The Fair Trade movement can be traced back to 1946 when Edna
Ruth Byler, a volunteer for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC),
visited an MCC sewing class in Puerto Rico. She soon realized
that the women creating the beautiful lace, though immensely
talented, lived in terrible poverty. In an attempt to help, she
set out to carry their work back to the United States to sell
them and then return the money back to the groups directly. Her
work grew into Ten Thousand Villages, which opened its first
fair trade shop in 1958 and is now the largest fair trade
retailer in North America. In 1949, Sales Exchange for Refugee
Rehabilitation and Vocation (SERRV International) began helping
recovering World War II refugees in Europe. Today, they support
artisans in more than 35 countries. In the late 1970s, US- and
Canadian-based entrepreneurs devoted to helping producers market
their crafts began to meet regularly, exchange ideas, and
network. Out of this process developed the Fair Trade
Federation, which formally incorporat