Women's Advocacy

The Consumers League of New Jersey investigated child labor in New Jersey as early as 1905. In 1925, the Consumers League conducted a major study of migratory children, mainly from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, who worked in the cranberry bogs and truck farms of southern New Jersey. They found that these children were missing and consequently falling behind in school, and often worked in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. In 1927, the League sponsored a bill to prohibit the employment of children while school was in session. Years of effort by the Consumers League and other groups including the League of Women Voters eventually led to the passage of the comprehensive Child Labor Law of 1940, which restricted hours, prohibited night work, and raised the age limit for young workers. Governor A. Harry Moore is shown signing the bill, accompanied by leaders of women's organizations, including Mary Dyckman of the Consumers League, fourth from right.

During the inter-war period, many feminists believed that women, because of their greater sensitivity and knowledge of the concerns of women and children, had a special role to play in social welfare. Indeed many women participated in the emerging social work profession during this period. The Council for Human Services in New Jersey, originally known as the New Jersey Conference of Social Work, represented this new profession in the state. As well as sponsoring research and facilitating communications, the Council sought to improve New Jersey's social services, especially the provisions for the care of at-risk children, the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled. The Council used this brochure, Common Sense, in a 1937 fund-raising campaign.

In the 1960s, the Consumers League of New Jersey continued to advocate and lobby for migrant workers, many of whom came from Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the British West Indies. New Jersey Assembly Bill 957, introduced in November 1967, sought to improve the housing of migrant laborers, ensure that they had potable water, rid the state of cramped migrant lodgings which tended to foster disease, and create a Bureau of Migrant Labor within the Department of Labor and Industry to enforce these regulations. The bill passed due to the efforts of many groups. The Consumers League of New Jersey sponsored the “Legislative Caravan,” a demonstration at the State House which included representatives of the Church Women United, the National Council of Catholic Women, the New Jersey Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, and migrant workers.

Mary Dyckman (1886-1984) began her efforts for the improvement of working and living conditions in New Jersey as a visiting caseworker in Orange. She became a mobilizer, fund-raiser, organizational leader and political activist addressing social problems in both urban and rural areas of the state. Elected to the Executive Board of the Consumers League of New Jersey in 1938, Dyckman later served as president from 1944 to 1956. Her concern for human welfare involved her in various issues including income tax, worker's compensation, and the plight of migrant agricultural laborers. In 1944-1945, Dyckman compiled a brief of recommendations and submitted it to Governor Walter E. Edge, which led directly to the New Jersey Migrant Law of 1945—the first migrant law of its kind in the United States.

During the 1960s, the agenda of the Consumers League of New Jersey shifted towards issues related to personal consumption and the environment, such as the inspection of food, the use of pesticides, pollution, consumer fraud, food additives, and packaging requirements, as well as a major campaign to protect consumers from extortionate credit schemes.