Esther (Eggertsen) Peterson, 1906-1997 (#186)

An Inventory of Her Selected Personal Papers, 1963
In the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
National Archives and Records Administration

Administrative Information
Biographical Note
Collection Overview
List of Series
Description

Administrative Information

Abstract
Papers 1963
Government official. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor Standards (1961-1969). Copies of personal correspondence with members of the White House staff.

Access
Open.

Usage Restrictions
According to the letter of intent signed March 1971, original materials are held at Harvard University. Harvard University holds copyright for the Schlesinger Library in papers written by Esther Peterson. Documents in this collection that were prepared by officials of the United States as part of their official duties are in the public domain. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish.

Copyright
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form. Direct your questions concerning copyright to the reference staff.

Provenance
Received from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, in March 1971 (Acc. NK-20).

Extent
One roll of microfilm. 4.25 cubic feet).

Date Opened
March 1971.

Revisions
Finding aid updated in March 2006, by James M. Roth.

Encoded by
James M. Roth.

Related Collections
Esther Peterson Oral History Interview, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
  

Selected Personal Papers of Esther Peterson (1906-1997)

Biographical Note
Esther Peterson was born Esther Eggertsen in Provo, Utah, on December 9, 1906. Peterson graduated from Brigham Young University in 1927, and taught in Utah for two years. In 1929 she attended Teachers College at Columbia University, where she completed her masters degree in 1930. Between 1930 and 1939, Peterson taught at the Winsor School in Boston; married Oliver Peterson; volunteered in the Industrial Department of the YWCA; was a labor organizer; joined Hilda Smith, a pioneer in workers' education, at the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers; and had her first child. 

The 1940s were devoted to her family, and to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Most of the next ten years the Petersons spent overseas, where Oliver Peterson, a foreign service officer, was the United States Labor Attaché to Sweden, and later to Belgium. Peterson worked with the trade union movement and helped organize the first International School for Working Women. 

When the Petersons returned to the U.S. in 1957, Peterson became legislative representative for the Industrial Union Department of the AFL-CIO (1958-1961), serving until President John F. Kennedy chose her to head the Women's Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor, and later the same year, to serve as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Labor Standards. In addition, she was appointed executive vice chairman of the first President's Commission on the Status of Women (1961-1963), chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt until her death in 1962. After President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Peterson to remain as Women's Bureau director, and also named her to the newly created post of Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs, a position she held until 1967. 

Until her re-appointment to this post by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, she worked as the legislative representative to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Association (1969-1970), and then as Consumer Advisor to Giant Food (1970-1977). After serving in the Carter Administration, Peterson worked with various organizations concerned with the rights of consumers, both in the United States and abroad. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as a public member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in 1993. Esther Peterson died in Washington, D.C., in December 1997 at the age of 91.

Excerpted from Biographic Note from Esther Peterson Papers , Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,HarvardUniversity.

Collection Overview
The Select Papers of Esther Peterson contains letters from White House staff when Peterson was working for the U.S. Department of Labor and as the Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs.   
  

List of Series  
Series 1. Correspondence, 1963
  

Collection Description

Series 1. Correspondence, 1963.
One roll of microfilm.
Arrangement: chronological by date.

This roll of microfilm consists of eight letters from various White House staff members, including Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. All letters are addressed to Esther Peterson. A number of the letters were either microfilmed twice, or Peterson had copies of the letters and they were microfilmed as well.