Frances Perkins

The first woman to serve in a president’s Cabinet is now the namesake of the building that houses the Labor Department, which Frances Perkins once led.

Appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Perkins pushed social reforms that millions of Americans rely on today, including Social Security, a federal minimum wage, unemployment benefits and the 40 hour workweek.

She advocated for New Deal programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Depression-era program that put people to work on environmental projects.

Before joining Roosevelt’s Cabinet, Perkins fought for worker rights in New York City and helped convince the state legislature to limit working hours for women to 55 hours per week. 

Perkins witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed nearly 150 workers, mostly women, spurring her advocacy for worker’s rights.

Perkins was in the minority in Roosevelt’s Cabinet in supporting refuge for Jewish immigrants fleeing European anti-Semitism. She convinced Roosevelt to combine immigration quotas for Germany and Austria, allowing Austrian Jews to have better odds of entering the U.S.

Perkins did not become a hero to women’s rights advocates, though, in part because she did not wholly embrace the push for the Equal Rights Amendment.

“The male historians of the ‘Mad Men’ era that came after her sort of began systematically erasing her from history, and then when the women’s movement came along, they never embraced her because she had an ambivalent attitude toward the Equal Rights Amendment,” said Kirstin Downey, a former Washington Post reporter.

— Rachel Frazin

photo: Getty Images