Were mattress labels inspired by public outcry?
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I don't remember much of an outcry but I do recall that some of the labelling laws did come about due to health issues. Mattresses and blankets were often carriers of diseases especially in crowded urban areas, and in some of the history books about the time I read the labelling laws were often pointed more towards public safety.
If you think of this as an offshoot of the cheap manufacturing practices in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries then it makes sense. Noting from this article I don't see much that reminds me of an outcry but more along the lines of public health.
In the early part of the twentieth century, a common practice among certain unscrupulous merchants was to sell bedding that was stuffed with everything from straw and horse hair to paper and old rags. As laws protecting the rights of consumers begin to evolve so did the need to provide consumers with easy to understand information. This need led to the requirement to list the contents of bedding materials like mattresses and pillows. Serious public health issues were at stake and officials reacted with what turned out to be relatively simple, common sense regulations.
It is important to remember that during the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds the population of the country grew very rapidly. It was also a time when many communicable diseases were rampant, antibiotics had not been invented and early antitoxins had a limited efficacy. There was a very real public health crisis especially in overcrowded urban areas and public health authorities and policy makers knew that bedding was a prime suspect in spreading diseases such as small pox. Given these circumstances there was more than enough impetuous to target mattress manufacturers and retailers with rules that protected consumers and were not overly burdensome on business.
I haven't seen sources that note an outcry on recycled materials, but shoddy products with cheap materials might have been more of an issue to some at the time.
I did find another article that notes old, infected mattresses were often resold and they do note another source you might like:
And it wasn't just the ranting of fastidious housewives or muckraking germophobes [sic] which caught the attention of legislators. In fact, according to one official working in New York enforcement, the law actually started from the objections of mattress factory employees who saw the remains of their meals being mixed in with prospective stuffing. (M. Whisner, LAW LIBRARY JOURNAL Vol. 101:2)
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