Founding of the National Consumers League

In 1899, Lowell and Jane Addams founded the National Consumers League, with Florence Kelley at its head. The organization worked to combat child labor and poor working conditions and, in an era when milk was commonly adulterated with chalk and formaldehyde and candies were decorated with lead paint, lobbied for government regulation of food and drugs.

Florence Kelley (third from left) standing with factory inspectors. 
[Source: Photo courtesy of Hull House Museum]