Few Americans have had deeper influence in shaping labor and social policy in the United States than Frances Perkins. Perkins became the first woman to serve as a Cabinet Secretary when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed her as the Secretary of Labor in 1933. During the subsequent 12 years, Secretary Perkins played a pivotal role in constructing the New Deal and helping to guide the country out of the Great Depression by designing and leading the implementation of sweeping labor and economic reforms that have made life better for generations of Americans. The longest serving Secretary of Labor in United States history, Secretary Perkins was the architect of many programs and standards — including a minimum wage, overtime pay, unemployment insurance, and prohibitions on child labor — that have endured as the backbone of Federal support for workers and families and continue to benefit millions of Americans today. Secretary Perkins chaired President Roosevelt’s effort to investigate the benefits of social insurance and then worked to achieve passage of the Social Security Act, which became one of the most successful programs in the United States to prevent poverty among older adults. When the United States and other nations initially failed to face the horrors of the Holocaust, Secretary Perkins demonstrated leadership on behalf of immigrants and refugees by actively working to bring Jewish children and adults from Europe to the United States to ensure their safety. The Perkins Homestead in Newcastle, Maine, played a pivotal role in Frances Perkins’ life and supported her work to deliver lasting protection and benefits to American workers and families. The rural setting of the Perkins Homestead on the Damariscotta River was the place she felt most at home. She spent her childhood summers there and returned frequently for respite throughout her career. Continuously owned by her family for over 260 years, the Perkins Homestead remains much as it was during Secretary Perkins’ lifetime, including the buildings, structures, gardens, and paths where she spent substantial time throughout her life. The core area contains historic structures including a brick house, an attached barn, a gravel driveway, a garden, and portions of a stone wall. The surrounding landscape of the Perkins Homestead contains additional portions of the stone wall, an ice pond, walking trails, a family cemetery, foundations of the 18th and 19th century Perkins Homestead buildings, and remnants of a pre-Revolutionary era garrison. Visitors to the Perkins Homestead today can wander through these places where Perkins returned time and again during her Government service. They can view the stone wall where she sat listening to the radio on September 1, 1939, when it was reported that the Germans invaded Poland, prompting her to rush back to Washington, D.C., to assist the President. Preserving the core area of the Perkins Homestead and its associated historic objects will ensure that current and future generations have the opportunity to learn about Secretary Perkins’ foundational contributions to the Nation’s social and labor policy through the place that helped shape her as a person and support her throughout her extraordinary career. Frances Perkins was born in Boston as Fannie Coralie Perkins in 1880. At the age of 25, she changed her name to Frances Perkins, which she used for the rest of her life, even after marriage. She graduated in 1902 from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where she credited a class trip to a nearby mill with inspiring her early interest in improving working conditions for women and children. After college, Frances Perkins worked with social service organizations in Chicago and Philadelphia, including settlement houses for poor and unemployed people and an organization to support and protect immigrant and Black women and girls from labor and sexual exploitation they faced upon arrival in these cities looking for work. These experiences deepened her resolve to help reduce poverty and support the working poor. In 1911, while employed at the New York City Consumers’ League, Frances Perkins heard the sirens of fire engines racing to put out flames that had engulfed the nearby Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Running to the site of the fire, she witnessed the horrific scene of workers, mostly young women, jumping to their deaths after being locked in the factory. In total, 146 people died in the fire –- including many immigrant workers. Perkins later cited that tragic day as the impetus for policies that would become central to the New Deal. Perkins’ subsequent work at the New York Factory Investigating Commission, where she investigated and advocated for worker health and safety reforms, led to 33 new State laws that improved worker safety, workplace sanitation, and working conditions; provided workers’ compensation; and placed limits on child labor. These were some of the first workplace health and safety standards in the Nation, and they became models that other States and the Federal Government adopted. In 1919, Perkins was named to the New York State Industrial Commission, making her the first woman appointed to serve in a New York State government administration. In 1929, newly elected Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Perkins to become the State’s Industrial Commissioner and oversee the labor department. As the United States careened toward the Great Depression, Perkins used her position to shine a national spotlight on rising unemployment while also helping workers in New York and elsewhere by connecting them to jobs through a State employment service and inviting surrounding States to participate in an unemployment insurance system. Her early warnings regarding the depth of the Nation’s economic problems and her work to develop solutions established Perkins as a national leader in the 20th century employment and labor reform movements. When President Roosevelt formally asked Perkins to join his Cabinet as Secretary of Labor, she responded by saying that if she accepted the position, she intended to execute an ambitious plan of action that included establishing maximum hours and minimum wages, ending child labor, developing unemployment relief through public works, providing unemployment insurance, and creating an old-age pension and a national health insurance program. After detailing her plan, she asked if President Roosevelt was sure he wanted this list of policies put in place, explaining that, “you won’t want me for Secretary of Labor if you don’t want those things done.” President Roosevelt responded that he would back her; he had promised the American people that he would improve their lives, and he intended to keep his promise. At a time when few women were in leadership positions and just 13 years after the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, Frances Perkins became Secretary of Labor. During an unprecedented 12 years in the position — from 1933 to 1945 — Secretary Perkins achieved hard-fought social and economic reforms, often over vocal opposition and personal attacks from critics. She summarized her work in a five-page letter to President Roosevelt, describing the reforms as “a turning point in our national life — a turning from careless neglect of human values and toward an order . . . of mutual and practical benevolence within a free competitive industrial economy.” The list of accomplishments detailed in her letter encompasses many programs and laws that continue to undergird the Nation’s economy and social safety net, including establishing Social Security and contributing to the development of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act. She also helped create millions of jobs across the country through the novel Civilian Conservation Corps and Public Works Administration. As Secretary of Labor, Perkins often supported the rights of workers to organize unions and to negotiate with employers through collective action, laying the foundation for the rebirth of American labor –- including through helping write recovery legislation that provided a right to collective bargaining and laid the groundwork for the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (also known as the Wagner Act). She used her post not only to advance labor protections in national policy, but also to call personally for workers’ fair treatment and access to the halls of power. She persuaded President Roosevelt not to deploy Federal troops to quell the 1934 San Francisco General Strike, and instead encouraged the parties to settle their differences, which was accomplished within a week, and she frequently advised President Roosevelt to help resolve contentious strikes for the benefit of workers. At the close of her time at the Department of Labor, Perkins had accomplished nearly all of the items in the ambitious plan she laid out for President Roosevelt when he asked her to serve, but she lamented the one exception: health care benefits for American workers. Historians have also noted that, because of deep racial inequities and injustices of the time –- including segregation -– the benefits of the New Deal were not available to all Americans initially. When her time as Secretary of Labor concluded, Perkins continued in public service as President Harry Truman’s appointee to the United States Civil Service Commission, a post she held from 1945 until 1953. She then became a lecturer at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, a role she held until her death in 1965. When Secretary Perkins died, the Secretary of Labor at the time, W. Willard Wirtz, recognized her legacy as central to the New Deal, stating that “every man and woman in America who works at a living wage, under safe conditions, for reasonable hours, or who is protected by unemployment insurance or social security is her debtor.” The final resting place of Secretary Perkins is near her daughter, husband, sister, parents, and grandparents in the Glidden Cemetery, located a half mile ...
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