Consumer Reports is a product testing and consumer advocacy nonprofit organization based in Yonkers, N.Y., founded in 1936. Abraham J. Isserman was a labor lawyer, counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union during the 1930s, and one of the original members of the Board of Directors of Consumers Union. The Consumer Reports A.J. Isserman papers includes correspondence, clippings, court briefs and depositions, book manuscript drafts, photographs and other printed materials relating to Isserman's work in civil rights and labor law. Topics include labor union activities and strikes, civil liberties, communist influence, investigations into Un-American activities, deportation, and disbarment of lawyers. Persons and institutions reflected in the collection include the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, the Dies Committee, Judge Harold Medina, and Leinhard Bergel. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

The Consumer Reports A.J. Isserman papers include correspondence, clippings, court briefs and depositions, book manuscript drafts, photographs and other printed materials relating to Isserman's work in civil rights and labor law. Topics include labor union activities and strikes, civil liberties, communist influence, investigations into Un-American activities, deportation, and disbarment of lawyers. Persons and institutions reflected in the collection include the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, the Dies Committee, Judge Harold Medina, and Leinhard Bergel. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

The Harry Slattery Papers span the period 1890-1953 with the bulk dated 1928 to 1944. They include correspondence, memoranda, writings and speeches, printed material, clippings, scrapbooks, and indexes. The collection chiefly concerns positions Slattery held during his years of public service and reflect his lifelong interest in conservation. Very few of Slattery's personal papers are included in the collection.

The bulk of the collection relates to Slattery's positions as personal assistant to Harold L. Ickes (1933-1938), as Under-secretary of the Interior (1938-1939), and as administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) (1939-1944). Other papers concern his service as secretary to Gifford Pinchot (1909-1912), as secretary of the National Conservation Association (1912-1923), as special assistant to Interior Secretary Franklin K. Lane (1917-1918), as a Washington lawyer (1923-1933), and as counsel to the National Boulder Dam Association (1925-1929). There is also information about the Teapot Dome Scandal. While information about the REA is found throughout the collection, information pertaining to the other topics is found chiefly in the Correspondence, Memoranda, Writings and Speeches, Printed Material, and Clippings Series. A typescript of Slattery's autobiography, From Roosevelt to Roosevelt, Washington, D.C., 1948, and information relating to the published work Rural America Lights Up, Washington, D.C., 1940, which is attributed to Slattery, are found in the Writings and Speeches and Scrapbooks Series. Persons studying conservation issues in the United States and the spread of electricity to rural areas would find this collection particularly helpful.

There is extensive material relating to the controversy surrounding the Rural Electrification Administration, tensions between the REA and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, whose executive manager was Clyde Ellis, and the conflict between Slattery and the Secretary of Agriculture Claude W. Wickard. Correspondents include Harold L. Ickes, Judson King, Basil Maxwell Manly, Gifford Pinchot, Amos R. Pinchot, John Patrick Grace, Cornelia B. Pinchot, and Philip Patterson Wells.

Lawyer and U.S. Representative from North Carolina. Correspondence, legal documents, and other papers (chiefly 1850-1870 and 1912-1937) of John Humphrey Small; of his father-in-law, Col. Rufus W. Wharton, lawyer and planter; and of Col. David M. Carter, lawyer, planter, businessman, and court official, of Fairfield, N.C. Small's papers form the bulk of the collection and concern his North Carolina agricultural interests, his legal practice, his activities in Congress, river and harbor improvements, the Intracoastal Waterway, patronage, Southern financial conditions, U.S. and North Carolina politics, World War I labor problems, and the 1929 Depression. The papers before 1850 are mainly deeds, family papers, and legal documents. Wharton's and Carter's papers relate largely to the legal profession and to their agricultural interests.

Papers of John Humphrey Small (1858-1946), attorney, planter, and U.S. congressman, 1899-1921; of his father-in-law, Colonel Rufus W. Wharton (1827-1910?) attorney and planter; and of Colonel David M. Carter (d. 1879), attorney, planter, businessman, and court official of Fairfield, North Carolina. Arranged in the following series: Correspondence, Financial Papers, Legal Papers, Miscellaneous Papers, Printed Material, and Volumes.

The papers centering around Rufus W. Wharton and David M. Carter, principally legal and financial papers, include deeds and indentures; wills; inventories; estate and settlement papers; note collections; papers relating to the sale of corn by commission merchants; stock transactions; charter of the Dismal Swamp Canal Company, 1787; papers relating to the Albemarle Swamp Land Company, 1879, the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal Company, 1881, and swamp land transactions for Carter heirs, 1879-1890; papers dealing with the administration of the estate of David M. Carter by Rufus W. Wharton, and after Wharton's death, by John Humphrey Small; correspondence concerning lumbering and farming in North Carolina during the 1890s; and personal correspondence, including letters from Frances (Carter) Schaeffer from Germany, Austria, and North Carolina.

The bulk of the papers focuses on the career of John Humphrey Small in the United States Congress, his interest in the development of rivers and harbors and the Intra-Coastal Waterway, his membership on the National Rivers and Harbors Congress, and his legal practice. Papers relating to his congressional campaign in 1898 concern North Carolina politics, especially in the 1st Congressional District, civil service abuses, the Light House Service, and the vote of Populists, Republicans, Quakers, and Negroes.

Correspondence during his years in Congress discusses plans for a white grade school in Washington, North Carolina, 1903-1904; conditions of large scale farming at Edgewater, North Carolina, including descriptions of seeds, fertilizer, prices, machinery, crop conditions, and marketing, 1903-1912; problems of railroads, especially the Norfolk and Southern Railroad; the presidential campaign of 1916; coastal highway development; various rivers and harbors bills; the Inlet Waterway project; transportation via an inland waterway; the National Rivers and Harbors Congress; railroad and water transportation in relation to national defense during World War I; land acquisition and construction plans for the Intra-Coastal Waterway from Norfolk, Virginia, to Beaufort, North Carolina; problems of labor, including the movement for the eight hour day; labor shortages in eastern North Carolina during World War I; prohibition; woman suffrage; the National Guard; military service and the draft; coal shortages during the war; army camp sites; home guards; rising prices; excess profits tax; the Red Cross; various agricultural bills, national and North Carolina politics; a Congressional trip of inspection to the Far East in 1920, including Japan, Korea, and the Philippines; the Railroad Act of 1920; and routine matters such as patronage, post office appointments, appointments to West Point and Annapolis, and pensions for Spanish-American War veterans.

Correspondence after Small's retirement from Congress concerns the postwar economic depression; immigration legislation in the 1920s; the membership of the State Geological Board; the vice-presidency of the Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association; business conditions during the early 1920s and during the depression; condition of eastern North Carolina banks, 1920-1922 and 1932; Small's service as president of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress, 1920-1922; the promotion of the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, by the state; Democratic politics; the presidential campaign of 1932; the National Recovery Act; railroads in 1935; the development of airmail service; conditions during World War II; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Other correspondence pertains to the opening and building of his law practice in Washington, D.C.; his partnership with Angus W. McLean, governor of North Carolina, 1925-1929; and specific legal cases. Miscellaneous papers consist of the minutes of the Tri-State Aviation Corporation, photographs, invitations, and Small's speech on the inland waterway.

Legal papers include the papers relating to various estates, including David M. Carter, Charles Adams, and others; papers concerning income tax; papers dealing with the development of Washington Park, North Carolina; papers pertaining to specific cases; incorporation papers of the Tri-State Aviation Company and All-American Aviation, Inc.; deeds, indentures and wills; and papers of the legal practices of David M. Carter and Rufus W. Wharton.

Financial papers include bills and receipts, 1830-1940, consisting of household accounts, clothing bills, promissory notes, tax receipts, court costs, estate inventories, medical bills for family and slaves, and records of slave sales; material on Confederate taxation; papers, 1870s, of a Baltimore, Maryland, cotton factor; records, 1880s, of corn sales; tobacco warehouse receipts, 1890s, from Greenville, North Carolina; business papers dealing with Jonathan Havens, Jr., commission merchant in corn and grain in Washington, North Carolina, and founder of the Havens (cottonseed) Oil Company and receivership papers of the St. Paul (North Carolina) Cotton Mills, 1939-1941.

Among the printed materials are clippings on the Depression, 1930-1934; personal items; biographical material on Senator Joseph E. Ransdell of Louisiana and on Rear Admiral Colby N. Chester; copies of the Greenville (North Carolina) Daily Reflector, December 27, 1913, and the Red Triangle, Paris, April 5, 1919; seed catalogues; reprints of the House of Representatives reports and bills on immigration, 1921, and airways, 1937; broadsides of the 1920 election; plan of organization of the Democratic Party in Beaufort, North Carolina, in 1896; the "Declaration of Principles" of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress, 1916, and its officers for 1916-1917; and a bond pamphlet for the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal Company, 1879.

The volume is the Individual Voting Record by Roll Calls in the House of Representatives for John H. Small during the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd sessions of the 66th Congress, 1919-1921.

Lawyer and U.S. Senator, 1950-1953, from Raleigh (Wake Co.), N.C. Personal, political and professional papers, including correspondence, notes and speeches, financial papers, clippings, printed material, pictures, and other miscellaneous papers. The major portion of the collection consists of personal papers; the office files from his years as U.S. Senator, much of which is routine correspondence; files kept while Smith was president of the American Bar Association, 1945-1946; papers relating to other legal organizations; and files pertaining to his service as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Duke University, 1947-1953.

Personal, political, and professional papers of Willis Smith, Sr., lawyer and U.S. senator, 1950-1953, spanning the years 1919-1954. Collection includes correspondence, notes and speeches, financial papers, clippings, printed material, pictures, and other miscellaneous papers. The major portion of the collection consists of personal papers; the office files from his years as U. S. senator, much of which is routine correspondence; files kept by Smith while he was president of the American Bar Association, 1945-1946; papers relating to other legal organizations, including the International Bar Association, the North Carolina State Bar Association, the Wake County Bar Association, and the International Association of Insurance Counsel; and files pertaining to his service as chairman of the board of trustees of Duke University, 1947-1953. There is also material on the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation, the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, the American Counsel Association, the American Judicature Society, the Attorney General's Advisory Committee on Citizenship, Louisburg College (Louisburg, North Carolina), the American Law Institute, the Presidential Memorial Commission, the Association of Life Insurance Counsel, the President's Amnesty Board, the National Probation and Parole Association, the Nuremburg trials, the Interparliamentary Union, the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Territorial Expansion Memorial Commission, and Alben W. Barkley.

Lawyer and U.S. District Judge, of Spartanburg, S.C. Personal, political, and professional letters and papers relating to Wyche's personal life, his early legal practice, social life and customs in South Carolina, local politics in South Carolina, his term in Congress (1913-1914), his service in World War I, the political career of Cole L. Blease, Wyche's interest in reform, and the 1924 senatorial election in South Carolina.

Papers of Charles Cecil Wyche, lawyer and United States district judge for the western district of South Carolina, contain correspondence and papers concerning business and legal affairs, politics, and family matters. Specific topics include Wyche's support of John Gary Evans in his campaign to be United States senator from South Carolina, 1908; descriptions of Paris, Brussels, and Berlin in letters of Isoline Wyche, 1909-1910; an attempt to prevent the granting of a pardon by Governor Cole L. Blease of South Carolina, 1911; Wyche's term in the state legislature, 1913; Wyche's legal business, particularly relating to the collection of debts and suits for damages in cases of industrial and automobile accidents; the campaign of Cole L. Blease for the governorship of South Carolina, 1916; attempts by Wyche to form a regiment of volunteers for service in Mexico or Europe; the influenza epidemic of 1920; and the national and state election of 1924, especially Wyche's support for James F. Byrnes in his race for the United States Senate against Nathaniel Barksdale Dial.