
salvaging fats started about July 6, 1942, and quotas were set for
all states and communities. Virginia's quota was set at 181,500
pounds per month. In August the Charlottesville Salvage Committee
set 68,000 pounds as a goal for the year, based on an estimate
of 17,000 people contributing about four pounds of grease per
capita, the amount requested by national salvage authorities.[34]

Cooks were urged to collect waste fats in pound lots and to sell
them at three cents per pound to meat dealers. The butchers would
then turn them over to processors for the government's use. All
but one of the Charlottesville meat merchants agreed to buy fats.
Promotional work in connection with the salvaging of kitchen fats
in Charlottesville was a responsibility of I. H. Poss of the local
branch of Swift and Company, who distributed posters and information
to meat dealers.[35]

The first month's collection of fats netted only 835 pounds, the
month of August 863 pounds, and September the meager amount of
700 pounds, when a community the size of Charlottesville should
have raised almost 6,000 pounds a month according to its quota.
Women of the church auxiliaries joined in the effort to convince the
public of the need of cooperating in this phase of the salvage program;
Home Demonstration Club members worked similarly in the
rural districts. Mrs. Fred L. Watson, fats collection chairman in
Charlottesville, urged that housewives adopt Walt Disney's slogan:
“Out of the Frying Pan Into the Firing Line.”[36]

By January, 1943, the collection of fats hit a new high of 1,350
pounds in Charlottesville, an increase of 250 pounds over the December
total. During the entire year of 1943 Home Demonstration
Clubs in the county collected 411 pounds. In December a special
impetus to save fats was given under the new Points-For-Fats Program.
In addition to the four cents per pound then being paid,
housewives were given two red food ration points for every pound
of kitchen fats they delivered to their butchers.[37]

Mrs. W. E. Hughes of Charlottesville became fats collection chairman
in February, 1944. In that month 1,200 pounds of fats were
collected. A drive in March sent Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, and
members of the Parent-Teacher Association on a house-to-house
canvass asking for whatever amount of waste fats was then available
in each kitchen. As Virginia lagged far behind in meeting its
quota, this method was continued every month. April brought in
1,500 pounds of fat for Charlottesville. Home Demonstration and
4-H Club members collected 4,240 pounds of fat in the rural districts
in 1944 and 11,841 pounds in 1945, when salvaging of fats continued
along with paper and tin even after V-J Day.[38]

Other Materials Salvaged

During the years 1942 and 1943 rags for cleaning Army and
Navy weapons were collected by the city of Charlottesville to the
amount of 1,273 pounds, along with other salvaged materials.[39]

The National Collection of Discarded Clothing, sponsored by the
Salvage Division of the War Production Board under the National
Used Clothing Program began on November 22, 1943, when the
desirability of providing garments for the destitute people of the
liberated countries had become obvious. The Defense Supplies Corporation
arranged for dry cleaning and shipment overseas. All dry
cleaners in Albemarle County and forty-four other counties in western
Virginia sent their collections to the Inland Service Corporation
warehouse in Charlottesville. The city sent 1,464 pounds by December
18, 1943, and the county 2,090.5 pounds. Another United
National Clothing Collection was launched by the same agency in
April, 1945. By the end of the month 30,000 pounds of clothing
had been donated. Members of civic clubs gave freely of their time
in collecting and packing the clothes, and merchants lent their trucks
for use in a house-to-house collection. Six deposit stations received
them also. Before the drive was brought to a close on May 15 about
34,400 pounds of clothing had been given by the city and county.
“The collection brought in excellent clothes that will still be useful,”
said Charles Youell, chairman for the drive. “There weren't a
dozen garments that could be considered unusable.” Persons having
additional used clothing to give away were asked to contact any
one of the several charitable organizations in the city.[40]

Other articles were salvaged on a less intensive scale. Boy Scouts
of Charlottesville contributed four truckloads to the 2,643 pounds
of aluminum salvaged here during 1942 and 1943. Discarded license
plates weighing a total of 1,480 pounds were collected during the
same period. In order that small quantities of shellac could be reclaimed,
old phonograph records were gathered by 4-H Club members
to raise money for the purchase of an ambulance to serve in Red
Cross overseas duty; the Paramount Theatre charged records for admission
to a movie; the Meriwether Lewis School organized a “flying
squadron” for this activity, and the 4-H Club of that locality
contributed more than half of the total quantity of records collected.
Old silk stockings were forwarded by the J. D. and J. S. Tilman
department store to be used in making powder bags and for other
similar defense purposes; the Girl Scouts helped raise the 125 pounds
for the first shipment in February, 1943. In the fall of 1944, 4-H
Club members in the county gathered forty-five bags of milk weed
pods, a quantity, according to Henry Brumback, assistant county
agent, sufficient to make twenty-two life preservers. Fur for lining

certain types of military uniforms was collected by the Shadwell
Chapter of the D. A. R.[41]

The salvage of thousands of tons of materials useful to the war
effort by this community during the war was not the only result of
the campaigns described. Proceeds from the sale of waste paper and
other scrap by the city of Charlottesville went to aid the U. S. O.
in its program of providing recreation for men in the armed forces.
The amount of $1,898 had been raised by the end of 1943.[42] Other
organizations which joined in the salvage drives used the money
raised for special projects of their own.

The people of Charlottesville and Albemarle County attained
creditable records in the salvage of waste paper, scrap iron and other
metals, rubber, and clothing. It is difficult to conceive that larger
results could reasonably be expected from efforts dependent upon the
volunteer, part-time services of busy individuals and upon the cooperation
of various organizations. Admittedly less successful were
the local efforts in collecting fats and tin cans. At least a partial explanation
of the fact that the community fell somewhat below the
national average in respect to these two items may lie in the tendency
of Southern cooks to use more fats for the seasoning of food and the
making of gravies than their Northern and Western counterparts and
to take from their pantry shelves foods locally preserved in glass
rather than commercially processed in tin. Moreover, salvage of
these articles required the daily cooperation of individuals who were
sometimes unwilling to save what seemed like inconsequential bits.
On the other hand, waste paper, scrap iron, rubber, and clothing lent
themselves more readily to organized drives in which team spirit
and rivalry brought better results.