Peterson, Esther, 1906-1997
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Peterson, Esther, 1906-1997
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Name :
Peterson, Esther, 1906-1997
Peterson, Esther, 1906-....
Computed Name Heading
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Name :
Peterson, Esther, 1906-....
Peterson, Esther
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Name :
Peterson, Esther
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Biographical History
Trade-unionist.
Consumer adviser; government executive; interviewee married Oliver R. Peterson.
Active in the fields of labor, education, women's rights, and consumer affairs, (Brigham Young University, B.A., 1927; Columbia University Teachers College, 1930) Peterson was involved in union organizing, worker education, and labor and consumer legislation lobbying. She was head of the Women's Bureau (1961-1964), Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor Standards (1961-1969), executive vice chairman of the President's Commission on the Status of Women (1961-1963), Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs (1964-1967, 1977-1981), legislative representative for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (1969-1970), consumer adviser to Giant Food, Inc. (1970-1977), and representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council for the International Organization of Consumers Unions (1983-1993). Descended from Danish immigrants, she married Oliver Peterson in 1932. They had four children. For further information see Who's Who of American Women, 1982-1983. She died in Washington, D.C., in 1997.
Active in the fields of labor, education, women's rights, and consumer affairs, (Brigham Young University, B.A., 1927; Columbia University Teachers College, M.A., 1930), Peterson was involved in union organizing, worker education, and labor and consumer legislation lobbying. She was head of the Women's Bureau (1961-1964), Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor Standards (1961-1969), executive vice chairman of the President's Commission on the Status of Women (1961-1963), and Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs, (1964-1967, 1977-1981). Descended from Danish immigrants, she married Oliver Peterson in 1932. They had four children. For further information see Who's Who of American Women, 1982-1983.
Esther Peterson was born Esther Eggersten on December 9, 1906 in Provo, Utah. She received a B.A. in physical education from Brigham Young University in 1927, and a master's degree from Columbia University's Teachers College in 1930. She married Oliver A. Peterson on May 28, 1932. While living in Boston in the early 1930s, Peterson taught at the Winsor School for Girls and volunteered at night to teach gymnastics and tap dancing at the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). Many of her night students were garment workers, and she organized a strike for them. Her tactics succeeded when the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union helped secure higher wages for the women. Following the strike, Peterson taught in the Summer School for Women Workers in Industry at Bryn Mawr College, a program that took women out of ill-kept factories and put them into college. In 1938, she continued to support the rights of working women in her position as a union organizer for the American Federation of Teachers. In 1939, she moved to New York and accepted a position as the assistant director of the Department of Cultural Activities of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA). In this capacity, she worked to get African-American women into the labor union. In 1944, she became the ACWA's first legislative representative in Washington, D.C. In 1958, she became a lobbyist for the Industrial Union Department of the AFL-CIO. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed her assistant secretary of the Department of Labor and director of the Women's Bureau. During the 1970s, Peterson also began working in the private sector as the nation's first industry-employed consumer advocate when she took a job as vice president for consumer affairs at Giant Food Corporation. Peterson convinced the United Nations (U.N.) to pass the International Guidelines for Consumer Protection, and also got the U.N. to distribute a list of products that had been banned or restricted in the United States, hoping other countries would follow suit. From April 1977 to 1981, she served as Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs. She acted as consumer spokesperson and advocate, and advised the President on consumer matters. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981. Peterson died on December 20, 1997 in Washington, D.C.
Active in the fields of labor, education, women's rights, and consumeer affairs, Peterson was involved in union organizing, worker education, and labor and consumer legislation lobbying. She was head of the Women's Bureau, (1961-1964), Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor Standards (1961-1969), executive vice chairman of the President's Commission on the Status of Women (1961-1963), and Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs, (1964-1967, 1977-1981). For further information, see Who's Who of American Women, 1982-1983. Peterson died in 1997.
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External Related CPF
https://id.loc.gov/authorities/n86140966
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/10572696
https://viaf.org/viaf/67957223
https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q15525019
https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n86140966
https://id.loc.gov/authorities/n86140966
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Subjects
Advertising
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Boycotts
Breastfeeding promotion
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Convention Declarations
<conventionDeclaration><citation>VIAF</citation></conventionDeclaration>