FRANCES
PERKINS
Frances Perkins (1882-1965) was the first woman cabinet member.
As Secretary of Labor from March 1933 to July 1945, she also served
longer than any other Secretary.
Her biographers justly note that she overcame the restrictions
and prejudices of her era and established herself as the equal of
any person, in areas then virtually dominated by men. She was an
outstanding career woman, but more importantly, an outstanding individual
and a public official whose work profoundly changed the lives of
all Americans. She was the author of two books -- People at Work
(1934) and The Roosevelt I Knew (1946) -- in addition to
innumerable other studies and speeches.
She was trained as a teacher, and taught and lectured at various
universities throughout her lifetime. Her character combined a very
strong sense of "mission" in pursuing social justice with
a pragmatic, practical bent, which helped her to appraise the political
realities of a situation and get things through.
A good part of her effort was spent in advancing the cause of women,
but she was not a single-issue person. Women's issues seemed to
her to fit quite comfortably within a broader view of the situation
of all working people.
Her views were decidedly liberal. (Her enemies said she was a communist!)
And she valued individual liberty. That also applied to her own
privacy. As a public official for a good portion of her life, she
devoted her efforts without hesitation to enhancing the public welfare,
but she also insisted on keeping her personal life with her husband
and daughter quite separate from her public responsibilities --
and the inquisitive minds of reporters.
Frances Perkins was born in Massachusetts, of an upper middle-class
family. Her name at birth was Fanny Coralie, which she promptly
changed to Frances when she struck out on her own. But her surname
she retained, even after her marriage to Paul Caldwell Wilson in
1913. She did her undergraduate work at Mount Holyoke College, and
graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.
Mount Holyoke College was committed to the advancement of women.
While there, in connection with her course work, Frances Perkins
visited many local factories and came to develop a permanent interest
in, and compassion for, the problems of working people and the working
poor. This early experience seems to have sparked her mission to
improve the lives of the less fortunate.
In 1907, she became Secretary of the Philadelphia Research and
Protective Association. Backed by church and philanthropic groups,
the Association had been formed to help immigrant white girls from
Europe and black girls from southern states who were then arriving
in Philadelphia in great numbers, hoping to find work, but all too
often preyed upon or robbed. She issued a highly original and comprehensive
social report on the living and working conditions of young women
supporting themselves in a major American city -- a report that
helped her gain success in lobbying efforts to have stricter ordinances
passed for the licensing of rooming houses.
In 1910-12, she was executive secretary of the Consumer's League
in New York City. She lobbied for a 54-hour work week for women.
In 1911, she witnessed the horrible Triangle Fire, when 600 young
women workers were trapped by fire in the upper floors of the Triangle
Shirt Waist Company. The number of women who died in that fire was
146, many of whom leaped from the building to avoid the flames.
Driven by what she had witnessed, Frances Perkins intensified her
efforts in the area of factory safety. She became well known as
a social worker and active lobbyist for legislative reforms.
The year she was married, she spoke to an assembly in New York
which the New York Times described as "the first feminist
mass meeting ever held." The theme was equality with men in
marriage, at work, and in every area of human endeavor.
She organized women politically. As a campaign worker for Al Smith
during his candidacy for Governor of New York, she urged him to
speak to women voters seriously, and on the real issues.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as Governor of New York
in 1929, he made Frances Perkins his chief labor officer -- the
State Industrial Commissioner. During her tenure, she pushed FDR
towards the concept of unemployment insurance, and in 1931, she
took a trip to the United Kingdom to see if that country's systems
of unemployment insurance and old-age assistance could be adopted
in the United States. As Secretary of Labor, she immediately began
pushing for those programs.
Frances Perkins was named Chairman of the Committee on Economic
Security, established by FDR in 1934 to investigate social insurance
and report on its findings in 6 months. That report recommended
unemployment insurance and old-age insurance, but omitted health
insurance only because, in the words of Frances Perkins, "the
experts couldn't get through with health insurance in time to make
a report on it." After the Report of the Committee, she campaigned
for social security until its passage.
|
A Poignant Celebration
Frances Perkins' husband, Paul Wilson, suffered from chronic
mental illness and spent most of their married life confined
to mental institutions. On the day of the signing of the
Social Security Act, as she was leaving her office to go
to the signing ceremony, she received a phone call breaking
the news that her husband had wandered away from his hospital
and was lost somewhere in New York City. She went to the
White House for the signing and took her place immediately
behind FDR for the photographers and newsreel cameramen.
As soon as the ceremony ended she rushed to Union Station
where she boarded the first train to New York City. There,
several hours later, she finally located her confused and
disoriented husband wandering the streets of the city. |
In the remainder of her long tenure as Secretary of Labor, she
kept the cause of women at heart. She opposed the ERA, however,
even though she believed in equal treatment of women. Working conditions
had been so bad that she felt women needed legislative protections
in the workplace. She feared that ERA would unwittingly provide
justification for reversing some of the labor protections for which
she had struggled.
Frances Perkins quickly perceived that WW II meant a "most
spectacular change" in drawing large numbers of women into
the labor force, and into occupations previously held exclusively
by men. She felt that the war pressures were leading to some breakdown
of prejudices against certain types of women, such as married women,
black women, and older women. And when the war was over, she warned
that the gains made by women should not be reversed, but rather
maintained and accelerated.
After Frances Perkins resigned as Secretary of Labor in 1945, she
was quickly called back the following year to serve as one of three
Federal Civil Service Commissioners, a post she held until 1952
when her husband died, and she resigned 10 days later.
Thereafter, she continued to lead an energetic life of teaching,
public speaking and writing. At the age of 80 she gave a memorable
speech to the employees of the Social Security Administration on
The Roots of Social Security. She lectured at Cornell University,
although her health was failing, until two weeks before she died.
The best way of getting some idea of what Frances Perkins was like
is to let her speak for herself:
On machines and people:
"Whenever I see that picture which is becoming so familiar
of the great mechanical man who does things automatically
and can perform almost anything that a human being can perform,
I confess to chills of horror lest we become like him. We
are committed to the belief that the human race is not destined
for that kind of efficiency, but for an efficiency of the
spirit and of the mind. If this robot-man can release us from
chores like turning off switches -- all right, but let him
release us to be human beings and let us not develop a race
who are going to be patterned after him." Early speech
as New York State Industrial Commissioner, 1929 |
On her family and friends:
"I have had the greatest blessing any one can have, man
or woman. I have had a happy personal life. I have had the
friendship of a husband who has put a brilliant mind to work
on some of my knotty problems, and let me have the
praise. I have had a good daughter, who has grown
to girlhood without being a troublesome child. And I am thankful
indeed for the women who have helped me bring up my child
and take care of my home. There is no coin in which I can
repay those fine and loyal helpers who have worked for me
and with me in that intimate way." Early
speech as New York State Industrial Commissioner, 1929 |
On her promise to the public:
"I promise to use what brains I have to meet problems
with intelligence and courage. I promise that I will be candid
about what I know. I promise to all of you who have the right
to know, the whole truth so far as I can speak it. If I have
been wrong, you may tell me so, for I really have no pride
in judgment. I know all judgment is relative. It may be right
today and wrong tomorrow. The only thing that makes it truly
right is the desire to have it constantly moving in the right
direction." Early speech as New York State
Industrial Commissioner, 1929 |
On her first cabinet meeting:
"I was apprehensive and on guard at the first official
cabinet meeting. As the only woman member, I did not want
my colleagues to get the impression that I was too talkative.
I resolved not to speak unless asked to do so ... My colleagues
looked at me with tense curiosity. I think some weren't sure
I could speak." The Roosevelt I Knew,
p. 152 |
On the New Deal: "What
was the New Deal anyhow? Was it a political plot? Was it just
a name for a period in history? Was it a revolution? To all
of these questions I answer "No." It was something
quite different... It was, I think, basically an attitude.
An attitude that found voice in expressions like "the
people are what matter to government," and "a government
should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the
best possible life." Labor Under
the New Deal and the New Frontier, p. 2. |
On complacency: "It is
not the nature of man, as I see it, ever to be quite satisfied
with what he has in life.... Contentment tends to breed laxity,
but a healthy discontent keeps us alert to the changing needs
of our time." Labor Under the New
Deal and the New Frontier, p. 18. |
On the common man: "Very
slowly there evolved from these conferences certain basic
facts, none of them new, but all of them seen in a new light.
It was no new thing for America to refuse to let its people
starve, nor was it a new idea that man should live by his
own labor, but it had not been generally realized that on
the ability of the common man to support himself hung the
prosperity of every one in the country." People
at Work, p. 138 |
On decision-making in a democracy:
"This leads to a question -- if a great many people
are for a certain project, is it necessarily right? If the
vast majority is for it, is it even more certainly right?
This, to be sure, is one of the tricky points of democracy.
The minority often turns out to be right, and though one believes
in the efficacy of the democratic process, one has also to
recognize that the demand of the many for a particular project
at a particular time may mean only disaster."
The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 156 |
On occupational health: "No
one except the man who has been exposed to noxious gases,
dust, and fumes in a factory really knows what the dangers
of factory life can be. The continued existence of industrial
hazards, both accident and health, in our great American factories
is one of our oldest disgraces. Much has been done to improve
this situation but a great deal remains to be done, particularly
as new techniques such as those involving nuclear energy are
developed." Labor Under the New Deal and
the New Frontier, p. 15 |
On public opinion: "In
America, public opinion is the leader. It is our American
habit to arrive at what we think by talking things out together
.... These discussion centers are the actual birth places
of public opinion -- they are where the American mind, harnessed
to the American will, goes constructively and critically to
work." People at Work, pp.
37-38. |
On social good: "Our idea
of what constitutes social good has advanced with the procession
of the ages, from those desperate times when just to keep
body and soul together was an achievement, to the great present
when "good" includes an agreeable, stable civilization
accessible to all, the opportunity of each to develop his
particular genius and the privilege of mutual usefulness."
People at Work, p. 11. |
On social justice: "Out
of our first century of national life we evolved the ethical
principle that it was not right or just that an honest and
industrious man should live and die in misery. He was entitled
to some degree of sympathy and security. Our conscience declared
against the honest workman's becoming a pauper, but our eyes
told us that he very often did." People
at Work, p. 38.
"I had already had a conviction, a "concern",
as the Quakers say, about social justice; and it was clear
in my own mind that the promotion of social justice could
be made to work practically." The Roosevelt
I Knew, p. 10
"American sympathy is quickly stirred, and, furthermore,
we have the natural and old American habit of using democratic
and legislative processes to correct abuses and adversity.
The town meeting system of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries used this method. They put it simply: "It is
the sense of the meeting that the selectmen should provide
for the Widow Jones." The Roosevelt I
Knew, p. 16 |
On social security: "I've
always said, and I still think we have to admit, that no matter
how much fine reasoning there was about the old-age insurance
system and the unemployment insurance prospects -- no matter
how many people were studying it, or how many committees had
ideas on the subject, or how many college professors had written
theses on the subject -- and there were an awful lot of them
-- the real roots of the Social Security Act were in the great
depression of 1929. Nothing else would have bumped the American
people into a social security system except something so shocking,
so terrifying, as that depression. The Roots
of Social Security, p. 4
... and politicians: "The beginnings
of old-age insurance came about largely, I think, by the crisis
of the times, by the studies of some intellectuals and through
the impact of the old-age predicament, and of the Townsend
organizations on the politicians.
This, of course, is an important victory. Once you get the
ear of a politician, you get something real. The highbrows
can talk forever and nothing happens. People smile benignly
on them and let it go. But once the politician gets an idea,
he deals in getting things done. Many are extraordinarily
able in devising political plans that hold water, not only
in the matter of votes, but administratively ... They are
really the key to these situations in which we now deal.
The Roots of Social Security, p.
7 ... and academics:
[In setting up the Committee on Economic Security, they borrowed
personnel from other branches of government and from the universities:]
"We borrowed university people who, beginning in
July [1934], were on summer vacation -- quantities of them.
I didn't know as much about university people then as I do
now, but university people -- teachers and professors -- are
a problem in themselves. They have a great pride of opinion,
and they are quite vocal. They can give voice to their opinions
wonderfully, and they can write reports very readily. It takes
comparatively little time to write a report, but it is a different
thing to do what the report recommends." The
Roots of Social Security, p.14
... and the American people:
[Speaking to employees of the Social Security Administration
in October 23, 1962, at the age of 80, she concluded her talk:]
"And then began the great problem which
you have taken over -- the administration of this
act. Thousands of new problems arose in the Administration
which had not been foreseen by those who did the planning
and the legal drafting. Of course, the Act had to be amended,
and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended,
until it has now grown into a large and important project,
for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States
are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is
so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no
politician, no political party, no political group could possibly
destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system.
It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit
of the people of the United States. The Roots
of Social Security, p. 19 |
|