This collection documents the research and advocacy activities of the California Farm Research and Legislative Committee (established in 1941) and its official publication, the California Farm Reporter . This collection is largely composed of materials documenting the Committee's work on issues affecting farmers, workers, and consumers in California, as well as some materials pertaining to broader national and international issues in the 20th century. The bulk of the materials in this collection likely belonged to Grace McDonald, executive secretary of the Committee and editor of the Reporter for over 30 years. Materials directly produced by the Committee span 1941 to 1974 and include Committee memos, reports, and promotional materials; the professional and personal correspondence of Grace McDonald; Reporter article drafts; meeting and event announcements, agendas, and minutes; speech transcripts; membership and subscription records; and financial records.

The California Farm Research and Legislative Committee was a coalition of farm, labor, cooperative, consumer, church, community, and professional groups dedicated to building a rural-urban alliance in California and across the United States. The Committee was established in 1941 and, although the year and circumstances of its dissolution are unknown, operated until at least 1974, the latest date of the Committee's original materials included in this collection. The California Farm Reporter was the official publication of the Committee, providing subscribers monthly updates on issues affecting farmers, workers, and consumers in California and beyond. The Committee used the Reporter to engage in a wide range of advocacy work, leveraging research to organize Committee members and associates around issues spanning farmer and labor cooperatives; price controls, taxes, and subsidies; the plight of family farms; migrant labor; wages and working conditions; water availability and utility rates; livestock, poultry, and dairy; crop production; public health and safety; hunger and nutrition; social welfare programs; and even broader national and international issues. Grace Burnham McDonald was born in 1889 in New Haven, Connecticut, the daughter of a clinical professor of neurology at Yale University. McDonald inherited a sizable sum of money after her first husband, the son of a wealthy Kentucky whiskey maker, died in the early 1920s. She used this fortune to further industrial and agricultural labor interests across the United States for the remainder of her life.

16.35 Linear Feet 6 cartons, 1 half carton, 6 flat boxes

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Collection is open for research.