Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Harris & Ewing/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.
Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor under President Roosevelt.

I once read a fascinating biography of Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the book, biographer Kirstin Downey set out to prove that Perkins was both the conscience of FDR and The Woman Behind the New Deal. (My take on the book is here.)

Recently, at the Guardian, Michael Sainato reported that President Biden had been asked by members of Congress and the National Park Conservation Association to create a monument to Perkins.

“Perkins, who served three terms under Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945,” Sainato writes, “was the first woman to be appointed to a presidential cabinet and the longest-serving secretary of labor in US history.

“In 1911, Perkins was a witness to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City, which killed 146 people, mostly young women, and was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in US history. The tragedy greatly affected Perkins and helped inspire her labor activism in the subsequent decades.

“She said of her position: ‘I came to Washington to work for God, FDR and the millions of forgotten, plain common workingmen.’

“As secretary of labor, Perkins was one of the driving forces behind Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and pushed for many longstanding labor policies including a 40-hour work week, a federal minimum wage, unemployment compensation, worker’s compensation, the abolition of child labor, and social security. ‘The New Deal began on March 25, 1911. The day that the Triangle factory burned,’ Perkins said.”

At Goodreads, I observed that, according to biographer Kirstin Downey, Perkins “was the main person pushing the New Deal. Roosevelt, who was more cautious and political, trusted her and listened to her while many others in his circle came and went. She was unfailingly hardworking and skilled at understanding people and working with everyone, although in her first few months in Washington, she made some missteps that caused her trouble later.

“Her career didn’t start in Washington, though. She was focused on working people and their needs from college days, taking a teaching job in Chicago and spending all her spare time at Hull House, where she made lasting connections. When she lived in New York City, she was active in the rights of working women and child laborers. Greatly influenced by seeing the appalling Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire after failing to get reforms, she worked harder than ever on workplace safety. She was the right hand of NY Governor Al Smith for some years and then the right hand of FDR when he succeeded Smith as governor.

“Perkins had a variety of roles in Washington over several decades but her biggest influence is seen in initiatives that got people working in the Depression and improved workers’ rights and workplace safety. …

“Downey wrote at the book’s end: ‘The secret of Frances’s success was that she had done what she did selflessly, without hope of personal gain or public recognition, for those who would come afterward. It was a perpetuation of the Hull House tradition of the old teaching the young how to advocate for the yet unborn. …

” ‘Factory and office occupancy codes, fire escapes and other fire-prevention mechanisms are her legacy. About 44 million people collect Social Security checks each month; millions receive unemployment and worker’s compensation or the minimum wage; others get to go home after an eight-hour day because of the Fair Labor Standards Act [all of which she shepherded]. Very few know the woman responsible for their benefits.’ “

By the way, although there are comparatively few monuments to women in the US, cities are trying to get up to speed. In New York alone, there are statues to Women’s Rights Pioneers, Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, women veterans, Gertrude Stein, and one coming soon of Shirley Chisholm, a Black woman who ran against Richard Nixon, and more. Click here for great photos.

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall, but if you click here, you can help support the Guardian journalism.