Mildred Edie Brady was an American reporter, editor, and consumer advocate. She is mostly known for her active participation in consumer affairs of California.
Background
Mildred Edie Brady was born on June 3, 1906 in Little Rock, Arkansas, the daughter of Stewart Carson Edie, a pharmacist, and Maude Alice White, a telegraph operator. The family moved often because the father managed a succession of restaurants and drugstores. In 1920 they settled in Kansas City, Missouri, where he became manager and druggist for Katz drugstores.
Education
Edie graduated from Northeast High School in Kansas City in 1923. She then entered Kansas City Junior College (now Kansas City University), but was expelled for her involvement in the publication of a radical student newspaper called the Sacred Cow. She next went to the University of Missouri, from which she was expelled for failure in classes and for helping publish the mildly left-wing magazine the Dove. She then enrolled at the University of Kansas, but left a few weeks short of graduation in 1929 and went to New York City.
Career
Mildred Brady started her career in New York City after she suddenly left the University of Kansas right before graduation. There Edie got a job in Brentano's bookstore and also became an associate editor of Theatre Arts Monthly.
In 1930 she was hired as chief staff writer and chief reporter for Tide magazine, for which she covered the advertising and marketing business. About 1932 Edie met Arthur KaNet and Fred Schlink of Consumers Research in Washington, New Jersey, and became very interested in consumer affairs.
In 1935 she wrote an investigative report on the strike and breakup of Consumers Research, which stemmed from a disagreement (one of many) between Schlink and KaNet over unionization of Consumers Research staff. While conducting interviews for that project she met Robert Alexander Brady, a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley who had just returned from Germany. When Consumers Union was founded in 1936, Dexter Masters, the editor of Tide, encouraged Edie to become involved in its work.
She and Brady went to Berkeley together and in 1938 established the Western Consumers Union, he as president and she as director. In 1940, Western Consumers Union closed, and Brady and Edie returned to New York City. There, she edited a periodical called Friday, and she edited Bread and Butter for Consumers Union during 1941.
From 1942 to 1944 she worked as a specialist on consumer education for the Consumer Division of the Office of Price Administration in Washington, D. C. Brady also worked there, as economic consultant to the Consumer Division. After World War II, Edie edited a column for McCall's. She also did some writing, including an article in Harper's (April 1947), "The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy. "
After a year in England with Brady, she returned to work for Consumers Union in 1950, writing and editing a column for Consumer Reports called "Economics for Consumers. "
He suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1958, and she moved the family from Berkeley back to New York, where she became the editorial director of Consumer Reports, a position she held until 1964, when she became senior editor. During these years she testified before the Federal Trade Commission and various Senate subcommittees on such subjects as administered prices in the drug industry (1960), truth in packaging (1963 and 1965), and regulation of cigarette advertising (1964).
She also investigated and reported on these and other topics for Consumer Reports. Her work for Consumers Union took her to Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway. After the death of her husband in 1963, she moved to Harrison, New York, where she died two years later.
Senator Philip Hart of Michigan said of Brady: "[She was] a lady who pulled no punches when criticizing the shenanigans which consumers too often today face in the marketplace. "
Connections
Mildred met and married Gerald Fling in that year, but divorced him in 1931; they had no children. While writing an investigative report on the strike and breakup of Consumers Research in 1935, as well as conducting interviews for that project she met Robert Alexander Brady, a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley. They began to live together and had two daughters. Although not married, Edie began to use Brady as her surname at this time.