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Ralph Nader[nA´dur] Pronunciation Key, 1934–, U.S. consumer advocate and political reformer, b. Winsted, Conn. Admitted to the bar in 1958, he practiced law in Connecticut and was a lecturer (1961–63) in history and government at the Univ. of Hartford. In 1965, Nader published Unsafe at Any Speed, a best-selling indictment of the auto industry and its poor safety standards. Largely through his influence, the U.S. Congress passed (1966) a stringent auto safety act. Nader founded (1969) the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, which exposed both corporate irresponsibility and the federal government's failure to enforce regulation of business. He later founded Public Citizen and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an umbrella for many other such groups. Nader agreed to run as the Green party's 1996 presidential candidate, with the stated goal of helping to return political power to disaffected and nonvoting citizens by offering an alternative to the two-party system. In 2000 he again became the party's presidential nominee, and won the largest vote (2.6%) of any third-party candidate that year.
See speeches and writings collected in The Ralph Nader Reader (2000); biographies by R. F. Buckhorn (1972) and C. McCarry (1972).
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