Consumer Reports is a product testing and consumer advocacy nonprofit organization based in Yonkers, N.Y., founded in 1936. Sidney Shainwald was a accountant who served as Comptroller and later Associate Director of Consumers Union. Collection includes departmental correspondence and memoranda; audits and other financial reports; budget proposals and operating cost estimates; payroll forecasts and reports; publication planning, distribution and promotional campaigns; policy statements and other printed materials. It also includes materials relating to Consumers Union support of the Media and Consumer Foundation's eponymous newsletter. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

Collection includes departmental correspondence and memoranda; audits and other financial reports; budget proposals and operating cost estimates; payroll forecasts and reports; publication planning, distribution and promotional campaigns; policy statements and other printed materials. It also includes materials relating to Consumers Union support of the Media and Consumer Foundation's eponymous newsletter.

James B. Duke (1856-1925) was a tobacco manufacturer, industrialist, and philanthropist of Durham, North Carolina, and New York City and the youngest son of Washington Duke. He was also father to Doris Duke, who inherited a considerable portion of her father's estate at an early age and became known as "the richest girl in the world." James B. Duke's major business concerns included W. Duke, Sons and Company; American Tobacco Company; British American Tobacco Company; and Southern Power Company. His philanthropic activities included endowments of Trinity College (later renamed Duke University) and Lincoln Hospital of Durham, North Carolina. In December 1924, Duke established the Duke Endowment, a permanent trust fund whose beneficiaries include Duke University and three other institutions of higher education, rural churches, non-profit hospitals, and child care institutions throughout North and South Carolina. The collection was compiled from various sources and includes: correspondence; business, legal, and financial papers; estate and inheritance records; printed materials; miscellaneous materials; architectural drawings and blueprints; and pictures chiefly relating to the businesses, enterprises and philanthropy of James Buchanan Duke in North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, and Québec, Canada. About one-half of the collection documents the administration of his estate. Subject areas represented include: American Tobacco Company; British American Tobacco Company; Southern Power Company; business; finance; aspects of the tobacco industry, including automation, marketing and taxation; hydroelectric power; textile mills; charitable works; architectural planning and interior decoration; genealogy of branches of the Duke family; inheritance and succession; estate taxation; and legal procedure for wills, inheritance and business.

The papers of James Buchanan Duke have been collected from various sources over time and span the years 1777 to 1999, although the bulk of the material dates from the 1890s to the mid-1930s. The collection is divided into 7 series: Correspondence, Business Papers, Legal Papers, Financial Papers, Estate Papers, Miscellaneous, and Pictures. About one half of the collection documents the administration of the Estate of James B. Duke, Deceased, including legal proceedings stemming from claims made against the estate. The remainder of the collection deals largely with businesses and financial investments, mainly through the Business Papers, Financial Papers, and Estate Papers Series. To a lesser extent, aspects of Duke's philanthropy are documented through the Financial Papers, Correspondence, and Legal Papers, while personal topics are concentrated in the Picture Series, Miscellaneous Series, and Correspondence Series. Subject areas represented in the collection include: the tobacco and hydroelectric power industries; business and finance; philanthropy; genealogy on branches of the Duke family; inheritance; legal procedure; architecture and interior decoration; and, to a lesser degree, family life.

Since brother Benjamin Newton Duke participated in many of the same businesses and enterprises as James B. Duke, items of his business correspondence and documents related to his investments and domestic expenditures are also found throughout the collection.

The papers of noted economist Leonard Silk span his entire career and include correspondence files; printed material such as periodicals and reports; research or subject files; newspaper clippings files; drafts of writings, including Silk's books, New York Times news columns, editorials, speeches, lectures, book reviews, and essays. There are also papers and reprints by Silk's colleagues; organizations files; publicity and informal photographs of Silk; financial documents; economic data; some teaching materials such as reading lists; and theses and dissertations (including Silk's own thesis on Swedish post-war housing, 1947). The collection also contains groups of cards, notes, memos, calendars and agendas. Silk's papers are a vast and rich resource for learning about the intersection of politics, economics, and popular opinion in the 20th century, U.S. fiscal policies, global economics, and specific topics as unemployment, inflation, banking, Keynesian economics, markets and marketing, the economies of Asian countries, and many other subjects. A more detailed original paper inventory is available in the library; in it significant portions of the correspondence are listed at the item level, including correspondents' names.

The papers of Leonard Silk span his entire career, and are arranged by original accessions, within which there are divisions by format,assembled by Silk. Most but not all accessions are described in this collection guide. The largest one is numbered 6096 and comprises over 80 large boxes.

There are many format divisions, and they typically include correspondence files; printed material such as periodicals and reports; research or subject files; newspaper clippings files; drafts of writings, including Silk's books, news columns, editorials, speeches, lectures, book reviews, and essays; papers and reprints by Silk's colleagues; organizations files; publicity and informal photographs of Silk and others; financial documents; economic data such as forecasts and tables, much of it reported by the U.S. government; some teaching materials such as reading lists; and theses and dissertations (including Silk's 1947 thesis on Swedish housing policies). There are also groups of cards, notes, memos, calendars and agendas, and some minutes of meetings relating to organizations with which Silk was involved.

Leonard Silk's papers are a vast and rich resource for learning about the intersection of politics, economics, and popular opinion in the 20th century. Specific topics include U.S. fiscal policies; global economics (starting with materials on post-World War II Europe); trends in social institutions in the U.S.; and other economic topics as American business, unemployment, inflation, banking, macroeconomics and Keynesian economics, markets and marketing (pharmaceutical and tobacco, among others), the economies of Asian countries such as Japan, and many other subjects.

A more detailed original paper inventory is available in the library; in it, significant portions of the correspondence are listed at the item level, including correspondents' names; separated book titles are also listed individually. Many groups of other materials, however, are described only by number of pieces.

In the correspondence files, many of them arranged in chronological order, the majority of the letters are addressed to Silk, but there are also some written by him. Significant correspondents include writers and journalists as well as well-known political figures and economists too numerous to mention. A search using key words may be helpful in locating particular individuals. Again, the original paper inventory contains the names of hundreds of individual correspondents.

The largest group of materials in the collection consists of print items. Silk assembled extensive research files of clippings, articles, periodicals, reports, government publications, and reprints. All of these supported his current research interests, which ranged widely but chiefly focused on macroeconomics, Keynesian economic theory, economics for the social good, and banking and finance. He also set aside pamphlets, tables and charts, and even maps related to his travels.