Counting the costs of living: Gender, citizenship, and a politics of prices in 1940s Montreal

Canadian Historical Review

Volumn 83, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 483-503

  Fahrni, Magda ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 1842642981     PISSN: 00083755     EISSN: 17101093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/chr.83.4.483     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. National Archives of Canada (NA), Canadian Association of Consumers (CAC), MG 28 I 200, vol. 1, file 1, Program Committee, 29 Sept. 1947
2. This demand appears to bear out the first part of Victoria de Grazia's triple-barrelled assertion that, 'some time in the mid-twentieth century, it also became axiomatic that access to consumer goods was a fundamental right of all peoples, that this right was best fulfilled by free enterprise, and that free enterprise operated optimally if guided by the profit motive unimpeded by state or other interference.' De Grazia, introduction to The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press 1996), 2. This article demonstrates that Canadians' opinions on free enterprise and the proper role of government in the 1940s were more varied than de Grazia suggests in the second and third parts of her statement.
3. On American working-class scepticism about free enterprise during the Depression, see Alice Kessler-Harris, A Woman's Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky 1990), 74-80.
4. American historian Susan Strasser analyzes the role of housewife as 'Mrs Consumer' in a capitalist economy in Never Done: A History of American Housework (New York: Pantheon 1982), chap. 13.
5. See also Victoria de Grazia, introduction to Establishing the Modern Consumer Household, in de Grazia, ed., The Sex of Things, 152. The expression 'Purses on Legs' was used by Montreal liberal reformer Renée Vautelet to describe the public perception of female consumers. NA, Renée Vautelet Papers, MG 30 C 196, vol. 1, file: The High Cost of Living, Notes Lib. Womens Fed. (nd).
6. Susan Porter Benson, 'Living on the Margin: Working-Class Marriages and Family Survival Strategies in the United States, 1919-1941,' 222, in de Grazia, ed., The Sex of Things. In Canada the consumer activism of women on the left has been explored in: Joan Sangster, Dreams of Equality: Women on the Canadian Left, 1920-1950 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1989);
7. Ruth A. Frager, 'Politicized Housewives in the Jewish Communist Movement of Toronto, 1923-1933,' in Linda Kealey and Joan Sangster, eds., Beyond the Vote: Canadian Women and Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1989);
8. Linda Kealey, Enlisting Women for the Cause: Women, Labour, and the Left in Canada, 1890-1920 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1998), chaps. 2, 5;
9. Julie Guard, 'Women Worth Watching: Radical Housewives in Cold War Canada,' in Gary Kinsman, Dieter K. Buse, and Mercedes Steedman, eds., Whose National Security? Canadian State Surveillance and the Creation of Enemies (Toronto: Between the Lines 2000).
10. This argument is particularly common in the American literature: see William S. Graebner, The Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s (Boston: Twayne Publishers 1991), 1-2;
11. Perry R. Duis, 'No Time for Privacy: World War II and Chicago's Families,' in Lewis A. Erenberg and Susan E. Hirsch, eds., The War in American Culture: Society and Consciousness during World War II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1996), 39.
12. For Canada, see Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby-Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1996), chaps. 1-3.
13. On the Depression and shame in the United States, see Duis, 'No Time for Privacy,' 19-20.
14. For Canada, consider L.M. Grayson and Michael Bliss, eds., The Wretched of Canada: Letters to R.B. Bennett, 1930-1935 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1971).
15. Denyse Baillargeon, Ménagères au temps de la crise (Montreal: Les Éditions du remueménage 1991), 160, 196. Baillargeon emphasizes the minimal levels of consumption among Montreal's working-class families in the 1930s. The working-class family, she argues, remained a site of production rather than consumption at least until the 1940s.
16. La Presse: 26 mai 1947, 'Le mot d'ordre des ménagères de l'ouest,' 4; 22 septembre 1947, 'Une manifestation des ménagères de Paris,' 1; 20 février 1948, 'La baisse des prix continue,' 1. On British women's postwar consumer activism, see James Hinton, 'Militant Housewives: The British Housewives' League and the Attlee Government,' History Workshop Journal 38 (1994): 128-56.
17. John Bohstedt, 'Gender, Household, and Community Politics: Women in English Riots, 1790-1810,' Past and Present 120 (1988): 265-84;
18. Judith Smart, 'Feminists, Food and the Fair Price: The Cost-of-Living Demonstrations in Melbourne, August-September 1917,' in Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake, eds., Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995);
19. Susan Levine, 'Workers' Wives: Gender, Class and Consumerism in the 1920s United States,' Gender & History 3, 1 (1991): 45-64;
20. Dana Frank, Purchasing Power: Consumer Organizing, Gender, and the Seattle Labor Movement, 1919-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994)
21. La Presse, 21 octobre 1944, 'Exception à la règle,' 28; NA, Marion Creelman Savage Papers, MG 30 C 92, vol. 7, file: WPTB 1933-1944 [sic], poster: 'The Story of Inflation ... in one easy lesson'
22. La Presse: 3 janvier 1944, 'L'ennemi se dresse, implacable,' 4; 3 janvier 1944, 'La récupération au programme de l'année nouvelle,' 4; 7 juillet 1944, 'Le marché noir est une plaie économique,' 6. And see Ruth Roach Pierson, 'They're Still Women After All': The Second World War and Canadian Womanhood (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1986), chap. 1;
23. Geneviève Auger et Raymonde Lamothe, De la poêle à frire à la ligne de feu. La vie quotidienne des Québécoises pendant la guerre '39-'45 (Montreal: Boréal Express 1981);
24. Amy Bentley, Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1998)
25. Joseph Schull, The Great Scot: A Biography of Donald Gordon (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1979), 66-7; La Presse, 21 octobre 1944, 'Exception à la règle,' 28
26. NA, Montreal Council of Women (MCW), MG 28 1164: vol. 2, Minutes, Local Council of Women, 20 Feb. 1946; vol. 5, file 6, Local Council of Women 52nd Year Book and Annual Report 1945-1946, Report of the Liaison Officer to the Women's Regional Advisory Committee (Consumer Branch) of the WPTB
27. La Presse: 5 janvier 1946, 'Le Canada ne doit pas perdre patience,' 22; 3 janvier 1947, 'Le retour à l'état normal,' 6. Joy Parr argues that the production of household goods was deliberately given lower priority than the reconstruction of heavy industry. See Domestic Goods: The Material, the Moral, and the Economic in the Postwar Years (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1999), chap. 3.
28. La Presse, 27 décembre 1945, 'La lutte à l'inflation,' 12; NA, MCW, vol. 6, file 13; Letter from the LCW of Montreal [Food Conservation], 2 Jan. 1948
29. Jeff Keshen, 'One for All or All for One: Government Controls, Black Marketing and the Limits of Patriotism, 1939-47,' Journal of Canadian Studies 29, 4 (1994-5): 126. On the black market, see also Baillargeon, Ménagères, 141; La Presse: 29 mai 1946, 'Un juge s'élève contre les responsables du marché noir,' 3; 30 septembre 1946, 'Violentes protestations contre le marché noir,' 11.
30. La Bonne Parole, mai 1947, témoignage, 8
31. Archives Nationales du Québec à Montréal (ANQM), P120, Fonds Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste (FNSJB), P120/12-9, Minutes du Bureau de direction, octobre 1947-mai 1955; Bureau de Direction, 18 décembre 1948
32. York University Archives (YUA), Maurice Duplessis Fonds, 1980-008/001, reel 7, 'Schéma - Discours' [nd], 2; reel 3, speech by Maurice Duplessis [nd, no title], 14
33. La Presse: 4 mai 1946, 'Première victoire contre l'inflation,' 31; 26 juillet 1946, 'Le contrôle des prix reste nécessaire,' 6. See also Schull, The Great Scot, 59, 64.
34. La Presse: 27 mars 1947, 'Au Jour le Jour,' 13; 4 novembre 1947, 'Au Jour le Jour,' 15
35. La Presse, 20 décembre 1947, 'Rétablissement du contrôle des prix,' 30
36. Gabrielle Roy, The Cashier, trans. Harry Binsse (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1955), 160; La Presse: 28 janvier 1947, 'Va-t-on soulager le contribuable?' 1; 5 mars 1947, 'Qui va bénéficier des dégrèvements prévus?' 1; 4 février 1948, 'Le fardeau restera assez lourd,' 6; NA, MCW, vol. 3, file 1A, Minutes, LCW, 19 Nov. 1947
37. NA, MCW, vol. 3, file 1B, Minutes, Sub-Executive Committee of LCW, 1 Dec. 1948; Baillargeon, Ménagères, 146; Parr, Domestic Goods, 85-6. Belinda Davis notes that 'the feminization of the home front population' in Berlin during the First World War reinforced the popular perception of consumers as female; 'Food Scarcity and the Empowerment of the Female Consumer in World War I Berlin,' 288, in de Grazia, ed., The Sex of Things.
38. NA, MCW, vol. 2, Minutes, Local Council of Women, 17 May 1944. See also Marion V. Royce, The Effect of the War on the Life of Women: A Study (Geneva and Washington: World's YWCA 1945), where Royce claims that Canadian women's voluntary cooperation with the Consumer Branch of the WPTB was responsible 'in large degree for the efficient enforcement of price control,' 62.
39. NA, MCW, Vol. 2, Mrs E.C. Common to President, LCW, 3 April 1946. Jeff Keshen argues that voluntary war work in the realm of consumption may have led to 'enhanced recognition and self-confidence' for some women. See 'Revisiting Canada's Civilian Women during World War II,' Histoire sociale/Social History 30, 60 (1997): 245.
40. NA, MCW, vol. 12, 'Why Be Thrifty?' (Ottawa: National Council of Women 1950); Vautelet Papers, MG 30 C 196, vol. 1, 'L'association canadienne des consommateurs' (nd, but after Sept. 1947)
41. Magda Fahrni, 'Citizenship Under Reconstruction: Women's Public Claims in 1940s Canada' (presented to 'Paroles de femmes dans la guerre,' Université de Nantes, 8 June 2001). On cost-of-living protests by DA recipients, see also Nancy Christie, Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2000), 263-4.
42. NA, CAC, vol. 1, file 2, CAC, Brief of Minutes of National Annual Meeting, 21-22 Sept. 1948. At least one member of the CAC felt that 'the labour people should have more representation in this group.' NA, CAC, vol. 1, file 1, Morning Session, September 30. On links between the CAC and women in the Ontario CCF, see Dan Azoulay, 'Winning Women for Socialism: The Ontario CCF and Women, 1947-1961,' Labour/Le Travail 36 (fall 1995): 59-90.
43. See, for example, Sylvie Murray, 'À la jonction du mouvement ouvrier et du mouvement des femmes. La Ligue auxiliaire de l'Association internationale des machinistes, Canada, 1903-1980' (mémoire de maîtrise, Université du Québec à Montréal 1988), 97-8.
44. Archives de l'Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Fonds d'Archives du Conseil des Métiers et du Travail de Montreal (CMTM), 103P, file: 103P-102/6, Minutes: 23 Jan., 13 Feb., 27 Feb., 10 April, 12 June, 27 Nov. 1947, 11 March 1948 Quebec's Fédération Provinciale du Travail also urged supporters to 'Buy Union-Made Goods'; Le Monde Ouvrier, 14 février 1948, 8.
45. Quoted in Le Front Ouvrier, 14 février 1948, 'Les ménagères n'en reviennent pas!' 3. See also Le Front Ouvrier, 17 janvier 1948, 'Les prix qui montent!' 17.
46. Joy Parr argues that historians of Canada's postwar economy would do well to look to the scarcity of the United Kingdom as well as to the plenty of the United States for analogies. Domestic Goods, 32, 64-5
47. ANQM, MTC, P257: vol. 5, file: Décisions du Conseil National, Décisions prises au conseil national de la LOC tenu à Montréal les 22-23 novembre 1947; vol. 5, file: Comité National - octobre 48-septembre 1949, Rapport du comité national conjoint tenu le 28 juin 1949; vol. 5, File: Comité National, octobre 1949-octobre 1950, Comité National Conjoint de la LOC tenu le 16 septembre 1949; vol. 7, file: Rapport MTC et Fédés - Rapport d'action-comité - 1947, Aperçu des activités de la LOC pour l'année 1945-46, 26 juillet 1946; vol. 18, file: Conseil National - février 1948, Rapport des Assemblées du Conseil National de la LOC tenues les 28-29 février 1948 à Montréal. See also Le Front Ouvrier, 31 janvier 1948, 4.
48. Le Front Ouvrier, 16 juillet 1949, 'Essor d'une coopérative de consommation,' 8-9
49. La Presse: 25 novembre 1947, 'Spéculation injustifiée,' 3; 26 novembre 1947, 'Organisme prêt à agir,' 3; 2 décembre 1947, 'Réactions de la ménagère,' 4; The Gazette: 20 Nov. 1947, 'Fruit, Vegetable Prices Up as Imports Cut but Modification of Law is Forecast,' 13; 21 Nov. 1947, 'Grocers Scour Market for Vegetables as Price Trend Continues Upward Climb,' 15
50. La Presse: 26 novembre 1947, 'Organisme prêt à agir,' 3; 25 novembre 1947, 'Spéculation injustifiée,' 3; The Gazette: 25 November 1947, 'Enforcement Now Feared Impossible of New Ceilings Announced by Abbott as Grocers, Others Here Hail Action,' 1; 28 Nov. 1947, 'Consumer Group to Fight Panic Buying in Montreal,' 4. On the lack of refrigerators and the daily shopping habits of Montreal's working-class families, see Baillargeon, Ménagères, 172; Sylvie Taschereau, 'Les petits commerçants de l'alimentation et les milieux populaires montréalais, 1920-1940' (thèse de doctorat, UQAM 1992), 202, 293, 317.
51. Sylvie Taschereau, 'Les petits commerçants de l'alimentation et les milieux populaires montréalais, 1920-1940' (thèse de doctorat, UQAM 1992), 202, 293, 317
52. On the particular need for iceboxes in Quebec, given the predominance of flats without cold cellars, see Parr, Domestic Goods, 29.
53. La Presse, 22 novembre 1947, '"N'achetez pas si c'est trop cher," dit Mme Marshall,' 36
54. The Gazette, 29 Nov. 1947, 'Increased Prices Laid to Producers,' 7
55. La Presse: 25 novembre 1947, 'Les fermiers se ravisent,' 3; 25 novembre 1947, 'Grèves de détaillants?' 3; 26 novembre 1947, 'Le marché mort,' 3; 27 novembre 1947, 'Les acheteurs font la grève,' 3
56. Le Front Ouvrier, 17 janvier 1948, 'Les prix qui montent!' 17. Thérèse Casgrain noted to the Canadian Association of Consumers that less milk was delivered to the poorer sections of Montreal once prices went up; NA, CAC, vol. 1, file 1, Morning Session, September 30.
57. Le Front Ouvrier: 6 décembre 1947, 'Les dernières hausses de prix,' 3; 6 décembre 1947, 'Qu'on laisse la paix aux cultivateurs!' 3; 6 décembre 1947, 'Lettre d'un producteur de lait à des ouvriers,' 15; 13 décembre 1947, 'Qui est coupable?', 3; 10 janvier 1948, 'Beurre ou margarine?' 3; 7 février 1948, 'QUI fait monter les prix?' 1, 10, 11
58. W.H. Heick, A Propensity to Protect: Butter, Margarine and the Rise of Urban Culture in Canada (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press 1991).
59. See also Ruth Dupré, '"If It's Yellow, It Must Be Butter": Margarine Regulation in North America Since 1886,' Journal of Economic History 59, 2 (1999): 353-71.
60. Heick, A Propensity to Protect, 73
61. Le Devoir, 15 décembre 1948, 'L'U.C.C. et la margarine,' 3; NA, CAC, MG 28 I 200, vol. 1, file 2, Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, 10-11 Feb. 1948
62. Vautelet Papers, vol. 2, 'The Community - Its Background and Development' (revised version, 1951)
63. La Presse, 21 février 1948, 'Lever l'interdiction sur l'oléomargarine,' 49; UQAM, CMTM, 103P, file: 103P-102/8, Minutes, Montreal Labour Council Meeting. 22 Sept. 1949; NA, CAC, MG 28 I 200, vol. 1, file 4, Canadian Association of Consumers, Executive Meeting, 9 March 1949. Renée Vautelet called Duplessis's treatment of the butter question 'a form of political bribe to rural voters'; Vautelet Papers, vol. 3, file: Allocution: Has butter a future? 'Has Butter a Future?' (nd).
64. Dupré, '"If It's Yellow,"' 353
65. The Montreal LCW decided not to support a butter boycott proposed by the Lachine Community Council, for instance; NA, MCW, vol. 3, file 2, Minutes, LCW, 16 March 1949.
66. La Presse, 3 janvier 1947, 'Pas de changement au prix du beurre,' 6; NA, MCW, vol. 3, file 1A, Report of the Recording Secretaries, 1946-7
67. Le Front Ouvrier, 3 janvier 1948, 'Spéculation sur le beurre,' 3
68. La Presse, 21 avril 1948, 'La vente de la margarine,' 6
69. Le Devoir: 14 décembre 1948, 'La Cour Suprême permet la vente de la margarine,' 1; 15 décembre 1948, 'Nous protégerons les droits de l'agriculture (M. Duplessis),' 10; 16 décembre 1948, 'La margarine,' 1; 16 octobre 1950, 'La vente de la margarine relève des provinces,' 1. See also Heick, A Propensity to Protect, chap. 7;
70. Dupré, '"If It's Yellow,"' 356.
71. La Presse: 18 décembre 1948, 'Sort incertain de la margarine dans Québec,' 1; 5 janvier 1949, 'La couleur de la margarine,' 4; Le Devoir, 16 octobre 1950, 'La vente de la margarine relève des provinces,' 1; Heick, A Propensity to Protect, 98, 107;
72. NA, MCW, vol. 5, file 7, LCW 55th Year Book and Annual Report 1948-49, Report of the Economics and Taxation Committee; vol. 3, file 2, Minutes, LCW, 19 Jan. 1949; Minutes, Sub-Executive Committee of LCW, 9 March 1949; vol. 7, file 25, telegram from Miss Esther W. Kerry, president, LCW of Montreal, to Maurice Duplessis, 13 Jan. 1949; vol. 7, file 25, LCW of Montreal, Third telegram to Mr. Duplessis re Margarine, 5 March 1949. Renée Vautelet also claimed that anti-margarine legislation was illegitimate because it violated principles of democratic liberty; Vautelet Papers, MG 30 vol. 1, file: Faits et chiffres, 'Le Soutien des prix favorise t'il le consommateur?'
73. La Presse, 9 décembre 1948, 'Concurrence qu'on juge nécessaire. Les consommateurs ont droit à la protection que fournit la concurrence,' 15
74. Quoted in William Weintraub, City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and '50s (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1996), 126
75. Dominique Marshall, Aux origines sociales de l'État-providence. Familles québécoises, obligation scolaire et allocations familiales, 1940-1955 (Montreal: Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal 1998), 264, 274, 291
76. See, for example, T.H. Marshall, 'Citizenship and Social Class,' in his Class, Citizenship, and Social Development (New York: Anchor Books 1965);
77. Susan Pedersen, 'Gender, Welfare, and Citizenship in Britain during the Great War,' American Historical Review 95, 4 (1990): 983-1006.
78. Vautelet Papers, vol. 1, file: Allocution - Why a Canadian Association of Consumers? (nd); Lizabeth Cohen, 'A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in America,' paper presented at York University, Toronto, 2 March 2000
79. See Davis, 'Food Scarcity and the Empowerment of the Female Consumer'; Parr, Domestic Goods, 10, 12.
80. La Presse, 4 juin 1948, 'Avantage qu'il nous faut conserver,' 6; Le Front Ouvrier, 8 janvier 1949, advertisement for the Bank of Montreal, 3
81. La Presse, 5 mai 1949, 'Le communisme est toujours dangereux,' 13; Archives de l'Université de Montréal (UM), Action catholique canadienne (ACC), P16, File: P16/R64, 'Vers l'Édification de la famille de demain,' Rapport des premières journées d'étude de la Commission française du Conseil canadien du bien-être social, Hôpital de la Miséricorde, Montreal, 9-10 mars 1951; Discours de Me Jean Lesage; NA, MCW, vol. 3, file 1B, Minutes, LCW, 19 May 1948; Vautelet Papers, vol. 1, file: L'Association Canadienne des Consommateurs, St-Vincent-de-Paul (nd)
82. NA, MCW, 12. 'Why Be Thrifty?' See also NA, CAC, MG 28 I 200, vol. 1, file 3, Mrs F.E. Wright, president, Canadian Association of Consumers, to Presidents of National Women's Organizations, 29 Nov. 1949; Vautelet Papers, vol. 3, file: 'Notes for talk to Canadian Association of Consumers Annual Meeting,' [nd].
83. Vautelet Papers, vol. 1: file: L'Association Canadienne des Consommateurs, Article pour bulletin provincial (nd); file: Social Reforms for Women, C.B.C. Xmas Eve 4.18 p.m.; file: Les droits de la femme, untitled (nd)
84. Benson, 'Living on the Margin,' 236
85. Drawing on the work of Jenny Hartley, who argues that the war made 'home' visible, Sonya Rose claims that the postwar emphasis on marriage and maternity for women produced an upsurge of women's activism on behalf of wives and mothers; Rose, paper presented at York University, 25 Feb. 1999; Jenny Hartley, Millions Like Us: British Women's Fiction of the Second World War (London: Virago 1997), 54.
86. For a Canadian example, see Susan Prentice, 'Workers, Mothers, Reds: Toronto's Postwar Daycare Fight,' Studies in Political Economy 30 (autumn 1989): 115-41.
87. For recent American work on this topic, see 'Dialogue: Reimagining the Family,' Journal of Women's History 13, 3 (2001): 124-68.
88. Murray, 'À la jonction du mouvement ouvrier,' 120; McGill University Archives, NDG Women's Club, MG 4023, container 1: 14th Record Book, Minutes, 7 Jan. 1944; 15th Record Book, Minutes of 23rd Charter Day Luncheon, 2 March 1945; 16th Record Book, Minutes, 18 Oct. 1946; 17th Record Book, Minutes, 3 Oct 1947; 17th Record Book, Minutes, 17 Oct. 1947; 19th Record Book, Minutes, 13 April 1949
89. NA, MCW, vol. 3, file 1B, Minutes, Local Council of Women, 8 Dec. 1948. See also La Bonne Parole, novembre 1947, 'Les femmes et l'élection municipale,' 2.
90. For a recent assessment of this literature, see Yves Bélanger et al., dir., La Révolution tranquille. 40 ans plus tard: un bilan (Montreal: VLB Éditeur 2000).
91. NA, CAC, MG 28 I 200, vol. 1, file 3, President's Remarks, Annual Meeting of Canadian Association of Consumers, 28-29 Sept. 1949; Le Front Ouvrier, 22 novembre 1947, 'La femme au foyer, une isolée?' 17; 6 décembre 1947, 'Editorial féminin. "Gardons" le foyer,' 17
92. Vautelet Papers, vol. 1, file: L'Association Canadienne des Consommateurs, St-Vincent de Paul (nd). But, as Dana Frank notes, shopping's 'limited visibility' meant that 'the success of a boycott was always hard to prove and observance hard to police'; Purchasing Power, 248.
93. There are indications, for instance, that the CAC was initially slow to attract 'the women in the home'; as Thérèse Casgrain observed, it was the majority of women who did not belong to organized consumer groups who were probably most affected by the increased cost of living; NA, CAC, MG 28 I 200, vol. 1: file 2, Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, 10-11 Feb. 1948; file 1, Minutes, National Conference, 29 Sept. 1947.