Consumer Federation of America records

22.50 Boxes

The Consumer Federation of America records document the association's development from 1967 to 2017 through testimonies, newsletters, reports, statements, correspondence, press releases, pamphlets, policy resolutions, and audiotapes. The collection contains minutes from the CFA board of directors meetings, CFA policy resolutions and CFA annual reports (1980–2016). Other reports, statements, and surveys provide coverage of issues investigated, policies advanced, and materials developed to educate the public and media. Areas addressed include consumer safety, financial advancement and protection, consumer knowledge, post-9/11 terrorism insurance and safety, and product safety in general and specifically product safety in children's products and automobiles.

Of special interest is correspondence documenting interactions with prominent political figures including Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Bob Dole. Also noteworthy are pamphlets from the association’s annual Consumer Assembly (1980–2015) and pamphlets developed for the CFA project America Saves. A set of audiotapes (2000–2003) offers insight into CFA conferences that tackled issues including food safety, obesity, and bioterrorism. Reports document court cases and petitions. The collection contains the association's voting records (1971–2008).

CFAnews and Consumer Federation of America annual reports are available online. See Series 8 for online access to annual reports and series 9 for online access to CFAnews. Series 12 provides access to archives of CFA's website from 2007 to 2023.

This collection is arranged into 12 series by type of material: 1) Official & Board Minutes; 2) Correspondence; 3) Statements; 4) Reports; 5) Testimonies; 6) Surveys; 7) Press Releases; 8) Annual Reports & Policy Resolutions; 9) CFAnews & Voting Record; 10) Conference Tapes; 11) Pamphlets; and 12) Web Archives.

All materials are open for research.

The researcher assumes full responsibility for observing all copyright, property, and libel laws as they apply.

• English

• Latin

The creating organization donated the records to the department.

Consumer Federation of America officially donated the records on July 6, 2015, and the materials received accession number 2015-16.017.

Acquired to document the history and preserve the organizational records of the Consumer Federation of America from its conception through 2015. The organization is integrally involved in the consumer movement, which is a collection strength area for this repository.

Consumer Federation of America will send Annual Reports and Policy Resolutions each year. Date ranges should reflect this. Additionally, the website is crawled at least twice each year and will be reflected in the date ranges.

The annual reports and newsletters have been digitized and are available at https://krex.k-state.edu/handle/2097/34146 (reports) and https://krex.k-state.edu/handle/2097/34147 (newsletters).

A video produced by CFA documents its first fifty years: "The Consumer Federation of America: Fifty Years of Education, Advocacy, and Research," available at https://consumerfed.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cfa-celebrating-50-years.mp4.

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Student assistant McKenzie Combes processed and described the materials in 2015–2016, completing the work in March 2016.