Consumer Reports. Persia Campbell papers, 1930-1974

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Summary

Creator:
Consumer Reports (Firm)
Abstract:
Consumer Reports is a product testing and consumer advocacy nonprofit organization based in Yonkers, N.Y., founded in 1936. Persia Campbell (1898-1974) was an economist, author and consumer interests advisor to a number of government agencies and consumer organizations, and a member of the Consumers Union Board of Directors (1959-1974). Collection includes clippings, conference proceedings, correspondence and memoranda, legislative materials, press releases, speeches, travel notes, and other printed materials that document Campbell's career in consumer advocacy and education. Topics covered in the collection include consumer credit, environment, fraud and misrepresentation, health care, poverty, and price and economic stability during the Depression and World War II. Organizations and institutions represented include the Council on Consumer Information, Food and Agriculture Organization (United Nations), International Federation of University Women, International Organization of Consumers' Unions, National Association of Consumers, New York City Community Development Agency; New York State Consumer Counsel, Pan Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association. Queens College, U.S. Agricultural Adjustment Administration, U.S. Consumer Advisory Council, U.S. Office of Price Administration, U.S. Office of Price Stabilization, U.S. National Recovery Administration, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.
Extent:
50.0 Linear Feet
Language:
Materials in English.
Collection ID:
RL.11792

Background

Scope and content:

Collection includes clippings, conference proceedings, correspondence and memoranda, legislative materials, press releases, speeches, travel notes, and other printed materials that document Campbell's career in consumer advocacy and education. Topics covered in the collection include consumer credit, environment, fraud and misrepresentation, health care, poverty, and price and economic stability during the Depression and World War II. Organizations and institutions represented include the Council on Consumer Information, Food and Agriculture Organization (United Nations), International Federation of University Women, International Organization of Consumers' Unions, National Association of Consumers, New York City Community Development Agency; New York State Consumer Counsel, Pan Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association. Queens College, U.S. Agricultural Adjustment Administration, U.S. Consumer Advisory Council, U.S. Office of Price Administration, U.S. Office of Price Stabilization, U.S. National Recovery Administration, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Biographical / historical:

Consumer Reports is a product testing and consumer advocacy nonprofit organization based in Yonkers, N.Y., founded in 1936. Persia Campbell (1898-1974) was an lawyer, economist, author and consumer interests advisor to a number of government agencies and consumer organizations, and a member of the Consumers Union Board of Directors (1959-1974).

Persia Campbell was born March 1898 in Nerrigundah, Australia. She graduated from Sydney University (1919, honors in English, history and economics; 1920, Masters) and taught high school prior to leaving for graduate studies at the London School of Economics (Master of Science, 1923) and Columbia University (Doctor of Philosophy in public law, in 1940). Campbell became an American citizen in 1936. Campbell died in 1974.

Campbell's government service began during World War II when she headed the Consumer Services Division of the Greater New York Civilian Defense Volunteer Office. She later served as a member of the Consumer Advisory Committee to the Council of Economic Advisers in the Truman Administration, an advisor to the Senate's Anti-Trust and Monopoly Subcommittee in 1959, and a member of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson's Consumer Advisory Council.

In 1955 Governor W. Averell Harriman chose Campbell as New York State Consumer Counsel, the first such post in the United States. Campbell advised officials in California and Massachusetts in developing their own programs of consumer representation modeled after the one in New York. Campbell also was active in New York City consumer affairs, serving as a member of the Mayor's Advisory Council in the early 1950s and acting as Consumer Consultant to the Community Development Agency from 1966 to 1968. She continued her civic duties as a member of the Consumer Advisory Council of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs from 1968 to 1974.

Campbell's activities in private consumer organizations date from the late 1930s when she became executive secretary of the Consumers National Federation, a short-lived umbrella organization for consumer-oriented groups. From 1946 until the early 1950s, she was vice chairman of the National Association of Consumers, a consumer lobbying and educational group, and served as one of the editors of the organization's publication, Consumers on the March. She became a charter member of the Council on Consumer Information (later renamed as the American Council on Consumer Interests) when the organization was founded in 1953. In 1959, she was elected to the board of Directors of Consumers Union, a position she held until her death.

Campbell's efforts in consumer education extended to her professional teaching career. A member of the faculty at Queens College from 1940 until her retirement as Chairman of the Economics Department in 1965, Campbell taught consumer education courses and wrote a college textbook, The Consumer Interest: A Study in Consumer Economics (1949). During her two semesters at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as Visiting Professor of Economics, she organized a seminar on consumer credit and surveyed specific credit conditions in North Carolina.

Campbell was also active in international economic affairs. She was an advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in 1948, 1949, and 1951. She served as Chairman of the American branch of the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association from 1959 to 1963, and represented the organization at the United Nations Economic and Social Council during the 1960s and early 1970s. She was a member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), working on several national committees. She represented the AAUW's parent organization, the International Federation of University Women, at the United Nations from 1966 to 1974. She also was one of the founders of the International Organization of Consumers Unions in 1960, and subsequently represented the organization at the United Nations and at international conferences.

In addition to numerous articles, speeches, and testimony before legislative committees, often pertaining to consumer problems, Campbell wrote six books: Chinese Coolie Emigration to Countries Within the British Empire (1924); Studies in Australian Affairs, joint editor (1930); American Agricultural Policy (1933); Consumer Representation in the New Deal (1940); The Consumer Interest: A Study in Consumer Economics (1949); and a biography of philanthropist Mary Williamson Harriman (1960).

Source: Cynthia Swank, Consumers Union archivist, printed collection guide, 1979.

Acquisition information:
The Consumer Reports. Persia Campbell papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library as a gift in 2019.
Processing information:

Processed by Richard Collier, Sept. 2021;

Accessions described in this collection guide: 2019-0130.

Arrangement:

Organized into the following series: Government Agencies; Consumer Organizations; Consumer Education; International Organizations; Writings and Speeches; and Personal Papers.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Contents

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Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the copyright section of the Regulations and Procedures of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Consumer Reports. Persia Campbell papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/m1244s