Consumers' League of Kentucky records

The Consumers' League of Kentucky was organized in Louisville on January 31, 1901 with the goal of using their power as consumers to improve wages and working conditions for women and children. The state organization was affiliated with the National Consumers' League, founded eleven years earlier. Ann Ainslie Halleck was the League's first president and served in that post until 1930 when Anna Hubbuch Settle succeeded her, serving until 1944. The League sought to remedy poor working and living conditions by addressing laborers' health and education, by influencing public opinion, and by introducing and supporting favorable legislation. The League also observed and verified the state's enforcement of labor laws, in particular through its support for the establishment of factory inspection offices, the reorganization of the state labor department, and the work of the Department of Industrial Relations. The League wrote its own model industrial sanitation code, founded a vocational school in Louisville, and consistently supported industrial education.

Some of the League's most important work included the establishment of a vocational school; campaigns for early Christmas shopping and shorter shopping hours; and helping to legislate compulsory education, the ten hour law for women, and the minimum wage law. The League also undertook its own investigations into the living and working conditions of women laborers. The Consumer's League of Kentucky also was involved in state and national committees. Representatives from the League served on the Advisory Board of the Commissioner of Agriculture, reorganized the State Department of Labor and were the first women labor inspectors. During World War I, Ainslie Halleck served on the Council of National Defense's Committee of Women in Industry. During the Great Depression the League also had representatives on the Women's Division of the National Recovery Project and participated in the creation of the Social Security Program. In the 1930's and 1940's, the League fought against the Equal Rights Amendment both locally and nationally.