Opening comment here
- Humanities: Issues relating to consumer culture are relevant to a number of disciplines, such as
- Psychology
- Sociology
- Cultural Anthropology
- Gender and Sexuality Studies
- History
- Transnational Corporations and Globalization
- and Economic and Environmental Justice
- Language Instruction: Over two dozen languages are represented in the Consumer Reports Archive. Instructors interested in using advertising- and consumer-related materials to enrich students' experiences reading and interacting with languages in contexts not normally found in classroom resources will find a number of relevant collections.
- Engineering: The history of the consumer movement is closely aligned with that of the safety standards movement. In addition to the standardization, Consumers Union has been active in a number of design initiatives centered on product safety: automotive seatbelts, child car seats, air bags and reverse lights, and shock hazard protections on electric appliances. The safety grip found on contemporary lawn mowers was the result of a joint project between Consumers Union and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, with the Consumers Union engineers responsible for a bulk of the design work.
- Global Health: The Consumer Reports Archive has extensive documentation on a number of health-related including:
- Milk Grading Standards
- Food Purity
- Pesticide Contamination (including materials related to the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984)
- Women's Health
- Breastfeeding
- Baby Foods and Formulas
- Environmental Pollution
- Drug Policies
- Economics and Law: Economists have made up a disproportionate number of members of leadership throughout the organizational life of Consumers Union, including one of the founders, Colston E. Warne.
