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Frances Coralie Perkins (born Fanny Coralie Perkins, lived 10 April 1880 – 14 May 1965) was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman 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. She and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes were the only original members of Roosevelt's cabinet who remained in offices for his entire Presidency.
ins was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Frederick W.
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Quotations
The quality of his being one with his people, of having no artificial or naural barriers between him and them, made it possible for him to be a leader without ever being or thinking of being a dictator.
The Roosevelt I Knew (1946) , ch. 17
Encyclopedia
Frances Coralie Perkins (born Fanny Coralie Perkins, lived 10 April 1880 – 14 May 1965) was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman 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. She and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes were the only original members of Roosevelt's cabinet who remained in offices for his entire Presidency.
History
Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Frederick W. Perkins, the owner of a stationer's business, and Susan Bean Perkins (both originally from Maine). She spent much of her childhood in Worcester. She was christened Fannie Coralie Perkins but later changed her name to Frances.
Perkins attended Ferry Hall School in Lake Forest, Illinois and graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a BA degree in 1902, and from Columbia University with a master's degree in sociology in 1910. In between, she held a variety of teaching positions and volunteered at settlement houses, including Hull House.
In 1910 she achieved 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 newly-elected New York 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 Cabinet members 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.
Al 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 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. During this period, she also published a memoir of her time in FDR's administration called The Roosevelt I Knew, which offered a sympathetic view of the president.
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 85.
The headquarters building of the United States Department of Labor in Washington, DC is named in her honor.
Legacy
Frances Perkins, the first female member of the Presidential cabinet, had an unenviable challenge: she had to be as capable, as fearless, as tactful, as politically astute as the other Washington D.C. politicians, in order to make it possible for other females to be accepted into the halls of power after her.
Perkins would have been famous simply by being the first woman Cabinet member, but her legacy rests on her accomplishments - she was largely responsible for the US adoption of Social Security, unemployment insurance, federal laws regulating child labor, and adoption of the federal minimum wage.
Perkins had a cool personality, which held her aloof from the crowd. Although her results indicate her great love of workers and lower-class groups, her Boston upbringing held her back from mingling freely and exhibiting personal affection. She was well-suited for the high-level efforts to effect sweeping reforms, but never caught the public's eye or its affection.
External links
- A place to honor her memory and carry on her work at her family homestead on the coast of Maine.
- A biography by Kirstin Downey, release date: March 2009
- "You May Call Her Madame Secretary" is a film production depicting Frances Perkins' life and her career.
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- Biography, photographs, and interviews of Frances Perkins from the Notable New Yorkers collection of the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University.
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