Everything about Frances Perkins totally explained
Frances Coralie Perkins (born Fanny Coralie Perkins, lived
April 10 1882 –
May 14 1965) was the
U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman ever appointed to the
US Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend
Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the
labor movement into the
New Deal coalition.
History
Perkins was born in
Boston, Massachusetts, to Frederick W. Perkins, the owner of a stationer's business, and Susan Bean Perkins, but spent much of her childhood in
Worcester. She attended the
Ferry Hall School in Illinois before graduating from
Mount Holyoke College in
1902, and from
Columbia University in 1910 with a master's degree in sociology. In between, she held a variety of teaching positions and volunteered at settlement houses, including
Hull House.
In
1910 she came to statewide prominence as head of the New York Consumers League, in which position she lobbied with vigor for better working hours and conditions. The next year, she witnessed the tragic
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a pivotal event in her life.
In
1913 Frances Perkins married Paul Caldwell Wilson. She kept her maiden name, defending in court her right to do so. Prior to going to Washington, Perkins held various positions in New York State government. In 1918, Perkins accepted Governor
Al Smith's offer to join the New York State Industrial Commission, becoming its first ever female member. She became chairwoman of the commission in 1926.
In 1929, the new governor,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, appointed Perkins the state's industrial commissioner. Having earned the cooperation and respect of various political factions, Perkins ably helped put New York in the forefront of progressive reform. She expanded factory investigations, reduced the workweek for women to 48 hours and championed
minimum wage and
unemployment insurance laws.
In
1933, Roosevelt appointed Perkins as Secretary of the
Department of Labor, a position she held for twelve years, longer than any other
Secretary of Labor and making her the first woman to hold a
cabinet position in the United States (thus becoming the first woman to enter the
presidential line of succession). She and
Harold L. Ickes were the only two secretaries to hold their posts throughout the entire FDR presidency.
President Roosevelt almost always supported the goals and programs of Secretary Perkins. In an administration filled with compromise, the President's support for the agenda of Frances Perkins was unusually constant.
As Secretary of Labor, Perkins played a key role writing
New Deal legislation, including
minimum-wage laws. However, her most important contribution came in
1934 as chairwoman of the President's Committee on Economic Security. In this post, she was involved in all aspects of the reports and hearings that ultimately resulted in the
Social Security Act of
1935.
In 1939, she came under fire from some members of Congress for refusing to deport the communist head of the west coast
International Longshore and Warehouse Union,
Harry Bridges. Bridges was ultimately vindicated by the Supreme Court.
Smith, a
machine politician from the old school, was an early social reformer with whom Frances Perkins made common cause. At Smith's funeral in
1944 two of his former
Tammany Hall political cronies were overheard to speculate on why Smith had become a social crusader. One of them summed the matter up this way: "I'll tell you. Al Smith read a book. That book was a person, and her name was Frances Perkins. She told him all these things, and he believed her."
Following the end of her tenure as Secretary of Labor in
1945, Perkins was asked by President
Harry Truman to serve on the
United States Civil Service Commission, which she did until
1952, when her husband died and she resigned from federal service.
In 1946, Perkins published a detailed memoir of her years working with Franklin Roosevelt, called
The Roosevelt I Knew. The book is clearly biased in favor of a president she called a friend; but it's also a subtle character study and is frequently recommended by scholars.
Perkins explained in her memoir some of the means she'd used to earn the President's remarkable support. She described a process of preparing the President for a position taken by boiling down the costs and benefits to a one or two-page summary, with the political opposition clearly marked for him in advance.
Perkins believed that most of those who felt the President had unjustly dropped support for their programs hadn't outlined what they needed simply enough; or hadn't identified the political opposition to their measure.
Following her government service career, Perkins remained active as a teacher and lecturer at the
New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at
Cornell University until her death in
1965, aged 83.
The headquarters building of the United States Department of Labor in
Washington, DC is named in her honor.
Further Information
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