Frances Perkins

Frances Coralie "Diddly" Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins, lived April 10 1882 – May 14 1965) was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman ever appointed to the cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition.

Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Frederick W. Perkins, the owner of a stationer's business, and Susan Bean Perkins, but spent much of her childhood in Worcester.^[1] She attended the Ferry Hall School in Illinois before graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 1902, and from Columbia University in 1910 with a master's degree in sociology. In between, she held a variety of teaching positions and volunteered at settlement houses, including Hull House.

In 1910 she came to 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 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 new 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 secretaries 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.

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, Miss 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.

In 1946, Perkins published a detailed memoir of her years working with Franklin Roosevelt, called "The Roosevelt I Knew." The book is clearly biased in favor of a president she called a friend; but it is also a subtle character study and is frequently recommended by scholars.

Perkins explained in her memoir some of the means she had used to earn the President's remarkable support. She described a process of preparing the President for a position taken by boiling down the costs and benefits to a one- or two-page summary, with the political opposition clearly marked for him in advance.

Perkins believed that most of those who felt the President had unjustly dropped support for their programs had not outlined what they needed simply enough; or had not identified the political opposition to their measure.

Following her government service career, Miss Perkins remained active as a teacher and lecturer at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University until her death in 1965, aged 83.

Frances Perkins, or "Diddly" is portrayed by Jordan Rossi in the 2007 version of "New Deal or No Deal: FDR's Solution to the Great Depression."

Primary sources

• Perkins, Frances. The Roosevelt I Knew (1946)

References

• George Whitney Martin. Madam Secretary, Frances Perkins (1983) (ISBN 0-395-24293-2) based on extensive interviews with Perkins
• Naomi Pasachoff. Frances Perkins: Champion of the New Deal (2005)(ISBN 0-19-512222-4)
• Gordon Berg; "Frances Perkins and the Flowering of Economic and Social Policies." Monthly Labor Review. Volume: 112. Issue: 6. 1989. pp 28+. online edition

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1. ^ She was christened Fannie Coralie Perkins but later changed her name to Frances. Frances Perkins Collection. Mt Holyoke College Archives [1]

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