Frances Perkins

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:FrancesPerkinsAfterRooseveltsDeath.gif.jpg

Frances Coralie Perkins (née Fannie Coralie Perkins). (April 10, 1882 – May 14, 1965) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. 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 became head of the New York Consumers League, lobbying for better working hours and conditions. The next year she witnessed the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, which she later described as a pivotal event in her life. In 1913 she married Paul Caldwell Wilson. She kept her maiden name, defending in court her right to do so.

Prior to going to Washington, Perkins held positions in state government in New York. In 1918, Perkins accepted Governor Al Smith's offer to join the New York State Industrial Commission, becoming its first female member. She became chairwoman of the commission in 1926, and then, 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 masterfully 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 was also one of only two secretaries to hold their post throughout the entire FDR presidency (the other being Harold L. Ickes).

Image:Fcperkins.jpg

As Secretary of Labor she 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 position 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 Harry Bridges, the head of the west coast longshore union. 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. Following her government service career, Miss Perkins continued to be 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.

[edit]