the charges brought against the department stores, and what
they discovered made them resolve that conditions must be changed.

In May, 1890, the late Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, Mrs. Frederick
Nathan, and others, called a large mass meeting in Chickering Hall. Mrs.
Nathan had a constructive plan for raising the standard in shop
conditions, especially those affecting women employees.

If women would simply withdraw their patronage from the stores where,
during the Christmas season, women and children toiled long hours at
night without any extra compensation, sooner or later the night work
would cease. A few stores, said Mrs. Nathan, maintained a standard
above the average. It was within the power of the women of New York to
raise all the others to that standard, and afterwards it might be
possible to go farther and establish a standard higher than the present
highest.

"We do not desire to blacklist any firm," declared Mrs. Nathan, "but we
can _whitelist_ those firms which treat their employees humanely. We can
make and publish a list of all the shops where employees receive fair
treatment, and we can agree to patronize only those shops. By acting
openly and publishing our White List we shall be able to create an
immense public opinion in favor of just employers."

Thus was the Consumers' League of New York ushered into existence. Eight
months after the Chickering Hall meeting the committee appointed to
co-operate with the Working Women's Society in preparing its list of
fair firms had finished its work and made its report. The new League was
formally organized on January 1, 1891.

[Illustration: Mrs. Frederick Nathan]

THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE "WHITE LIST"

The first White List issued in New York contained only eight firm names.
The number was disappointingly small, even to those who knew the
conditions. Still more disappointing was the indifference of the other
firms to their outcast position. Far from evincing a desire to earn a
place on the White List, they cast aspersions on a "parcel of women" who
were trying to "undermine business credit," and scouted the very idea of
an organized feminine conscience.

"Wait until the women want Easter bonnets," sneered one merchant. "Do
you think they will pass up anything good because the store is not on
their White List?"

Clearly something stronger than moral suasion was called for. Even as
far back as 1891 a few women had begun to doubt the efficacy of that
in