About Consumer Reports 

Consumer Reports is a mission-driven nonprofit consumer organization committed to creating a fair, safe, and transparent marketplace for consumers.  Consumer Reports was founded as Consumers Union in 1936 by a group of Consumers' Research, Inc. employees involved in a labor strike against their employer.  Founders Arthur Kallet and Colston Warne envisioned a consumer advocacy organization that would take a more activist approach than Consumer's Research and scientifically test common products and services, educate the public, and aid consumers "in their struggle as workers, to get an honest wage."

Today, Consumer Reports, headquartered in Yonkers, New York, reviews approximately 2,500 products and services across more than one hundred categories, and it reaches tens of millions of people through print, digital, and broadcast media.  It's flagship publication, Consumer Reports magazine, is one of the largest paid-circulation periodicals in the U.S.  Because of its broad reach, the organization is also frequently the target of lawsuits by manufacturers whose products have received unfavorable reviews in the magazine.

About the Consumer Reports Archive

From its inception, Consumers Union maintained a reference library as well as a collection of its own publications.  In 1971, federal funding as acquired to establish the Center for the Study of the Consumer Movement which focused on collecting the history of the consumer rights and cooperative movements more broadly.  However, the Center lost its funding in 1982.  The idea of an archive reemerged in 1985 during planning for Consumers Union's 50the anniversary.  A consultant report recommended that a new Consumers Union archive focus on collecting records and papers documenting its own organizational history.   

The Archive in Brief

The Consumer Reports Archive comprises approximately 1,300 linear feet of manuscript materials organized into 64 individual collections including paper records, audiovisual material, photographs, and print material.  Additionally, there are approximately 500 linear feet of monographs and serials and 48 pieces of testing equipment.