Frances Perkins

Fannie Coralie Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Susan Ella Perkins (née Bean; 1849–1927) and Frederick William Perkins (1844–1916), the owner of a stationer's business (both of her parents originally were from Maine).[1] Fannie Perkins had one sister, Ethel Perkins Harrington (1884–1965).[5] The family could trace their roots to colonial America, and the women had a tradition of work in education.[6] She spent much of her childhood in Worcester, Massachusetts. Frederick loved Greek literature and passed that love on to Fannie.[5]

Perkins attended the Classical High School in Worcester. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry and physics in 1902. While attending Mount Holyoke, Perkins discovered progressive politics and the suffrage movement.[7] She was also named class president.[5] One of her professors was Annah May Soule, who assigned students to tour a factory to study working conditions;[8] Perkins recalled Soule's course as an important influence.[9]

After college, she held a variety of teaching positions, including a position teaching chemistry from 1904 to 1906 at Ferry Hall School (now Lake Forest Academy), an all-girls school in Lake Forest, Illinois.[9] In Chicago, she volunteered at settlement houses, including Hull House, where she worked with Jane Addams.[9][5] She changed her name from Fannie to Frances[10] when she joined the Episcopal church in 1905.[11] In 1907, she moved to Philadelphia and enrolled at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School to learn economics.[12] After two years in Philadelphia, Perkins moved to Greenwich Village, where she attended Columbia University and became active in the suffrage movement.[12] In support of the suffrage movement, Perkins attended protests and meetings, and advocated for the cause on street corners.[12] She obtained a master's degree in economics and sociology from Columbia in 1910.[13][14]

She achieved statewide prominence as head of the New York office of the National Consumers League in 1910[15] and lobbied with vigor for better working hours and conditions. Perkins also taught as a professor of sociology at Adelphi College.[16] The next year, she witnessed the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a pivotal event in her life.[17] The factory employed hundreds of workers, mostly young women, but lacked fire escapes.[18][12] When the building caught fire, many workers tried unsuccessfully to escape through the windows.[18] Just a year before, these same women and girls had fought for and won the 54-hour work week and other benefits that Perkins had championed. One hundred and forty-six workers died.[12] It was because of this fire, Frances Perkins left her position at the New York office of the National Consumers League, and on the recommendation of Theodore Roosevelt, become the executive secretary for the Committee on Safety of the City of New York.[11][12] In 1913, Perkins was instrumental in getting New York to pass a "54-hour" bill capping the number of hours women and children could work.[19][15] Perkins pressed for votes for the legislation, encouraging proponents including legislator Franklin D. Roosevelt to filibuster, while Perkins called state senators to make sure they could be present for the final vote.[19] In 1912, Perkins resigned as head of the New York office of the National Consumers League to take the position of executive secretary with the Committee on Safety.[20] The Committee on Safety was formed to increase fire safety following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.[20] As part of the Committee on Safety, Perkins investigated the fire at the Freeman plant in Binghamton, New York, in which 63 people died. Perkins blamed lax legislation for the loss.[21]

In 1913, Perkins married New York economist Paul Caldwell Wilson.[6] She kept her maiden name because she did not want her activities in Albany to affect her husband, then the secretary to the New York City mayor.[6] She defended her right to keep her maiden name in court.[6] The couple had a daughter, Susanna, born in December 1916.[22] Less than two years later, Wilson began to show signs of mental illness.[22] He would be frequently institutionalized for mental illness for the remainder of their marriage.[23] Perkins had retreated from public life following the birth of her daughter, but returned after her husband's illness to provide for her family.[24][18] According to biographer Kirstin Downey, Susanna displayed "manic-depressive symptoms", as well.[25]

Perkins from 1922 to 1934 privately had a romantic and intimate relationship with Mary Harriman Rumsey, founder of the Junior League. The women lived together in Perkins' home in Washington, DC, until Rumsey's death in 1934.[26][27][3]

Prior to moving to Washington, DC, Perkins held various positions in the New York state government. She had gained respect from the political leaders in the state. In 1919, she was added to the Industrial Commission of the State of New York by Governor Al Smith.[11] Her nomination was met with protests from both manufacturers and labor, neither of whom felt Perkins represented their interests.[28] Smith stood by Perkins as someone who could be a voice for women and girls in the workforce and for her work on the Wagner Factory Investigating Committee.[28] Although claiming the delay in Perkins' confirmation was not due to her sex, some state senators pointed to Perkins' not taking her husband's name as a sign that she was a radical.[29] Perkins was confirmed on February 18, 1919, becoming one of the first female commissioners in New York, and began working out of New York City.[30][29] The state senate-confirmed position made Perkins one of three commissioners overseeing the industrial code, and the supervisor of both the bureau of information and statistics and the bureau of mediation and arbitration.[29] The position also came with an $8000 salary (equivalent to $118,000 in 2019), making Perkins the highest-paid woman in New York state government.[31] Six months into her job, her fellow Commissioner James M. Lynch called Perkin's contributions "invaluable," and added "[f]rom the work which Miss Perkins has accomplished I am convinced that more women ought to be placed in high positions throughout the state departments."[29]

In 1929, the newly elected New York governor, Franklin Roosevelt, appointed Perkins as the inaugural New York state industrial commissioner.[32][6] As commissioner, Perkins supervised an agency with 1,800 employees.[6]

Having earned the co-operation and the respect of various political factions, Perkins 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. She worked vigorously to put an end to child labor and to provide safety for women workers.[11]

Secretary of Labor Perkins on the cover of Time (August 14, 1933)

Perkins and Congressman Theodore Peyser with President Roosevelt as he signs the National Labor Relations Act (June 6, 1933)

In 1933, Roosevelt summoned Perkins to ask her to join his cabinet. Perkins presented Roosevelt with a long list of labor programs for which she would fight, from Social Security to minimum wage. "Nothing like this has ever been done in the United States before," she told Roosevelt. "You know that, don’t you?"[33] Agreeing to back her, Roosevelt nominated Perkins as Secretary of Labor. The nomination was met with support from the National League of Women Voters and the Women's Party.[34] The American Federation of Labor criticized the selection of Perkins because of a perceived lack of ties to labor.[34]

As secretary, Perkins oversaw the Department of Labor. Perkins went on to hold the position for 12 years, longer than any other Secretary of Labor.[35] She also became the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the United States, thus she became the first woman to enter the presidential line of succession.[36] The selection of a woman to the cabinet had been rumored in the four previous administrations, with Roosevelt being the first to follow through.[37] Roosevelt had witnessed Perkins’ work first hand during their time in Albany.[37] With few exceptions, President Roosevelt consistently supported the goals and programs of Secretary Perkins.

As Secretary of Labor, Perkins played a key role in the cabinet by writing New Deal legislation, including minimum-wage laws. Her most important contribution, however, came in 1934 as chairwoman of the President's Committee on Economic Security. In this post, she was involved in all aspects of its reports, including her hand in the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the She-She-She Camps.[11] Perkins also drafted the Social Security Act of 1935. On the day the bill was signed into law, her husband escaped from a mental institution.[24][38]

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. Ultimately, Bridges was vindicated by the Supreme Court.[39]

With the death of President Roosevelt, Harry Truman ascended to the office on April 12, 1945.[40] Truman chose his own cabinet, including Lewis B. Schwellenbach as Secretary of Labor.[40][41] Perkins' tenure as Secretary ended on June 30, 1945, with the swearing in of Schwellenbach.[41]

Following her tenure as Secretary of Labor, in 1945, Perkins was asked by President Truman to serve on the United States Civil Service Commission.[12] In her post as commissioner, Perkins spoke out against government officials requiring secretaries and stenographers to be physically attractive, blaming the practice for the shortage of secretaries and stenographers in the government.[42] Perkins left the Civil Service Commission in 1952 when her husband died.[12] During this period, she also published a memoir of her time in Roosevelt's administration called The Roosevelt I Knew (1946, ISBN 9780143106418) which covered her personal history with Franklin Roosevelt, starting from their meeting in 1910.[43]

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 at age 85. She also gave guest lectures at other universities, including two 15-lecture series at the University of Illinois Institute of Labor and Industrial relations in 1955 and 1958.[44] At Cornell she lived at the Telluride House where she was one of the intellectual community's first female members. Kirstin Downey, author of The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, dubbed her time at the Telluride House "probably the happiest phase of her life".[45] Perkins is buried in the Glidden Cemetery in Newcastle, Maine.[46]

The Frances Perkins Building is the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the United States Department of Labor and is located at 200 Constitution Avenue NW and runs alongside Interstate 395

The Frances Perkins House, a U.S. National Historic Landmark since 1991, located at 2326 California Street, NW, Washington, D.C.

Perkins would have been famous simply by being the first woman cabinet member, but her legacy also stems from her additional accomplishments. She was largely responsible for the U.S. adoption of social security, unemployment insurance, the federal minimum wage, and federal laws regulating child labor.[47]

In 1967, the Telluride House and Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations established the Frances Perkins Memorial Fellowship.[48] In 1982, Perkins was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[49] In 2015, Perkins was named by Equality Forum as one of their 31 Icons of the 2015 LGBT History Month.[50] In 2019, she was announced as one of the members of the inaugural class of the Government Hall of Fame.[51] Also that year, Elizabeth Warren used a podium built with wood salvaged from the Perkins homestead.[52]

Character in historical context

As the first female member of the presidential cabinet, Perkins had an unenviable challenge: she had to be as capable, as fearless, as tactful, and as politically astute as the other Washington politicians, in order to make it possible for other women to be accepted into the halls of power after her.[53]

Perkins had a cool personality that held her aloof from the crowd. On one occasion, however, she engaged in some heated name-calling with Alfred P. Sloan, the chairman of the board at General Motors. During a punishing United Auto Workers strike, she phoned Sloan in the middle of the night and called him a scoundrel and a skunk for not meeting the union's demands. She said, "You don't deserve to be counted among decent men. You'll go to hell when you die." Sloan's late-night response was one of irate indignation.[54]

Her results indicate her great love of workers and lower-class groups, but 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.[55]

A plaque honoring Perkins at Boston's Logan Airport.

• List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frances Perkins.

• Works by or about Frances Perkins at Internet Archive
• Frances Perkins Center
• Audio recording of Perkins lecture at Cornell
• A film clip "You May Call Her Madam Secretary (1987)" is available at the Internet Archive
• Frances Perkins Collection at Mount Holyoke College
• Perkins Papers at Mount Holyoke College
• Frances Perkins Collection. Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
• Notable New Yorkers – Frances Perkins—Biography, photographs, and interviews of Frances Perkins from the Notable New Yorkers collection of the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University
• Columbians Ahead of Their Time, Frances Perkins biography
• Frances Perkins. Correspondence and Memorabilia. 5017. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University.
• Frances Perkins Lectures at the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University.
• Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project: Frances Perkins
• U.S. Department of Labor Biography
• "Biographer Chronicles Perkins, 'New Deal' Pioneer", All Things Considered, March 28, 2009. An interview with Kirstin Downey about her biography of Frances Perkins.
• "Remembering Social Security's Forgotten Shepherd", Morning Edition, August 12, 2005. Penny Colman and Linda Wertheimer Discuss Frances Perkins
• Remarkable Frances Perkins in Twin Cities in 1935 – Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois newspaper)
• Newspaper clippings about Frances Perkins in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW