Perkins, Frances (1882-1965)

The first woman cabinet member in the United States was born in Boston to Fred W. Perkins and Susan Bean. Her parents came from Maine, but in 1882, her father moved the family to Worcester, Massachusetts, to start a stationery business. “Fannie” Perkins, as her parents called her, grad-

Frances Perkins, 1918 (Library of Congress)

Uated from Worcester Classical High School in 1898 and earned a B. A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1902.Before she graduated from college, she became very active in the National Consumers’ League, a leading reform organization fighting child labor and sweatshops. Perkins was a protegee of National Consumers’ League president Florence Kelley and credited Kelley with her professional development.

Perkins taught school from 1902 until 1907 but spent the summers at settlement houses such as Chicago’s Hull House and remained active in the National Consumers’ League. In 1907, she left teaching for social work, taking a job in Philadelphia. She took graduate courses at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1909 received a fellowship to attend the New York School of Philanthropy. In 1910, she received her master’s degree from Columbia University and became executive secretary at the New York City Consumers’ League. This position placed her in the center of reform efforts.

If there is one event that transformed Frances Perkins’s life, it would have to be the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of March 25, 1911. Although New York City was already the center for national reform efforts, the death of 146 immigrant girls in this garment factory fire galvanized the reform community. In the wake of the fire, Perkins led the Committee on Safety, bringing her close to politicians Robert Wagner and Al Smith and the New York Factory Investigating Commission (FIC). The FIC rewrote New York’s labor code and investigated working conditions. Perkins’s work with the FIC made her one of the nation’s leading experts on sanitation and workplace safety.

In 1913 she married Paul Wilson, a well-known urban reformer. She broke tradition by keeping her maiden name. In 1918, her husband suffered a mental breakdown, forcing her back into the workplace to support herself. That same year, Al Smith was elected governor of New York. Smith appointed Perkins to the New York Industrial Commission. She served until 1929, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) appointed her head of the commission. When FDR was elected president in 1932, he appointed Perkins secretary of labor, the first female cabinet member in U. S. history.

Perkins’s duties at the Labor Department were twofold. She had to professionalize the department and at the same time deal with the extreme conditions brought on by the Great Depression. In addition, as the first woman to head the department (any department), she had to cope with the sexism she found. That she was so successful at these tasks is a demonstration of her deep political skills and her even deeper professional knowledge of labor conditions. She gained the respect of Congress, labor leaders, and business leaders, making herself one of FDR’s key economic advisers.

Perkins played a key role in drafting important New Deal legislation: the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933; the Social Security Act and National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) of 1935, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.As the war began in 1941, however, Perkins saw her influence over policy diminish. FDR preferred to create temporary wartime agencies to deal with the wartime crisis. She was a strong supporter of organized labor and workers’ rights throughout the war years and deeply defended her agency from the temporary agencies. She resigned on July 1,1945, after serving as a cabinet member for twelve years, the longest consecutive term in U. S. history.

At sixty-five, Perkins was not ready for retirement. She served on the U. S. Civil Service Commission from 1946 to 1952. After her husband died in 1952, she was free to travel and became a more frequent lecturer. In 1957 she was appointed a visiting professor at Cornell University, a position she retained until her death.

Richard A. Greenwald

See also New Deal; Roosevelt, Eleanor; Roosevelt,

Franklin Delano; Secretary of Labor, U. S.; Works Progress Administration

References and further reading

Colman, Penny. 1993.A Woman Unafraid: The Achievements of Frances Perkins. New York:

Antheneum Maxwell Macmillan.

Martin, George Whitney. 1976. Madam Secretary, Frances Perkins. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Mohr, Lillian Holmen. 1979. Frances Perkins: That Woman in FDR’s Cabinet! Croton-on-Hudson, NY: North River Press.

Pasachoff, Naomi E. 1999. Frances Perkins: Champion of the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press.

Perkins, Frances, and Dean Albertson. 1977. The

Reminiscences of Frances Perkins. New York Times Oral History Program. Glen Rock, NJ: Microfilming Corporation ofAmerica.

Puckett, Patty Lou. 1982. Yankee Reformer in a Man’s World: Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor. Ph. D. dissertation. Michigan State University.

Severn, Bill. 1976. Francis Perkins: A Member of the Cabinet. New York: Hawthorn Books.