Looking closely at this photo, it appears that Sullivan has approached the Hastings family while they're at the general store, one that likely had a butcher working in it; the windows and door arrangement are typical of small rural stores, that big HH cooler behind Mr. Hastings is a commercial job with a front viewing window, those are handheld meat saws hanging from hooks behind the Hastings, and little Cindy Lou (Who) Hastings is carrying a couple empty pop (?) bottles for the pennies she'll get for bringing them in. Then there's Mr. Sullivan: The office of price administration presented an analysis of one of the most far reaching of the (WWII) wartime price regulations of the federal government. As the principal mechanism for the control of prices for many commodities for a considerable period, the regulation was a major influence in stabilizing the cost of living as well as industrial prices during the war. The report that Sullivan is speaking about, with the Hastings, is one of a number of bulletins prepared by the Prices and Cost of Living Branch of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, dealing with problems related to prices and cost of living during the war. As the official price collection agency of the federal government outside the field of agriculture, the Bureau undertook this series of reports, comprising the history of wartime prices, as a part of its program to maintain a continuous analysis of the impact of prices and price structures on the economy of the United States. Basically, it was an emergency measure to prevent, insofar as possible, further price increases during the war; the Great Depression had made everyone cautious. Simple in concept, but complicated in practice, it substituted an absolute freeze of price relationships at a given date for the pricing mechanism of an unregulated economy. Without stop gaps like this, the natural greed of manufacturers would likely have led to prices far out of control, like what happened to Germany's Deutsche Mark in the 1920's. In 1914, at the start of World War I, the dollar was worth 4.20 marks. From then on the German currency steadily declined, and in the fall of 1922 it went into freefall. By November 1923 the dollar was at 4.2 trillion marks... per dollar! The nightmare came to an end shortly thereafter, and the dollar was back at 4.20 Marks again. For example, bakers would lay a customer's 100-Mark note on a slice of bread, cutting around the note, then trade the small slice of bread for the 100 Marks. A family sold its house to emigrate to America, but on arrival at the port of Hamburg, they found that the money wasn't enough to pay for their crossing--in fact, it didn't even pay for their tickets back home. Then there was the man who drank two cups of coffee at 5,000 marks each, only to be presented with a bill for 14,000. When he asked why this was he was told he should have ordered the coffees at the same time because the price had gone up in between. And then there's the story about the couple that took a few hundred million marks to the theater box office hoping to see a show, but discovered it wasn't nearly enough. Tickets were now a billion marks each. The stories sound fantastical but ask our Dutch friends sometime about the tulip craze. Many people pooh-pooh regulation but, without it, we would be at the mercy of others.

If I've put anyone to sleep with this one, I apologize.

Happy Trails

-Nik

---Inspector Maurice J. Sullivan stopping in for a friendly visit with the Hastings---

Thought initially how friendly this 'friendly visit' in fact was.
'Nik' however has, with his well documented comment, brought the story in the proper perspective. I agree with him that the above described inflation was terrible for the German people, but I like to add as well that the suffering of the Dutch people was even more terrible. Hardly to imagine now, that Dutch tulips bulbs in certain areas in my country was the only available 'food' (please notice the quotation marks) during WWII. It was however the only possibility to survive as without consuming them one would die from starving (so it did to many Dutch citizens). About the (perfectly done) colorization I like to say that the choice for little Cindy Lou Hastings is a proper choice, because you've brought her in the center of the attention now, while the original image was meant to be that the adults had to 'play' the major role in the story. A surprising approach. Very well chosen and done, my friend!

A picture with a story - I too like that you chose the little girl to be spotlighted. Fine work again Rob :)

Strawberries and chickens would have been unheard of luxuries in many of the war torn places of the time.

(I ate my first fresh strawberry at age 10. I thought they grew on trees ! Chickens were only for Christmas dinner)

There is no way I can compete with the first two comments, but I can totally agree about your choice of colorization, bravo! tigs=^..^=