Guide to the Consumers' League of New York City Records,
1896-1962

The Consumer's League of New York City was formed in 1891 as a result of a report made in 1890 by Alice Woodbridge, secretary of the Working Women's Society, the forerunner of the Women’s Trade Union League. This report enumerated the deplorable working conditions and long hours under which women engaged in the retail trade had to work. A small group of women proceeded to organize the league, whose first activity was to prepare a white list of shops paying minimum fair wages and having shorter hours and better sanitary conditions. In 1899, other leagues formed in Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago united to form the National Consumer's League. Mr. John Graham Brooks was elected president and Florence Kelley, who had worked with Jane Addams at Hull House, Chicago, was made executive secretary.

Investigations were undertaken by the Consumer's League in many areas. The first concerned the conditions of manufacture and sale of women's and children's stitched cotton underwear, and was soon extended to other branches of the needle trades. Investigations were conducted into the conditions of unsanitary tenement homework and sweatshops, laundries, restaurants, textile mills, canneries, and candy factories. Reports of the Consumer's Leagues were usually pioneer revelations of undesirable working conditions and were accepted as authoritative by legislators and educational institutions.

Reports and agitations of the league were probably more influential in the field of legislation than in any other way and effected the passage, enforcement, and defense of laws having to do with safety, sanitation, night work, maximum hours, child labor, minimum wages, social security, and fair employment practices. Investigations, reports, and publicity were made the basis of pressure on legislatures and Congress, and in these campaigns the league has frequently had the cooperation of the American Association for Labor Legislation , the League for Industrial Democracy, the National Child Labor Association, the National Women Suffrage Association, and the League of Women Voters. It has also stimulated the creation of official bodies either for special investigation or for continuous administration, as in the case of the federal and state bureaus of women in industry and the Federal Children's Bureau.

Although not always in agreement with trade unions, the league often cooperated with them in achieving ends jointly desired. It frequently obtained the active cooperation of employers in raising standards in instances where the ultimate interest of the employer coincides with that of the worker.

After World War II, the New York league called attention to the plight of migratory farm workers in the state. The league conducted extensive investigations of camp conditions, wages, and hours of migratory workers in 1945 and again in 1951.

The bulk of this collection covers the period from 1940 through the 1950's, although there are earlier documents scattered throughout. The organization's primary efforts appeared directed to developing protective legislation for migrant workers and their children in the state, although there is evidence of substantial activity on child labor, New York State disability insurance, equal pay, industrial homework, minimum wage, and women workers.

The records document research and lobbying activities for federal and state legislation and various social action programs. They consist of routine business records, published and unpublished reports, correspondence, and research documents pertaining to equal pay, equal rights, minimum wage, child labor, women workers, migrant workers, and fair labor standards.

Organization records (1905-1955) consist of proceedings, resolutions, and reports of annual meetings (1930-1955); minutes of the Board of Directors (1937-1954); annual reports (1905-1916); and routine correspondence, press releases, programs, and speeches pertaining to the arrangements for the League's 50th anniversary (1949).

Research materials (1904-1955) consist of documents collected and produced by the League's staff and members to facilitate its legislative actions and research projects. Include memoranda; manuscript notes; bulletins; research documents; miscellaneous letters, and correspondence of various League officers and staff, including Florence Kelley, with political figures and other social action agencies concerning federal and state legislation and social action programs in occupational health and safety, labor relations, equal rights amendments (1925-1955), "candy white lists" boycotts (1929-1933), public education, equal pay, health insurance (1946), wages, hours and working conditions for women, children and migrant workers, migrant labor camps, wage and hour legislation, war labor standards, disability insurance, New York State household workers (1938), work at home (1934-1945), unemployment insurance (1933-1936), defense production, New York State Minimum Wage Boards, New York savings bank insurance (1938), and social security.

Also, reports, newsletters and pamphlets, chiefly of the League, pertaining to equal rights amendments, child labor, migrant workers and fair labor standards; and reports of the New York Minimum Wage Boards on the cleaning and dyeing, hotel, restaurant, retail trade and laundry industries (1933-1945).

The files are divided into two series representing two separate accessions of records and not functional filing groups. Subject files on migrant labor, child labor, and the like are to be found in both series. File folder titles are annotated when necessary, but generally are self-explanatory. The internal administrative files of the NYSCL are integrated into the subject listings under the titles: Consumers League, Consumers League Action, Annual Reports, Annual Meetings, Board of Directors, Committees, Financial, Format, Inquiries, Membership Correspondence and Appeal Letters, Personnel Program and Budget, Promotion, and Publications.