CHILD LABOR FILES,, 1940-1974

Summary: Materials documenting Mary Dyckman's involvement with working children, especially during World War II and during her 1944-1956 presidency of the Consumers League of New Jersey. Includes papers relating to her interest and service in the State Commission on Student Service (1941-1946), the Emergency Child Labor Committee (1941-1948), the correction of juvenile delinquency (1953-1959) and the protection of child newspaper deliverers (1947-1967), as well as her following of child-labor related issues such as workplace accidents and occupational hazards, changes in state and federal child labor law, apprenticeships and vocational schools, and various child labor and education conferences. The materials exist in many different formats, including incoming letters, copies of outgoing letters, meeting notes and minutes, reports, statements, and magazine and press clippings, as well as broadsides, pamphlets, administrative forms and other publications authored by federal and state authorities, the Consumers League and other concerned social and political organizations.

Rather than following a folder arrangement of strict chronological order, some folders are grouped together under subject heading names, rather than separated by individual folder dates. For example, papers regarding the Student Service Commission (1941-1946) and the Emergency Child Labor Committee (1941-1948) appear between a transcript of a 1941 hearing and a folder of press clippings from 1941-1945.

Of note are several photographs and negatives of farming camps set up by the Student Service Commission, and extensive coverage of the program at the Peddie School of Hightstown, New Jersey. Also recorded are the establishment and achievements of the Victory Farm Volunteers with photographs of the students. Documentation of Commissioner Harry Harper's controversial dismissal of members of the Emergency Child Labor Commission and accusations of conflict of interest may also prove interesting. The series also includes Dyckman's influential statement to the New Jersey Juvenile Delinquency Study Commission (November 30, 1955).