Frances Perkins became the first woman to serve in a U.S. Presidential cabinet (in 1933) and the fourth longest-serving cabinet secretary. She is also recognized as the principal author of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
She was highly educated for that time, with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics earned at Mount Holyoke College in 1902 and a master’s degree in social economics received in 1910 after studies at the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University.
She became concerned about women’s safety in the workplace when she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911. The factory employed hundreds of workers, mostly women, and lacked fire escapes. The owner kept the doors and stairwells locked to keep employees from taking breaks. When the building caught fire, many workers couldn’t use the doors and tried to escape through the windows. 146 workers died.
After Perkins worked as a New York state commissioner overseeing New York’s industrial code and as the inaugural New York state industrial commissioner under then-governor Franklin Roosevelt, Roosevelt asked her to join his presidential cabinet and serve as the Secretary of Labor in 1933.
Perkins agreed to serve, provided Roosevelt would accept her policy priorities: a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; unemployment compensation; worker’s compensation; abolition of child labor; direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief; Social Security; a revitalized federal employment service; and universal health insurance.
She was successful in implementing all of those goals, except universal health insurance.
Perkins was also an advocate for massive public works programs, including implementing the Civilian Conservation Corps., to bring the nation’s unemployed back to work during the Great Depression.
Perkins also created the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Her goal was to humanize the treatment of immigrants in the U.S. She opposed restrictive immigration practices, abolishing the Bureau of Immigrations “Section 24” squad, known for illegal apprehension tactics which violated due process. (Sounds like ICE?)
Ironically, President Trump has been “undoing” these reforms and dismantling the Department of Labor.
American workers and retirees should honor Frances Perkins for the workplace protections and retirement security that she was instrumental in creating and that we benefit from, today.