The Only Woman in the Photo: Frances Perkins and Her New Deal for America

By Kathleen Krull Illustrated by Alexandra Bye

Reviewed by Susan Kay Phillips

The Only Woman in the Photo: Frances Perkins and Her New Deal for America, by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Alexandra Bye, is an exceptionally important story in these times. It vividly shows what one dedicated person can accomplish for the public good.

Many of us may not remember Frances, but she left us a legacy — unemployment insurance, Social Security benefits, workplace safety standards, and more. Amazing accomplishments especially for a woman in the mid 1900s. How did she manage such important and far reaching reforms?

As a young girl Frances certainly did not seem the right person for such a large role in history. She was quite shy and even had great difficulty speaking up to order a book at the library. Her grandmother wisely encouraged shy Frances. She urged her to always keep trying and gave Frances words for courage and guidance, “take the high ground if someone insults you and when someone opens a door to you, go forward.”

Though Frances was quiet, she was very good at observing. She saw things happening in her community that troubled her. There were hungry children, families caught in poverty, and Irish immigrants treated harshly because they were “different”. Frances longed to be able to help.

During her time at Mount Holyoke College, the direction of Frances’s life began to come more clearly into focus. Her history teacher gave Frances’s class an assignment to observe the dismal working conditions in nearby textile and paper mills. Frances was horrified by what she saw. Now she knew that she had speak up and use her voice to lead.

After graduating from college, Frances moved to New York City and became active in the newly developing profession of social work. It was there, in 1911, that Frances witnessed the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire which took the lives of 149 women, teenagers and women in their early twenties, who were trapped in the burning building. There were no fire escapes and the building managers had locked all the doors to prevent workers from taking breaks.

The Triangle fire was a pivotal event in Frances’s life. Now she became a dedicated activist. She visited more workplaces, collecting data on the dangerous working conditions. She presented her findings to the New York Board of Health. Her hard work was noticed by former President Theodore Roosevelt who appointed her to his committee on workplace safety. Now things started to happen. Soon New York City had the best workplace safety standards in the country, all based on Frances’s careful research.

Through all the work she was doing, Frances kept writing down ideas about reforms that she thought should be made. Then the opportunity came. On October 29, 1929 the stock market crashed ushering in the Great Depression. A fourth of the working people in the United States lost their jobs. The country was in a crisis of monumental proportions.

In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidency of the United States in a landslide victory. FDR had worked with Frances when he was governor of the state of New York. He asked Frances to be his Labor Secretary. Frances hesitated, realizing what a vast challenge this was. She knew she would face prejudice and criticism. But a door had opened. She remembered her grandmother’s words, “when someone opens a door to you, go forward”.

Frances met with FDR, deciding she would accept the job if she could pursue her own ideas in her own way. One by one, she presented her ideas to the President. Taken together, her plans amounted to a complete restructuring of life in America. FDR listened carefully and at the end of Frances’s presentation he said, “I’ll back you”. Frances accepted the job as Labor Secretary to become the first woman cabinet member in US history.

Frances went to work. She initiated many new programs which put millions of Americans back to work. Frances met with FDR on a regular basis, telling him stories of the new programs and how they were helping people. He continued to back her faithfully.

In 1935, Frances attained her greatest goal with the passage of the Social Security Act. Frances saw it as “a turning point in our national life — a turn from careless neglect of human values”… to a focus on the common good. Frances considered retiring from public life at this point, but FDR valued her too much to let her go. In one of her last conversations with FDR, he tearfully took her hands and said “Frances, you have done awfully well. I know what you have been through. I know what you have accomplished. Thank you.” Frances remained FDR’s Labor Secretary until his death in 1945.

After FDR’s death, Frances resigned and returned to private life. She continued to work for the many causes she supported through lecturing and serving as a visiting professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Frances died in 1965 at the age of eight-five.

Reviewer’s Note

Frankly, it is hard to imagine what life in American society would be like without the reforms that Frances Perkins and FDR created. Through her long tenure as Labor Secretary, Frances was the driving energy behind creating the Fair Labor Standards Act (maximum hours and minimum wages), the Bureau of Labor Standards (work place safety standards), the National Labor Relations Act (right of workers to organize and collectively bargain) and her crowning achievement, the Social Security Act.

When Francis died, the Secretary of Labor at that time, W. Willard Wirtz, was quoted in her obituary saying that “every man and woman in America who works at a living wage, under safe conditions, for reasonable hours, or who is protected by unemployment insurance or Social Security is her debtor.”

This photo above is the property of the United States government and therefore is listed to be in the public domain.

The above photo was taken on August 14, 1935, showing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law. Frances Perkins is the only woman in the photo.

Thank you for reading!

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