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Consumer advocate Ralph Nader was born on February 27, 1934 in Winsted, Connecticut to Rose and Nathra Nader. Rose and Nathra Nader were Lebanese immigrants. Nathra owned and operated a restaurant called Highland Arms. Rose raised her child Ralph to be a serious minded boy, never allowing him to play with toys because to her they were a waste of time. But Ralph was an intelligent and inquisitive child who made up for this restriction in other ways.
Ralph Nader played with the neighborhood kids, and was an avid Yankees fan, but in his spare time he eagerly read the Congressional Record and other unlikely writings. His father, Nathra Nader, was a firm patriot who once said "When I went past the Statue of Liberty, I took it seriously." He kept his restaurant patrons talking by stirring up vigorous discussions of the day's affairs, and young Ralph paid attention there, too. As the child of immigrants he was sensitive to the way power was used and distributed in the United States.
Nader was a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton in 1955. He fought against he use of the pesticide DDT when he noticed numerous dead birds on campus. He tried to organize students to support a hot dog vendor who was being forced out of business, but as would often be the case throughout his career, he was appalled at their lack of interest.
He attended Harvard Law school next. It was there that he began to explore automobile safety issues and an article on the subject was published in "The Nation" a year after he graduated. In the article he reported the numbers of injuries, fatalities and disabilities and blamed the car industry for caring more about the bottom line than about consumer safety. He didn't fit in at corporate-minded Harvard. He said, "If you were worried about issues of right and wrong and justice and injustice, you were considered soft intellectually." He graduated in 1958.
In 1963 Nader went to work for Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan as a consultant in the US Department of Labor. He wrote for the Nation and The Christian Science Monitor and played an advisory role to a Senate subcommittee trying to determine what role the government should play in increasing automobile safety.
Nader's work increasingly focused on getting sufficient information to consumers so that they could protect themselves from corporate tyranny.
In 1965, Nader's book, "Unsafe At Any Speed" was published. It was filled with damning evidence against the GM Motor company and their "Corvair" model car which had a tendency to flip over. Nader claimed that the drivers were taking the blame for these crashes was that they couldn't get adequate information about the automobile's engineering to do anything about it. When GM tried to quiet him by hiring private investigators to undermine his credentials, 32 year old Nader sued the company. GM had to admit fault before a Senate Committee and in 1966 several laws were passed requiring vehicle safety standards be implemented by manufacturers. President Lyndon Johnson invited Nader to the White House to attend the law signing ceremonies.
Throughout the years, Nader has continued to write books and articles unveiling abuses of tax payers, employees, consumers and communities. Harvard and GM are far from the only organizations that haven't appreciated Nader's work. Even some consumers don't fully appreciate what they have gained as a result of his activism. Throughout his career he's been the subject of derision, but because he believes in his work, he continues working to protect consumers from big business.
The founding of consumer protection organizations throughout the country followed the GM trial. Activists who support Nader, called "Nader's Raiders" have forced a wide array of industries, government agencies and foreign countries to develop practices to protect consumers and the environment. Nader himself founded, among other organizations, The Public Citizen, a group which encourages citizens to take action. He puts his money where his mouth is and donates most of his public speaking and writing fees to advocacy causes. In 1974 Nader was instrumental in acquiring the passage of the Freedom of Information Act, which he calls one of his proudest achievements. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission are among the consumer protection resources he influenced.
Nader never married and is a practicing vegetarian. He remains active in matters involving the environment, consumerism, foreign policy and campaign finance reform. Ralph Nader was chosen as the Green Party Candidate in the years 1996 and 2000. The Green Party is dedicated to consumer and environmental protection issues. At the turn of the 21st century, Nader was called "one of the most influential people of the 20th century" by Time Magazine. Laws that have resulted from his work over the past fifty years have given consumers the ability to defend themselves against corporations and against the government. In addition, countless lives may have been saved due to increasingly safe products.
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