Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. I was 8 years old. I remember parents using coupons for sugar, flour, shoes, gasoline. Mom got more sugar since she canned food. I remember the sugar sacks in the meat curing room outside at home. We had a full garden and two pigs each year, and chickens and fruit trees that did bear fruit. All that was canned for the winter.
I remember a dress made out of flower sacks. I thought coupons were natural as I didn't know another way to get those items. The first time I had a store bought dress was when I was going away to college in 1951. My parents took me to Dallas, to Sanger-Harris department store and told me to get any dresses/coat I wanted.
It doesn't seem a long time since then, but it is. Veronica Lake was my favorite actress.