Top 5 Ways Frances Perkins Made Your Life Better

A descendent of Maine farmers and craftsmen, Frances Perkins served as U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945 and was the first woman to join a presidential cabinet. This trailblazer is credited with bolstering the American economy and its workers following the nation’s most serious economic crisis, the Great Depression.

As the woman who helped craft President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, she worked to create the modern middle class. She also advocated for immigrants and refugees, helping Jewish children immigrate to the United States during the Holocaust and launching the Civilian Conservation Corps that put many unemployed Americans — mostly young men — to work during the 1930s. The CCC played a major role building roads, trails, campsites and facilities within the National Park System, from Shenandoah to the Grand Canyon.

When the U.S. Department of Labor Building in Washington, D.C., was named for her in 1980, President Jimmy Carter wrote that Perkins “articulated the hopes and dreams of working people and sought untiringly and effectively to make those hopes and dreams a reality. … Through the force of her moral courage, intellect and will to bring about sweeping changes in our national laws and practices, she forever changed our society for the better.”

To further herald Perkins’ life and achievements, her 57-acre farm along the Damariscotta River in Newcastle, Maine, soon could become part of the National Park System. NPCA supports efforts by the nonprofit Frances Perkins Center to preserve her ancestral homestead as a national monument so the National Park Service can interpret her legacy in perpetuity.

The property had been in her family since the 1700s, and she retreated here often for inspiration and rejuvenation. The homestead includes an 1837 brick home, barn, ruins of earlier foundations and a walking trail system. It has been a National Historic Landmark since 2014.

Currently, the Frances Perkins Center operates the property and offers public tours of the home and barn, which have been preserved to look how they did when Perkins owned the property from 1927 to 1965.

Perkins became committed to labor policy after witnessing the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City while working for the New York Consumers’ League. More than 140 workers, mostly young women, died because doors to stairwells and exits from the garment factory’s 8th, 9th and 10th floors were locked — a common management practice to prevent employees from taking unauthorized breaks. Many of the workers jumped to their deaths. Afterward, through roles on the city’s Committee on Safety and New York State’s Industrial Board, she proved instrumental in crafting some of the first workplace health and safety laws in the country — including fire protection for factories and sanitary regulations for bakeries.

When President-elect Roosevelt asked her to be Secretary of Labor, she gave him a list of policies she would pursue — and she accomplished all but one, universal health insurance, before leaving office.

Perkins made sure the country took care of its people despite unprecedented economic hardships and a changing industrial age. Here are five ways she changed the American workforce, which we still benefit from today.

1. Created Social Security

Following the Great Depression, Frances Perkins expressed concern about America’s aging population and its struggle to live with dignity. Senior citizens across the country were suffering from poor living conditions and food insecurity. President Roosevelt shared her concerns, as did other cabinet members who also knew a government-led program could run into political obstacles.

Roosevelt appointed Perkins as chair of the President’s Committee on Economic Security, an opportunity she used to draft Social Security. She gathered scholars, actuaries and policy makers. Her committee studied models from other countries and replicated a system for workers to pay into an account when they are employed — an approach more politically palatable than raising taxes. Roosevelt announced their proposal in 1935, forming the basis of the Social Security Act that was signed into law that same year.

In a 1962 speech, three years before she died, Perkins said the idea for social security came “from that deep well of charitableness which resides in the American people.”

2. Established unemployment compensation

President Roosevelt and Perkins worked with congressional champions to design a program to assist workers who were between jobs and had a family to support. This program was hotly negotiated and made it into the Social Security Act, signed in 1935.

Unemployment compensation was considered a temporary cash payment to those who involuntarily became unemployed, a front line of defense against becoming dependent from loss of earnings. The Social Security Act also included programs that promoted the health and welfare of children.

3. Banned child labor

When industrial manufacturing massively increased in America at the turn of the 20th century, children often worked in factories and trades rather than go to school. Courts rejected many attempts to regulate child labor for decades, despite the societal concerns — including safety.

In 1938, Frances Perkins drafted the Fair Labor Standards Act, the first federal law passed by Congress to ban child labor. The law restricted the employment of children below the age of 16, except in agriculture or with parental permission. Additionally, the law prohibited anyone under age 18 from taking on hazardous occupations, such as mining or manufacturing.

4. Initiated a minimum wage

Another achievement of the Fair Labor Standards Act — a critical law under the New Deal — was a standard minimum wage. Perkins wanted to institute a “living wage” that covered the basics of food and housing. States had begun passing these laws, but Perkins thought more could be done on the federal level.

The original version of the bill called for a minimum of 40 cents an hour. After pushback by some members of Congress, that amount was scaled back to 25 cents an hour for the first year of the act. The minimum was raised to 30 cents in 1939 and to 40 cents in 1945. Decades of incremental increases brought the federal minimum wage to its current rate, set in 2009 — $7.25.

5. Enshrined the 40-hour work week

A weekly limit on the hours employees could work became another important element of 1938’s Fair Labor Standards Act, which also ensured employees were paid overtime if those hours were exceeded.

Perkins intended to improve workers’ quality of life — giving them a chance for a needed respite from intense manual labor jobs. The law limited the workweek to 44 hours, with a 1940 amendment further reducing the limit to 40 hours.

Fighting poverty for the country’s sake

Perkins died of a stroke in New York City on May 14, 1965, at the age of 85. Throughout her career, she recognized that fighting poverty improved the country for everyone.

She connected with the right people at the right time, navigating a male-dominated government to leverage policies to help improve the lives of those most in need within our country: laborers, children and widows.

If the home of this national leader joins the National Park System, it will not be the first park site in Maine to begin with the generous donation of private land. Acadia National Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument both were created with gifts of private property thanks to the philanthropy of conservation-minded citizens. Let’s see if Frances Perkins’ home is next.