USA FASB Statement #3

[speedlearner]

I'm doing research on accounting practices in the late 1970's. Since I've never prepared an interim financial report, I need to know what companies were doing that prompted the creation of FASB statement #3. The statement says companies didn't know how to appropriately report a change to the LIFO method of inventory pricing in interim financial reports. So what were they doing? If I understood that, I could probably understand what the statement was saying.