Frances Perkins



4th United States Secretary of Labor

In office: March 4, 1933 – June 30, 1945
Presidents: Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman

Born: April 10, 1880, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died: May 14, 1965 (aged 85), New York City, New York, U.S.

Education Mount Holyoke College (BA), Columbia University (MA), University of Pennsylvania

Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965) was an American sociologist and workers-rights advocate who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. 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 L. Ickes were the only original members of the Roosevelt cabinet to remain in office for his entire presidency.

During her term as Secretary of Labor, Perkins executed many aspects of the New Deal, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration and its successor the Federal Works Agency, and the labor portion of the National Industrial Recovery Act. With the Social Security Act she established unemployment benefits, pensions for the many uncovered elderly Americans, and welfare for the poorest Americans. She pushed to reduce workplace accidents and helped craft laws against child labor. Through the Fair Labor Standards Act, she established the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, and defined the standard forty-hour work week. She formed governmental policy for working with labor unions and helped to alleviate strikes by way of the United States Conciliation Service. Perkins dealt with many labor questions during World War II, when skilled labor was vital and women were moving into formerly male jobs.
....

Early career and continuing education

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. In Chicago, she volunteered at settlement houses, including Hull House where she worked with Jane Addams. She changed her name from Fannie to Frances when she joined the Episcopal church in 1905. In 1907, she moved to Philadelphia and enrolled at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School to learn economics. After two years in Philadelphia, Perkins moved to Greenwich Village, where she attended Columbia University and became active in the suffrage movement. In support of the suffrage movement, Perkins attending protests, meetings, advocated for the cause on street corners. She obtained a master's degree in political science from Columbia in 1910.

She achieved statewide prominence as head of the New York Consumers League in 1910 and lobbied with vigor for better working hours and conditions. Perkins also taught as a professor of sociology at Adelphi College. The next year, she witnessed the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a pivotal event in her life. The factory employed hundreds of workers, mostly young women, but lacked fire escapes. When the building caught fire, many workers tried unsuccessfully to escape through the windows. One hundred forty-six workers died. It was because of this fire Frances Perkins would leave her office at the New York Consumers League and, on the recommendation of Theodore Roosevelt, become the executive secretary for the Committee on Safety of the City of New York. In 1913, Perkins was instrumental in getting New York to pass a "fifty-four-hour" bill capping the number of hours women could work. Perkins pressed for votes for the legislation, encouraging proponents including legislator Franklin Delano Roosevelt to filibuster while Perkins called state senators to make sure they could be present for the final vote. In 1912, Perkins resigned as New York secretary of the Consumers League to take the position of executive secretary with the Committee on Safety. The Committee on Safety was formed to increase fire safety following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. As part of the Committee on Safety, Perkins investigated the fire at the Freeman plant in Birmingham, New York in which 63 people died. Perkins blamed lax legislation or the loss.