Office of Price Administration, Latah County, Idaho Records, 1942-1945

The authority to ration scarce commodities was delegated by Congress to the President under the Second War Powers Act, and delegated by the President to the three supply agencies: the War Food Administration handled foods, the Petroleum Administrator for War controlled petroleum products, and the War Production Board covered all other commodities. These agencies were responsible for supplying military needs and for controlling civilian production and allocation. When they found consumer rationing was necessary to insure fair distribution of consumer goods, the Office of Price Administration was directed to implement the rationing. There were four types of rationing used, depending on the commodity: point rationing for food, uniform coupon rationing for shoes and sugar, differential coupon rationing for fuel oil and gasoline, and certificate rationing for automobiles and rubber boots.

In 1944 the Moscow OPA office was designated a "record board", one of the few boards in each of the nine regions in the U.S. to be so designated. This insured that the Latah County records would be preserved for future historical use. In a letter to Belle Sweet, University of Idaho Librarian, dated March 7, 1945, Robert E. Stone, Historical Branch, Office of Price Administration, said, "We in the Office of Price Administration. believe that the records of the local boards contain information about people and the way they lived during the war years, and the distribution of commodities and prices which economists, sociologists, and students of public administration in institutions like yours may wish to study in the years to come."

The Boise and Twin Falls boards were also designated record boards and their records were to have been deposited at the University of Idaho, but in December 1945 Belle Sweet received a letter from H. J. Walker, District Price Board Executive in Boise stating that he had received instructions from the national office to discontinue Boise and Twin Falls as record boards and consequently the records had been destroyed.

Milburn Kenworthy was chairman of the Latah County Ration Board, which was located in the Moscow City Hall, from 1942 until its dissolution in 1945.