Esther Peterson

Esther Eggertsen Peterson (December 9, 1906 – December 20, 1997) was an American consumer and women's advocate.

Background

Esther Eggertsen grew up in a Mormon family in Provo, Utah. She graduated from Brigham Young University in 1927 with a degree in physical education. She obtained a master's degree from Teachers' College, Columbia University, in 1930. She held several teaching positions during the 1930s. She taught at Bryn Mawr College Summer School for Women Workers in Industry. The school brought milliners, telephone operators and garment workers onto the campus. She later moved to New York City where she married Oliver Peterson. In 1932, the two moved to Boston, where she taught at the Winsor School and volunteered at the YWCA. Peterson was a Latter-day Saint.Michale K. Winder, Presidents and Prophets (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 2007), p. 337

Career

In 1938, Peterson became a paid organizer for the American Federation of Teachers. In her job she traveled around New England. In 1944, Peterson became the first lobbyist for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. In 1948, the United States Department of State offered Peterson’s husband a position as a diplomat in Sweden. The family returned to Washington D.C., in 1957. Peterson joined the Industrial Union Department of the AFL-CIO, becoming its first woman lobbyist.

Peterson was Assistant Secretary of Labor. She was also Director of the United States Women's Bureau under President John F. Kennedy. Peterson worked hard to help get the Equal Pay Act of 1963 passed into law.Rocking the Boat: Union Women's Voices, 1915-1975, eds. Brigid O'Farrell; Joyce L. Kornbluh (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,1996), p. 58 In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson named Peterson to the newly created post of Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs. She later served as President Jimmy Carter's Director of the Office of Consumer Affairs. Peterson was also Vice President for Consumer Affairs at Giant Food Corporation. She was also president of the National Consumers League.
She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981.Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-class History, Volume 1, ed. Eric Arnesen (New York; Oxford: Routledge, 2007), p. 1079 Peterson was named a delegate to the United Nations as a UNESCO representative in 1993. In 2013, Esther Peterson was inducted into the US Department of Labor's Hall of Honor.

Death

Peterson died in December 1997.

 Related pages 
Great Society
Equal Pay Act of 1963

 Notes 

References

 Other websites 
2013 Hall of Honor Inductee Esther Peterson 
Archives.gov 
Papers, 1884-1998 (inclusive), 1929-1998 (bulk). Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
National Women's Hall of Fame 

Category:1906 births
Category:1997 deaths
Category:American activists
Category:American feminists
Category:American Latter Day Saints
Category:American lobbyists
Category:Columbia University alumni
Category:People from Utah
Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients