The Boston, Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia Consumers Leagues founded the National Consumers League in 1899. It became a central force in exposing social injustice, particularly with respect to low wages and poor working conditions. Under the leadership of its first general secretary, Florence Kelley, the League launched important initiatives to improve wages and working conditions for many.
Women significantly involved in the League included Florence Kelley, Josephine Roche, Lucy R. Mason, Mary Dublin, Elizabeth Magee, Frances Perkins, Clara Beyer, Mary Dewson, Dorothy Kenyon and Josephine Goldmark. The League effected the passage, enforcement and defense of laws having to do with safety, sanitation, night work, maximum hours, child labor, minimum wages, social security, migrant camp conditions and fair employment practices.
This collection includes organizational records and subject files of the National Consumers League ranging from 1904-1955. It documents the League's goals and objectives through correspondence, publications, legislative initiatives, and individual and group activities. Subject files suggest an emphasis on the League's commitment to workplace issues affecting children and women, migrant workers, equal rights, fair labor standards, and minimum wage. A significant portion of the collection documents the League's activities in New York State, often in concert with the Consumers League of New York.
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 Kelly, 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).
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference archivist for access to these materials.
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.
National Consumers League Records #5235. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.
Significant resolutions pertaining to child labor, including a resolution favoring a 16-year minimum work age for employment of children in industry and that adequate appropriations be made for their educational needs
Minimum Wage: A resolution urging concerted action to continue the League's national campaign for minimum wage laws.
8/40 Hours Per Week: A resolution to urge the passage of state laws limiting hours of work to eight in one day and forty in one week
Equal Rights: A resolution voicing strong support for equal opportunities for men and women in industry through legislation
Other resolutions pertaining to unemployment insurance legislation, the Social Security Act, health insurance, migratory workers, labor-management relations, equal pay, and establishing labor standards in all government contracts
Includes discussions on: economic implications of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); child labor and the FLSA; minimum wage experience; and a wage and hours program for the states
(Incomplete, arranged by month). Discussion topics are primarily those referred to in File 1
Address by Dr. J. Douglas Brown, Princeton: Cooperation vs. Paternalism; 50th Anniversary Award presentation to Dr. Alice Hamilton, Harvard Medical School; Remarks by Florence Kelley; Speech by Senator Paul H. Douglas; Letter establishing the 50th Anniversary Fund; Letter of congratulations from President Harry Truman ; Editorial comment by the New York Times; List of Milestones (page 2 of 2)
Issues: Fall, 1945; Fall, 1946; Winter, 1946
Proceedings from the Permanent Candy Committee of the NCL, November 12, 1929. Discussion pertaining to hours and wages of workers in the candy industry. A 1933 memorandum expressing regret for the need to discontinue the issuance of the candy manufacturers' White List, owing to the breakdown of labor standards across industries
See bibliography of pamphlets: appendix B
Study findings and other writings by Florence Kelley; See bibliography of pamphlets/writings: appendix A
Address to the NCL by New York Consumer's League President Dorothy Kenyon, 1927. Letter to Florence Kelley from the U.S. Dept. of Labor, October 1927. Draft outlining a new plan for youth in industry, November 15, 1926. News release, Industry Meets Educators' Ideas, Modifies Child Education Program, National Association of Manufacturers, New York, NY, 1928. Draft of Act to Amend the Child Labor Law, 1953
Recommendations of the Committee on Cash Disability Insurance, NCL
Senate Bill S.1178: A Bill providing equal pay for equal work, June 21, 1945. U.S. Dept. of Labor Women's Bureau. Suggested language for an Act to abolish wage differentials based on gender. State of Montana code regarding equal pay: 1935 revision to 1919 code. State of Washington: House Bill approving 1943 revision of 1913 law on equal pay
Remarks by Florence Kelley. List of, and comments from, national organizations officially on record as against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Proposed Amendment to the Unites States Constitution and related correspondence. Routine correspondence
Comments by Secretary of Labor to Judiciary Committee on the ERA. List of Organizations Opposed the ERA. Routine correspondence and records supporting and opposing the ERA
Pamphlets related to workplace-related illnesses, including exposure to poisons
Summary of proposed National Health Insurance Bill, November 19, 1945. Routine correspondence and news clippings on proposed National Health Bill
NCL pamphlets and leaflets on women hotel workers
Routine correspondence, pamphlets, and new clippings related to hours of work required by some employers, including that related to night work required of women and children
8 original pamphlet illustrations (photocopies here, originals in File 70)
Reports from the first three annual meetings
See bibliography of pamphlets: appendix C
Miscellaneous newsclippings, 1950s
Testimony of Mabel Hopper, Consumer League of New York, Research Director of the Migrant Labor Study. Accompanying Photographs (10) (photocopies here, originals in File 71)
Collection of pamphlets and leaflets, bulk published by the National Consumer League. See bibliography of pamphlets: appendix D
The Public Stake in Minimum Wage Laws: Address to NCL, May 22, 1946, Leon Henderson, Chief Economist of the National Recovery Act (NRA). Minimum Wage and Collective Bargaining: Address to NCL, , Solomon Barkin, Director of Research, Textile Workers Union, May 22, 1946. Collection of pamphlets and leaflets, bulk published by the National Consumer League. Bibliography: Appendix E
British Minimum Wage Act of 1909. Report on the British Trade Boards Act, 1909- 1922
Statements on behalf of the NCL regarding Social Insurance (1950) and Bill to amend the Social Security Act (1954). Bill introduced for improving maternity care and care of infants, 1938. Correspondence from Social Security Board, 1938
Statement of the NCL to the House Judiciary Committee on H.R. 584 addressing suits for portal-portal claims filed under the FLSA
Articles and pamphlets related to Supreme Court rulings on labor, including its ruling on the J. Tipaldo Case
Routine correspondence and Merit Rating Committee Report
Pamphlets on the need for saving labor power during wartime
Routine correspondence on legislation affecting women's earnings and working conditions
Articles and leaflets regarding poor working conditions, particularly those for women in the needle trade industry
Consumer League of the City of New York Annual Report, 1897. National Consumer League Annual Reports: 1905-07, 1910-16
Routine correspondence, confidential report on child labor in commercial agriculture, proposed legislation relating to the sale of goods produced employing child labor, news clippings
NYS DOL report: "Child Labor and Hours in NYS Canneries, Summer 1944." Descriptions of and routine correspondence related to the Coudert-Brooks Bill, a proposal to amend the labor law relating to the combined hours of work and hours in school for minors under the age of 18. Related newspaper clippings. An abstract of laws governing school attendance and the employment of children in NYS
Summary of laws passed in Missouri, NYS, and Vermont prohibiting sale, etc. of goods made by child labor. Bill S. 2226 proposing the regulation of interstate commerce in the products of child labor and for other purposes. A Brief in opposition to Nunan-Moffat Bill regarding the protection of children employed in industries engaged in interstate commerce, presented by the National Child Labor Committee, 1937. News releases and clippings, including several relating to prison-made goods
Routine correspondence relating to a proposed change to Section 25 of the Judiciary Article of the NYS constitution which would subject all administrative determinations to review of the facts as well as the law
Routine correspondence
Routine correspondence between NY league and National league, 1935-1940. Signed Bill amending NYS labor law establishing new minimum wage standards for women and minors. Signed by Governor April 28, 1937
Routine correspondence and membership listing
Newsletters
Newsletters
Recommendations on disability insurance made by Consumers League of New York before Joint Legislative Committee
Routine correspondence, news releases, re: proposed legislation to regulate hours of employment of household workers, 1938. Notes on Women's Trade Union League re: protective legislation for domestics
Correspondence, news releases, notices of public hearings on proposed orders restricting industrial homework, NYS Supreme Court record of an appeal to permit industrial homework, order prohibiting homework in artificial flower and feather industries. NYS DOL report on trends in industrial homework
Letter referring to the establishment of the NYS Labor Standards Committee, January 12, 1912, list of Committee members. Minutes of meetings. Public hearing correspondence and notices. List of Senate and Assembly members, 1934. Routine correspondence, public statements, and news clippings on unemployment insurance, minimum wage
Analysis by NYS Committee on Summer Farm Labor Problems of roundtable reports from Conference on Agricultural Labor and Community Problems, Rochester, NY, 1945. NYS DOL Report on children working on fruit and vegetable farms in NYS, 1951. Excerpts from report on summer farm labor camps, 1936. Routine correspondence
Advisory Committee to Minimum Wage Board member list. Routine correspondence
Background document on the genesis for minimum wage legislation. An analysis of minimum wage legislation. Routine correspondence, news releases, newspaper clippings. Transcript of radio address: Elinore Morehouse Herrick, Regional Director, NLRB, 1936. Brochure: New York's Minimum Wage Law: The First Twenty Years, 1958
Additional historical background on minimum wage. Routine correspondence. Brochure from NYS DOL describing minimum wage and its objectives. Brief in support of minimum wage legislation, Consumer League of NY
Routine correspondence. Bibliography of publications relating to women workers and child labor issues. Reprints of Industrial Bulletin articles related to women in industry during wartime
Routine correspondence. NYS DOL news releases
Correspondence, notice of exam to become an inspector. Examination questions. Appeals by those who did not pass
Routine correspondence. Legislative proposals and analysis. Newspaper clippings
Collection of newspaper clippings on minimum wage issues, primarily from 1933
Routine correspondence and newspaper clippings related to New York State Court of Appeals' declaration that New York's Minimum Wage Law is unconstitutional
News releases
Routine correspondence, news releases
Routine correspondence, news releases, leaflets
Routine correspondence, news releases. (4) Film negatives of earning tables: Comparisons between basic hours and wages (skilled/unskilled workers) in 47 laundry plants in Greater New York and Westchester County, 1929 and 1931
Routine correspondence, news releases
Routine correspondence, news releases
Routine correspondence urging support of SBLI
Copy of NYS Unemployment Insurance Law, 1935. Analysis of Unemployment Ins. Bills Pending in Albany. Routine correspondence, newspaper clippings
Routine correspondence, majority from 1940s
Routine correspondence. Legislative proposals
Organizational member list. Minutes of Meeting, 1942. "War Emergency Dispensation Act," an Act to dispense from certain limits of the labor law as warranted by the war emergency. Guide on "Labor Standards for Maximum War Production in NYS."
Original illustrations (8) referred to in File 19 (child labor). These are pen and ink drawings of working people used in NCL pamphlets, artist unknown, n.d.
Original photographs (10) referred to in File 23 (migrant labor)
See Appendix F for listing