Consumers' Research
[1] The organization was established by Stuart Chase and F. J. Schlink after the success of their book Your Money's Worth galvanized interest in testing products on behalf of consumers.
[3] Consumers' Research published comparative test results on brand-name products and publicized deceptive advertising claims.
[4] In 1927 Schlink and Chase, encouraged by the public response to the publishing of their book Your Money's Worth, solicited financial, editorial, and technical support from patrons of other activist magazines to support the creation of an organization to offer consumers the unbiased services of "an economist, a scientist, an accountant, and goodness knows what more.
[7] When Schlink established Consumers’ Research he appointed his wife and close friends to compose the majority of seats on the board of directors, and staff noted that he held control of hiring, firing, and the organization's editorial and budget decisions.
[7] By 1935 Consumers’ Research had a staff of 50, used 200 consultants, and was sponsored by such respected and established journalists such as Alexander Crosby of The Nation, Arthur Kellog of The Survey, and George Soule of The New Republic.
[9] Reinhold Niebuhr, a religious philosopher, chaired an arbitration group which included the American Civil Liberties Union's Roger Nash Baldwin, the educator George Counts, and the socialist Norman Thomas.
[14] Caroline F. Ware, Paul Douglas, Walton Hale Hamilton, and Dexter Keezer were other consumer representatives involved in this effort.
[1] In December 2022, Consumers' Research and 13 state attorneys general called for an investigation of the investment management firm The Vanguard Group.
The investment firm caved, withdrawing its pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and leaving the Net Zero Asset Managers Alliance coalition.
[1] In 2021, Consumers' Research launched an ad campaign to combat "wokeness" in corporate America, targeting companies by name, including Major League Baseball, Ticketmaster, Coca-Cola, American Airlines and Nike.
[17] In 2022, insurance company State Farm partnered with GenderCool, a group whose mission is to present positive stories about transgender and nonbinary youth, to support a program providing LGBTQ-themed children's books to teachers and libraries in Florida.
Consumers' Research ran an advertising campaign calling State Farm "a creepy neighbor" and accusing the insurance company of targeting children with books about gender identity.
[18][19] In 2022, Consumers' Research launched a multi-million dollar advertising campaign targeting BlackRock and Larry Fink over environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investments.
The report alleged that "some of the largest asset managers in the world have leveraged Americans' savings to coerce corporations to adopt critical race theory, boycott states with Republican governments, fund employees' abortions, and divest from investment in drilling for oil and natural gas, among a wide range of other left-wing causes.
