January 21, 2025 • 39 mins
Frances Perkins was one of the most important Americans in the 20th century. She helped hundreds of people flee Nazi Germany and come to the United States when she was Secretary of Labor in the Franklin Roosevelt administration. As Hitler rose to power, thousands of German-Jewish refugees and their loved ones reached out to the INS—then part of the Department of Labor—applying for immigration to the United States, writing letters that began “Dear Miss Perkins…” A fascinating interview with Dr. Rebecca Graham. Episode 576.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hello, everyone, it's Professor Buzzkill, busting myths, taking names. And
you know, even though we know so much about certain
historical figures or certain historical events, there's always more to learn.
And usually even though we know a lot about historical
figures and historical events, a lot of myths are dragged
along with those people in those events. So it's just
(00:36):
so wonderful that we have with us doctor Rebecca Graham,
whose new book is Dear Miss Perkins, a story of
Francis Perkins's efforts to aid refugees from Nazi Germany. Doctor Graham,
thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You know, it is amazing. I mean, most historians know
about Francis Perkins. She broke record in the American government
in terms of breaking through gender barriers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,
but they don't really know about this. I didn't know
very much about it. I know vaguely about it. I mean,
it's just astounding that you have, first of all, a
(01:14):
labor secretary doing all this work in what is essentially
foreign affairs.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I've taught in college classrooms where I ask how many
people have heard of Francess Perkins, and it's like one
Who's seen Dirty Dancing where baby is named Francis after
the first woman in the cabinet. That's a direct quote.
But yes, in academic history audiences, people have generally heard
of her, and even that is new. People didn't talk
(01:41):
about her much between her death in nineteen sixty five
and when the Labor Department building was named after her
in nineteen eighty. In two thousand and nine, The Woman
Behind the New Deal by Kirsten Downey was just such
a popular book that it led to more attention around
(02:02):
Francis Perkins. And in that book down He had two
chapters on Perkins's involvement with the refugee crisis.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So my book is a book length.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Treatment of that story. The first one, and the Immigration
Naturalization Service was in the Department of Labor from nineteen
thirty three to nineteen forty. Perkins actually created it. It
was an FDR executive order, but it was her idea
to combine immigration and naturalization, which were previously separate bureaus,
because the focus of immigration had been deporting people during
(02:34):
the nineteen twenties. Basically, any time between the late nineteenth
century and the beginning of the FDR administration in nineteen
thirty three, and then in nineteen forty FDR transferred the
is to the Department of Justice, where it would stay
until September eleventh, right.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right, right, Well, you know, it just astounds me. It's
always just astounded me about Francis Perkins in that, First
of all, she's the Labors Secretary in the FDR administration
that's trying to recover from the Great Depression, where millions
of people have been thrown out of work. So you
would think that, you know, this woman has not only
(03:11):
has her hands full, but has the hardest job in
the cabinet.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
That was how she got the job was that she
had run essentially the Labor Department for the State of
New York, which had had the most extensive put people
back to work and unemployment insurance programs in the country
at the state level.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So that was how she got the job.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
But the Department of Labor when she became Labor Secretary
was actually the newest cabinet department, and they all lined
up in order of seniority, and she had the least seniority,
and that was just kind of fitting at the time
that the only woman in the room was also the
person with the cabinet department with the lease seniority.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, let's talk a little bit about her background in
New York. And of course in New York she's under
Governor Franklin Roosevelt, who then becomes President thank of Franklin Roosevelt,
and New York is among the state's hit hardest by
the Great Depression, especially in terms of job loss. So
how did she get involved in FDR's first state level cabinet.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
She first worked for the state level cabinet for Governor
Al Smith, and she worked for him for more years
than for FDR. She had originally come to New York City,
I forget the exact year, but in the nineteeneens to
pursue her masters at Columbia, and then she was out
(04:29):
of the workforce for a few years while she was
raising her young daughter, Susannah. But then her husband had
some serious health problems and she happened to be across
the street from the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire in nineteen eleven,
and that was what propelled her to work on workplace
(04:50):
conditions across the state, which became her job. And then
she did that for Governor Al Smith, and then you
probably know there was that whole where Smith wanted Roosevelt
to come run for governor because he wanted to be
president in nineteen twenty eight, but Smith lost, Roosevelt won.
(05:10):
They didn't have a good relationship after that, but their
industrial Commissioner labor investigator of Francis Perkins maintains good relationships
with both. So she came to work for FDR via
Al Smith.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yes, it's important to remember Al Smith because he was
a very big time presidential candidate, first Catholic to run
for office and things like that. So did FDR then
sort of learn from Francis Perkins rather than the other
way around. Rather than FDR barging in and saying, all right, folks,
I want to do this, this this in terms of
(05:44):
the workforce. I get the impression that she's the expert
here and that Franklin Roosevelt is the one who needs
to be brought up to speak.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
They learned from each other. He was good at asking
people for advice. She was part of a broader New
Deal coalition of people that he asked for advice, like
Harry Hopkins would be another example. But something that is
special about Francis Perkins is she was more than an
establishment democrat. She had been involved with the social work field.
(06:13):
She had been mentored by Florence Kelly forward the end
of the nineteenth century, and she worked with Jane Adams
at Hull House literally, so she was part of these
broader social movements. It was useful when I taught us
history in a high school setting for four and a
half years, because there's this direct strand between these events.
(06:34):
There's the formation of Pull House and the Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory fire and then the building of the New Deal coalition,
and Francis Perkins helps us to trace a consistent strand
of history through her eyes.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Well, let's remind us, especially those who from other countries.
First of all, what the Hull House was, and that
one that what the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
That's a great point.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Hull House was a settlement home co founded by social
worker Jane Adams in Chicago. Basically she was from an
affluent background where Jane Adams had been educated in England,
and she saw the British settlement homes and what they
could do for poor people.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Single women, knew immigrants who.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Literally needed a place to go, needed a place to sleep,
maybe have some education, learn English, and so upper middle class,
college educated typically women would volunteer thereafter college. So Francis
Perkins was actually teaching science at I think it was
called Ferry Hall and nearby Girls School in the Chicago area,
(07:37):
and this would have been around nineteen oh four nineteen
oh five. And in Chicago, she volunteered at Hull House
with Jane Adams, and that was some of her first
exposure to poor people in immigrant communities. She was not
from those communities. And then she moved to Philadelphia where
she continued some similar work, but she stopped teaching, started
(08:00):
on a full time basis working in social work, and
then she moved to New York City, which was how
she ended up at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, one
of the most influential fires in US history. It was
a factory full of almost exclusively immigrant women, many of
them Jewish.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It happens on a Saturday.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That's something a lot of people don't realize about the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It was most of these women's sabbath,
but they were working for their lives and a few
hundred died. And when I say that Francis Perkins was
across the street, I mean that she watched some people
fall to their death because fire naturally pushes humans out
(08:44):
people in that setday. I learned this by reading about
the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. They're more likely to die
by jumping than from the fire, just because the fire
is so painful. And they had organized, they had tried
to go on strike form a union before the fire.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
The employers had not listened to them.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And one of the many reasons why a lot of
preventable death happened was that they had gone back in
to fetch their where they logged their hours, because if
they didn't log their hours, they couldn't be paid, and
they were living literally paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So already, as a young professional is she's seen two
very very tragic situations. A the condition of the urban
working poor and also this horrible fire. And to see
the fire from across the street and see the people
jumping out of windows and things like that must have
been horrific. So everyone can understand I think how she
goes into FDR's presidential administration thinking that there really had
(09:46):
to be major labor reforms and major reforms to help people,
to help the urban poor and the poor in general.
So she works on that. But then very crucially, you
show she has a weather eye on thirties Germany and
she's realized that something has to be done there too. Now,
before I start blabbing on and start telling the story
that you should tell because you're the expert, let me
(10:07):
turn it over to how does she first get when
that things are really really going badly in Germany.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I won't forget to circle back to how she first
got wins because it is an interesting connection. But first
I actually want to connect the labor reforms that we
just mentioned to the immigration policy because.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
They are connected and chronologically that's more correct, So I
shouldn't have jumped ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, no, that's great.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She came into the labor department and she had several
ideas of things she wanted to do. The only one
that did not happen was universal health care, which obviously
is a story for later in American history. But she
wanted unemployment insurance she wanted, which would be the Social
Security Act of nineteen thirty five. She wanted to legalize
unions and strikes, which would be the Wagner active nineteen
(10:52):
thirty five, and then she had a lot of ideas
about the minimum wage and fair labor practices and those
would be it be in nineteen thirty eight act, which
I think is called the Fair Labor Standards Act. And
what had the Labor Department been doing before nineteen thirty three,
They had been using their resources to deport people, So
(11:13):
that was the connection to immigration.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Bee was not planning to focus on immigration, but on
her first.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Day at Labor she wrote that I think five different
men introduced themselves to her and said and introduced themselves
as being in charge of immigration policy. So she was like, oh,
my goodness, this is a humanitarian disaster, and also it's
not a well organized one. So she had a lot
on her hands immediately. At the same time, this was
(11:43):
nineteen thirty three, It was five weeks after Hitler had
taken power in Germany, and immediately there was a surge
of applications for immigration from Jewish people from Germany and
other people who had good reason to want to move
out of Germany. And the connection, I mean, many Americans
(12:05):
were following what was happening overseas. But the connection between
Perkins in Germany was a journalist named Dorothy Thompson who
was one of the first American journalists. She was actually
the first American journalist to report from Berlin on what
was happening in Germany. But Dorothy Thompson was a friend
of Perkins because she was married to the author Sinclair Lewis,
(12:27):
who had previously proposed marriage to Francis Perkins when they
both lived in New York. She didn't see him romantically,
but they remained friends and that was how she found
herself like at the same dinner tables in Washington, d C.
As Dorothy Thompson, who had direct eyewitness accounts from Berlin
under the Nazis.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, it is an amazing thing. We have to remember
that even at this time, even when the federal government
is even at that time the thirties, the federal government
is expanding tremendously, it's still small enough that it matters
who you meet socially and at who you know through
other departments center.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yes, speaking of people she met socially, Felix Frankforter was
not on the Supreme Court yet, but he was a
judge who spent time in DC, and he was one
of the people she collaborated on initially with ideas to
help the refugees, same with Julian Mack, who was also
a federal judge at that time, and they equipped her
(13:24):
with ideas that she brought to an early cabinet meeting
in April nineteen thirty three, where she proposed, I don't
know if you want to get into the archaic legal
proceedings yet, but she proposed accepting charge bonds on behalf
of refugees, which was something from the Immigration Act of
nineteen seventeen. It said that the labor Secretary, it said
(13:45):
he can accept charge bonds on behalf of refugees who
otherwise would become public charge or burden the economy. So
she wanted to do that, And the people who wrote
the nineteen seventeen Act were not expecting a female cabinet secretary,
but even more importantly for them, they were not expecting
(14:06):
a labor secretary who wanted to accept more immigrants, because
her predecessors had wanted to limit immigration and that was
a high priority for them.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Just fascinating, fascinating. So then how do the wins of
bad news, bad tidings from Europe start to reach her?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
She worked on a child refugees program between nineteen thirty
four and nineteen forty one. But that was her primary
involvement with the refugee policy until nineteen thirty eight was
really when more of the American public started paying attention.
But there was a child refugee program that came out
(14:46):
of her charge bonds efforts. She never was able to
accept charge bonds in exactly the way that she and
her colleagues had proposed in nineteen thirty three, but it
led to this child refugee program where most Jewish communities
could do the work on the ground to find homes
for these children, and then they would come in facilitated
(15:07):
mostly through not the Ions actually, but through the Children's
Bureau in the Labor Department was responsible for maintaining records
on them. The IONS, of course was also involved, and
there's tons of correspondents in the IONS files. But then
that was her primary involvement, and she of course had
many other things going on, like those nineteen thirty five
(15:28):
acts that I mentioned. But then nineteen thirty eight is
the year that my book opens with because there was
a lot going on that year.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
But in November nineteen thirty.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Eight, that was the Crystal Knox program in Germany and Austria,
and that sent many German Jewish adults to early concentration camps,
and it changed a lot of minds of Jewish people
in Germany where suddenly they wanted to leave more than
they had previously. So that also escalated the refugee crisis.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, we tend to forget because people, I think think
of Crystal Knocked as just a night of breaking shop
windows and things like that. It's not that bad, but
it really is a major dividing line between things getting
increasingly bad and then suddenly turning very horrible. Anyone who's
not paying attention to the Nazis before Crystal Knocked certainly
(16:25):
gets their eyes open by Crystal Locked. And anyone who
continues to apologize for the Nazis after Crystal Locked is
really morally suspect.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And Crystal Knock means knight of broken glass, so we
picture the glass shattering and there are pictures online, but
that also meant people's businesses, people's means of supporting themselves.
By that point, there were many many jobs that Jewish
people were not allowed to have in Nazi territory. And
also just the footage of the synagogues, like that's people's community,
(16:52):
that's what's meaningful to them.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
It was devastating.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So then how does Francis Perkins respond?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And then she came to the next cabinet meeting in
November nineteen thirty eight with several ideas, and one of
them FDR actually used immediately, which was to extend the
visitors visas of Germans already in the US. Perkins had
been suggesting that since nineteen thirty three. Was the first
(17:23):
time she mentioned it in the cabinet meeting, but he
actually announced that in a press conference in November nineteen
thirty eight, maybe it was early December. By that point,
he said that he could not in good conscience force
them out of the US.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So that was the one that happened.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Immediately, But then she also proposed several ideas that did
not happen. Nineteen thirty eight was a time when there
was more interest in the American public about the German
Jewish refugee crisis, so there was more support for expanding
the child refugees program. So she was active in conversations
(17:59):
that led to a bill the following summer called the
Wagner Rogers Bill, and that would have allowed ten thousand
additional German Jewish children in nineteen forty and then again
in nineteen forty one, so twenty thousand children totaled. That
did not pass Congress. It actually did not even make
it to the floor of Congress for a vote. So
(18:20):
that was one idea that she worked on.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Another one was the idea of settling.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
The Jewish refugees in the American colonized territory of Alaska.
That's a whole chapter of my book, and that became
the King Havner Bill the following year in nineteen forty.
So after the US could not allow more children because
it had to come from Congress, because that's where the
quota lagus were from. And I should circle back to
(18:47):
the quota laws in a second, but first, in nineteen forty,
the King Havner Bill wanted to settle Jewish refugees in
the colonized territory of Alaska. It had some behind it
in Washington because Secretary harra Icky's in the Department of
Interior wanted to expand economic development in the Alaskan territory
(19:08):
and also to protect it militarily from the ever growing
Japanese Empire.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
By that point, we.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Should remind folks that that Alaska doesn't become a state
and therefore subject to these quotas until nineteen forty nine,
So as a territory and or an occupied territory, like
you say, the government can kind of fiddle the books,
if you will, if it wants to bring in more
people and shuttle them through Alaska, even though geographically going
from Europe to Alaska is problematic to say the least.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Sorry to interrupt there, No, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I mean researching that chapter was a constant overlap between
Perkins's humanitarian efforts and then also like violent America perialism.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
It was really interesting to learn about that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I should circle back to the quota laws because why
were they trying to add ten thousand children, Why were
they trying to look for colonized territory. It was because
the the United States only allowed a certain amount of
immigrants from every country per year since the immigration active
nineteen twenty four, the Johnson Reed Act, and most countries
(20:12):
in the world there's only one hundred people per year.
I used to say to my high school students, has
fewer people that are in this building right now. So
Western Europe, it was like several thousands. Central Europe it
was fewer. Eastern Europe it was even fewer. And so
those quota waiting lists. By nineteen thirty eight, the waiting
(20:33):
list for immigrants from Hungary was twelve years long.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Wow. Again, that's part of the Eastern Europe division.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah, the quota laws were extraordinarily restrictive, and so legislative
efforts like Wagner Rogers and King Haabner were legislation that
came from people in the executive branch who collaborated with Congress.
Perkins was involved in Congress stations around both. Neither of
them happened because the quota laws came from people who
(21:06):
thought that the US should restrict immigration, and it continued
to do so.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, this is an isolation as Congress, after all, FDRs
has to deal with that for most of his time
in the presidency, and the backlash to.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
The New Deal really found its way into the backlash
against more humanitarian refugee policy. I have a chapter on
a resolution to impeach Francis Perkins, and it came from
the longshoreman's strike led by a communist immigrant from Australia
named Harry Bridges. Harry Bridges was not German or Jewish
(21:44):
or a refugee who was a communist immigrant from Australia.
And the Wagner Act had legalized strikes and unions, and
the anti New Dealers both in the US and Congress
were most unhappy with that, and they even though like
her name wasn't even on it, but they really identified
Perkins as the person they wanted to push back on
(22:06):
and even impeach. They attempted to impeach her literally for treason,
that was the charge, because they viewed strike as something
that could overthrow capitalism, and they equated overthrowing capitalism with
overthrowing the US government. So the resolution to impeach Perkins
(22:26):
did not succeed because as you just heard, that ridiculous,
but it really diminished her political capital. So there's a
huge difference in what she can do politically. From even
nineteen thirty four to like nineteen thirty eight, there were
these huge movements building against her and she received a
(22:49):
lot of hate mail, a lot of bad.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Press, and just a lot of challenges that must have
been very frustrating.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Oh yeah, now we can't give people the actual blow
by blow because we don't have enough time, and we
certainly want them to read the whole story in the
book because the details matter tremendously. But at what stage
does the dear Miss Perkins correspondence thing happen? This is,
after all the title of the book, and these are
(23:16):
actually letters written by individual people. This blew my mind right,
which I'll explain more in a minute. But people in
Europe are actually writing to her, not dear mister Roosevelt,
dear Miss Perkins, a cabinet member other than brother. This
fascinating me.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
She was not the only one that received these letters.
They were definitely also writing often to Eleanor Roosevelt, to
Henry Morgenthau, anyone that they thought might be a sympathetic ear.
They wrote to Roosevelt too sometimes, But those letters to
those other people.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Were not my entry point to the topic.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
I saw these letters for the first time in summer
twenty fourteen when I was doing an internship for the
Francis Perkinson her and they are located in the National
Archives at College Park, and there are about ten boxes,
and they start at the beginning of the FDR administration
in nineteen thirty three, but they pick up in nineteen
(24:16):
thirty seven, and they really pick up in nineteen thirty eight.
The folders are well organized until nineteen thirty eight, and
then nineteen thirty eight, nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty when
the I ands transfers, the folders are overflowing with letters
like historians say that all the time, and their boxes
overflowing like No, these are literally just so many letters.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
They're not only from the refugees themselves.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
They're often from people in the US who have a
loved one who's a refugee, like for example, Francis Perkins's
dentist whose name was Eugene Wiseman, and he literally writes
to her, I have the pleasure of cleaning your teeth.
And my cousin Andre was deported to a concentration camp
(25:02):
on crystal knots and Andre verity I had to trace
the documents with help from the Holocaust Museum. But he
actually survived in New Zealand, but he could not get
into the US, even though Perkins was a dental patient
of his cousin Eugene Wiseman.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, but that shows how people are making this connection,
you know that, like everybody who can get to her
in any way is a conduit for these letters, and
she really.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Had limited influence over immigration slots under the quotas, but
work visas were a way to get people into the
country temporarily and then to extend them repeatedly. So she
was really intentionally laid back on visa policy. Laid back
(25:50):
is probably not the right word, but she wanted people
to be able to stay and to be able to live.
I have a whole chapter on which I know you
also have a whole episode on which is the Von
Tratt Family Singers, and they had a mutual contact with her.
They knew a woman named Gertrude Ely who was one
(26:11):
of Francis Perkins's best friends. Like there's a portrait of
Gertrude Ely and Francis Perkins's home in Newcastle, Maine. The
von Tratt Family Singers contacted her through Ely, and then
she extended their visas repeatedly until they were able to stay.
Those were some of the Dear Miss Perkins letters.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, they're just astounding, and you go through a lot
of them in detail and show how the letters and
also the operation of getting the letters to her and
how she then is able to work through the visas.
It's astounding, But how does she then, I mean I
know this because I read the book, but no one
else will. How does she then take the requests and
(26:53):
put them into visa form if you will? How much
of it is the Alaska thing? How much of it
is the labor you know, we need a work force, etc. Etc.
And how much of it is the humanitarian effort?
Speaker 3 (27:05):
That part is the immigration Naturalization Service. So her commissioner
of Immigration until his death in nineteen thirty seven was
Daniel and Mcorbick.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
They were a power team.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
They worked really well together, like she would forward something
to him and they were always on the same page.
And then after nineteen thirty seven, James Hofftelling was her
Commissioner of Immigration, and so she would correspond with him,
or she would tell someone who worked for her on
immigration to extend someone's visa and they would do it.
(27:40):
Other times she would advise them on how to navigate
the system. It wasn't easy to navigate, like it just
wasn't accessible. People couldn't figure out what to do, so
she would personally write back to them, or she would
have maybe her secretary or someone who worked in the
ins right back to them for her and kind of
advise them. I mentioned Dorothy Thompson, who was a friend
(28:03):
of hers. She was a journalist, but she would also
Dorothy Thompson wrote to Perkins on behalf of refugees multiple times.
One time it was someone who she had crossed paths
with in LA and Perkins explained to Dorothy Thompson how
this particular refugee needed to go to Mexico and then
(28:24):
come back with a visa from Mexico, so that person
followed her instructions. So there was really a wide branch
of things that could happen. But I mentioned James Hoptelling,
who was the Commissioner of Immigration for the rest of
the time that the IONS was under Labor and then
when the ions switched to Justice. I actually just saw
(28:45):
these records at the FDR Presidential Library.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
But basically everyone was.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Like, yeah, he was never really good at the job, right,
everyone knew that and Perkins, and Perkins was like, yeah,
we kind of knew he was a legacy appointment because
his wife grew up with FDR or something like that.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
But again, it's this problem and a constant frustration that
she has to use all these workarounds to get people over.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I mean, you know, and it's deeply unfair. It's deeply unfair.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Like, yeah, in order to have like they had to
have a connection with her with someone else, and even
if they did, that was not an automatic immigration visa.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, it is astounding. Now again, we always try to
say to when again, when we're ever talking about this period,
the thirties and the lead up to the war for Americans,
that you know, there is a strand of kind of
realism in the isolationists standpoint, and they're saying, you know, look,
we can't help solve another European problem, another European war.
(29:50):
They have to solve this themselves. But on the other hand,
it must have been extremely frustrating for someone like Perkins
who actually sees the humanity Harrian crisis happening, and these
isolationists and congress are thinking, well, it's just a it's
just an internal European domestic problem, and we shouldn't get involved.
You know that that sort of thing is something that
(30:13):
the United Nations would later sort of partly handle, but
it would it would have driven me nuts and I
would have lost my temper innumerable times with these isolationist congressmen.
I just find it amazing that she's able to take
the energy that would be me losing my temper and
turn it into Okay, Now I have to figure out
these workarounds. That's how I'm going to get this done. Sorry,
(30:35):
I'm waxing sort of poetic about her abilities.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
But they are amazing.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
You're combining all the interesting strands here. I mean, the
isolationist congressman to a large extent represent the American voters,
and the American voters also.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Wrote to her.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
I mean, I've read her hate hate mail. I've read
a FDRs hate mail, like a lot of them. One
person who ended up in the introduction to my book
just because I was interesting, wrote to the head of
the Children's bureau in the Labor Department who worked with Perkins.
It was a woman named Catherine Lenroup. And he writes
that he is a professional rat catcher in Boston. His
(31:12):
job is like rodent control, and in alleys he sees
children who are orphaned and impoverished and emaciated. And he
is writing that in the context of the Wagner Rogers
bill to let German Jewish children come to the US.
(31:32):
And what struck me so much about this letter was
it Garners sympathy for the starving American children during the
Great Depression until it says, ps are you funded by
John Buller the rich Jews.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
So there was also.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Undercurrents of anti Semitism and xenophobia on bigotry under this isolationism.
But to a large extent, the Congressman represented the American people,
just like today I meant about Congress Shore.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
And like oh, and by the way, we should tell
people that the rat catcher basically says, why are we
trying to help people from halfway around the world when
we have these desperately starving and suffering children right here,
you know, American children right here that need to be
And of course Perkins has presumably answered in her own mind.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Well, we need to do both, which brings me to
the other great point you made about borders, because there
is this paradox where she ascended through what was by
all measurements, an extraordinary career, but she was not. I
actually would not describe Francis Perkins as ambitious. She went
(32:46):
to work because her husband could not, and then she
was propelled through all these levels by her care for
people in need, right, and then she gets to the
highest office that she has is held, or that any
woman has held in the US government up until that point,
and she finds herself limited by borders in a way
(33:10):
that she had not when she was working at more
local levels. So she saw, and I think just because
of her personality, she felt the suffering of immigrants and refugees,
and she found herself severely limited.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah. So my book is the story of her trying.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well even though it's even though
it's trying, and even though it's she's not as successful
as she would want it to have been, we have
to I mean, I generally don't do this because I'm
very anti hero warship people, historical figures are very complicated
things like that. But in many ways we almost have
to look at Francis Perkins as an American hero and
(33:49):
as in one of the early you know, an early
person who would have qualified or for nomination for the
Nobel Peace Prize, at least from the American standpoint, because
she kept trying so hard.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I think I have a healthy distance from her.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
I definitely heroified her when I was in college ten
years ago. This was originally my undergraduate thesis. I don't
heroify Perkins as much as I did when I was
in college, and this was initially my undergraduate thesis. I mean,
I find her fascinating. I find her to be an
interesting tour guide to all these important themes in the
(34:24):
nineteen thirties US.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I mean, really her whole life.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
From the eighteen eighties to the nineteen sixties. She is
grappling with relevant themes and social forces in American history.
If you're looking for someone to heroify, well, in my research,
I liked Dorothy Thompson. Like I just kind of have
a bias in favor of Dorothy Thompson the journalist. I
like her, whereas I wouldn't necessarily say the same. I mean,
(34:48):
I like Princess Perkins. I think she's interesting, but I'm
glad that I had a critical distance from her while
researching and writing.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Oh oh sure, sure, and we all do. And we
all need to need to believe me in some who
works on Churchill Studies, you know that's absolutely central.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Oh and then my other favorite is Hannah Arendt, who's
somehow my rabbit hole on her in chapter eleven never
got edited out.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
But like, I just like her.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
I know that she has some problems too, But Francis
Perkins is an example of someone who works, if you will,
heroically for something that doesn't directly benefit her in any way.
This is not going to help her become vice president.
I mean, I know that that's not possible anyway at
the time, but this is not gonna, in theory after
the war, help her become ambassador to the United Nations
(35:35):
or stuff like that. She is doing it for genuine
humanitarian reasons.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
And there were some there were some cabinet secretaries that
went on to become, like you said, vice president or
even president. I mean, Herbert Hoover was Secretary of Commerce.
He would have sat on Perkins's side at the table
at cabinet meetings if they were in the same administration.
But she had I think something I've realized as I've
thought about Francis Perkins's woman in politics was that she
(36:02):
had so many gender politics to navigate that she actually
was political.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
She was really a political thinker and a political actor.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
But she couldn't navigate politics in a way that would
prevent let's say, an impeachment hearing, or losing most of
her political capital through one instance, because she was busy.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
She had other.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Social dynamics and bigotry even directed at her just for
being female. Even though she was privileged in so many ways,
she had so many personal politics that must have been
so stressful for her, even just the way she had
to carry herself she went into and I mean, by
the time she became Labor Secretary, she was a very
(36:49):
experienced at sitting in rooms with men. She came into
the first meeting the weekend of inauguration telling herself that
she would not speak unless spoken to.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Wow, that's political, yeah, right, because you know, she has
to then continue to work with these people, so she
has to deal with their assumptions and whatever bigotry they
drag into the room with them well before we go.
You know, it's impossible to quantify these things, and I
don't like, you know, the sort of batting average interpretation
of history, but you know, in terms of the numbers
(37:21):
of people she must have saved, it must be very high.
For an American, you know what I mean. This is
not people from another European country taking people in which
where the numbers are much higher. But for an American,
she must be really one of the few who saved
enormous numbers of people.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
She influenced tens of thousands of refugees to find safety
in the US. That number comes from the Holocaust Museum.
I'm not a numbers guy, but the number is tens
of thousands, and we can't know the exactly Oh no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
But and by the way, the alocoust Museum does fabulous research,
so that's significant. That in itself is significant. Well, you know,
this conversation we've had just now is so rich, but
the book Buzzkillers is so much richer. There's so much
more in it. There's so much more detail, there's so
much more virtual context and background. But also explaining how
(38:12):
frankly doing the work and constantly doing the work kept
Francis Perkins. It seems to me going that was the key.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Thank you for having me on, Professor Buzzkill. I've listened
to many episodes over the years. I've probably listened to
the Sounds of Music episode three times. Actually I cited
it in a rabbit Hole that got cut. It's not cited,
but the von Traps do have a chapter in dear
Ms Perkins.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Well, there you go, Buzzkillers. There are connections between us
and everybody. All the cool cutting edge people in the
history field, so thanks again for coming on the show.
Thank you, and please everyone you know what to do.
When you go to professor buzzkill dot com. The book
is there. Please get it, please read it, and we
will talk to all of you next week.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Give TESTI
Hello, everyone, it's Professor Buzzkill, busting myths, taking names. And
you know, even though we know so much about certain
historical figures or certain historical events, there's always more to learn.
And usually even though we know a lot about historical
figures and historical events, a lot of myths are dragged
along with those people in those events. So it's just
(00:36):
so wonderful that we have with us doctor Rebecca Graham,
whose new book is Dear Miss Perkins, a story of
Francis Perkins's efforts to aid refugees from Nazi Germany. Doctor Graham,
thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
You know, it is amazing. I mean, most historians know
about Francis Perkins. She broke record in the American government
in terms of breaking through gender barriers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,
but they don't really know about this. I didn't know
very much about it. I know vaguely about it. I mean,
it's just astounding that you have, first of all, a
(01:14):
labor secretary doing all this work in what is essentially
foreign affairs.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I've taught in college classrooms where I ask how many
people have heard of Francess Perkins, and it's like one
Who's seen Dirty Dancing where baby is named Francis after
the first woman in the cabinet. That's a direct quote.
But yes, in academic history audiences, people have generally heard
of her, and even that is new. People didn't talk
(01:41):
about her much between her death in nineteen sixty five
and when the Labor Department building was named after her
in nineteen eighty. In two thousand and nine, The Woman
Behind the New Deal by Kirsten Downey was just such
a popular book that it led to more attention around
(02:02):
Francis Perkins. And in that book down He had two
chapters on Perkins's involvement with the refugee crisis.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So my book is a book length.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Treatment of that story. The first one, and the Immigration
Naturalization Service was in the Department of Labor from nineteen
thirty three to nineteen forty. Perkins actually created it. It
was an FDR executive order, but it was her idea
to combine immigration and naturalization, which were previously separate bureaus,
because the focus of immigration had been deporting people during
(02:34):
the nineteen twenties. Basically, any time between the late nineteenth
century and the beginning of the FDR administration in nineteen
thirty three, and then in nineteen forty FDR transferred the
is to the Department of Justice, where it would stay
until September eleventh, right.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right, right, Well, you know, it just astounds me. It's
always just astounded me about Francis Perkins in that, First
of all, she's the Labors Secretary in the FDR administration
that's trying to recover from the Great Depression, where millions
of people have been thrown out of work. So you
would think that, you know, this woman has not only
(03:11):
has her hands full, but has the hardest job in
the cabinet.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
That was how she got the job was that she
had run essentially the Labor Department for the State of
New York, which had had the most extensive put people
back to work and unemployment insurance programs in the country
at the state level.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So that was how she got the job.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
But the Department of Labor when she became Labor Secretary
was actually the newest cabinet department, and they all lined
up in order of seniority, and she had the least seniority,
and that was just kind of fitting at the time
that the only woman in the room was also the
person with the cabinet department with the lease seniority.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, let's talk a little bit about her background in
New York. And of course in New York she's under
Governor Franklin Roosevelt, who then becomes President thank of Franklin Roosevelt,
and New York is among the state's hit hardest by
the Great Depression, especially in terms of job loss. So
how did she get involved in FDR's first state level cabinet.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
She first worked for the state level cabinet for Governor
Al Smith, and she worked for him for more years
than for FDR. She had originally come to New York City,
I forget the exact year, but in the nineteeneens to
pursue her masters at Columbia, and then she was out
(04:29):
of the workforce for a few years while she was
raising her young daughter, Susannah. But then her husband had
some serious health problems and she happened to be across
the street from the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire in nineteen eleven,
and that was what propelled her to work on workplace
(04:50):
conditions across the state, which became her job. And then
she did that for Governor Al Smith, and then you
probably know there was that whole where Smith wanted Roosevelt
to come run for governor because he wanted to be
president in nineteen twenty eight, but Smith lost, Roosevelt won.
(05:10):
They didn't have a good relationship after that, but their
industrial Commissioner labor investigator of Francis Perkins maintains good relationships
with both. So she came to work for FDR via
Al Smith.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yes, it's important to remember Al Smith because he was
a very big time presidential candidate, first Catholic to run
for office and things like that. So did FDR then
sort of learn from Francis Perkins rather than the other
way around. Rather than FDR barging in and saying, all right, folks,
I want to do this, this this in terms of
(05:44):
the workforce. I get the impression that she's the expert
here and that Franklin Roosevelt is the one who needs
to be brought up to speak.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
They learned from each other. He was good at asking
people for advice. She was part of a broader New
Deal coalition of people that he asked for advice, like
Harry Hopkins would be another example. But something that is
special about Francis Perkins is she was more than an
establishment democrat. She had been involved with the social work field.
(06:13):
She had been mentored by Florence Kelly forward the end
of the nineteenth century, and she worked with Jane Adams
at Hull House literally, so she was part of these
broader social movements. It was useful when I taught us
history in a high school setting for four and a
half years, because there's this direct strand between these events.
(06:34):
There's the formation of Pull House and the Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory fire and then the building of the New Deal coalition,
and Francis Perkins helps us to trace a consistent strand
of history through her eyes.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Well, let's remind us, especially those who from other countries.
First of all, what the Hull House was, and that
one that what the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
That's a great point.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Hull House was a settlement home co founded by social
worker Jane Adams in Chicago. Basically she was from an
affluent background where Jane Adams had been educated in England,
and she saw the British settlement homes and what they
could do for poor people.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Single women, knew immigrants who.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Literally needed a place to go, needed a place to sleep,
maybe have some education, learn English, and so upper middle class,
college educated typically women would volunteer thereafter college. So Francis
Perkins was actually teaching science at I think it was
called Ferry Hall and nearby Girls School in the Chicago area,
(07:37):
and this would have been around nineteen oh four nineteen
oh five. And in Chicago, she volunteered at Hull House
with Jane Adams, and that was some of her first
exposure to poor people in immigrant communities. She was not
from those communities. And then she moved to Philadelphia where
she continued some similar work, but she stopped teaching, started
(08:00):
on a full time basis working in social work, and
then she moved to New York City, which was how
she ended up at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, one
of the most influential fires in US history. It was
a factory full of almost exclusively immigrant women, many of
them Jewish.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It happens on a Saturday.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That's something a lot of people don't realize about the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It was most of these women's sabbath,
but they were working for their lives and a few
hundred died. And when I say that Francis Perkins was
across the street, I mean that she watched some people
fall to their death because fire naturally pushes humans out
(08:44):
people in that setday. I learned this by reading about
the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. They're more likely to die
by jumping than from the fire, just because the fire
is so painful. And they had organized, they had tried
to go on strike form a union before the fire.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
The employers had not listened to them.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And one of the many reasons why a lot of
preventable death happened was that they had gone back in
to fetch their where they logged their hours, because if
they didn't log their hours, they couldn't be paid, and
they were living literally paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So already, as a young professional is she's seen two
very very tragic situations. A the condition of the urban
working poor and also this horrible fire. And to see
the fire from across the street and see the people
jumping out of windows and things like that must have
been horrific. So everyone can understand I think how she
goes into FDR's presidential administration thinking that there really had
(09:46):
to be major labor reforms and major reforms to help people,
to help the urban poor and the poor in general.
So she works on that. But then very crucially, you
show she has a weather eye on thirties Germany and
she's realized that something has to be done there too. Now,
before I start blabbing on and start telling the story
that you should tell because you're the expert, let me
(10:07):
turn it over to how does she first get when
that things are really really going badly in Germany.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I won't forget to circle back to how she first
got wins because it is an interesting connection. But first
I actually want to connect the labor reforms that we
just mentioned to the immigration policy because.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
They are connected and chronologically that's more correct, So I
shouldn't have jumped ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, no, that's great.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She came into the labor department and she had several
ideas of things she wanted to do. The only one
that did not happen was universal health care, which obviously
is a story for later in American history. But she
wanted unemployment insurance she wanted, which would be the Social
Security Act of nineteen thirty five. She wanted to legalize
unions and strikes, which would be the Wagner active nineteen
(10:52):
thirty five, and then she had a lot of ideas
about the minimum wage and fair labor practices and those
would be it be in nineteen thirty eight act, which
I think is called the Fair Labor Standards Act. And
what had the Labor Department been doing before nineteen thirty three,
They had been using their resources to deport people, So
(11:13):
that was the connection to immigration.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Bee was not planning to focus on immigration, but on
her first.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Day at Labor she wrote that I think five different
men introduced themselves to her and said and introduced themselves
as being in charge of immigration policy. So she was like, oh,
my goodness, this is a humanitarian disaster, and also it's
not a well organized one. So she had a lot
on her hands immediately. At the same time, this was
(11:43):
nineteen thirty three, It was five weeks after Hitler had
taken power in Germany, and immediately there was a surge
of applications for immigration from Jewish people from Germany and
other people who had good reason to want to move
out of Germany. And the connection, I mean, many Americans
(12:05):
were following what was happening overseas. But the connection between
Perkins in Germany was a journalist named Dorothy Thompson who
was one of the first American journalists. She was actually
the first American journalist to report from Berlin on what
was happening in Germany. But Dorothy Thompson was a friend
of Perkins because she was married to the author Sinclair Lewis,
(12:27):
who had previously proposed marriage to Francis Perkins when they
both lived in New York. She didn't see him romantically,
but they remained friends and that was how she found
herself like at the same dinner tables in Washington, d C.
As Dorothy Thompson, who had direct eyewitness accounts from Berlin
under the Nazis.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, it is an amazing thing. We have to remember
that even at this time, even when the federal government
is even at that time the thirties, the federal government
is expanding tremendously, it's still small enough that it matters
who you meet socially and at who you know through
other departments center.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yes, speaking of people she met socially, Felix Frankforter was
not on the Supreme Court yet, but he was a
judge who spent time in DC, and he was one
of the people she collaborated on initially with ideas to
help the refugees, same with Julian Mack, who was also
a federal judge at that time, and they equipped her
(13:24):
with ideas that she brought to an early cabinet meeting
in April nineteen thirty three, where she proposed, I don't
know if you want to get into the archaic legal
proceedings yet, but she proposed accepting charge bonds on behalf
of refugees, which was something from the Immigration Act of
nineteen seventeen. It said that the labor Secretary, it said
(13:45):
he can accept charge bonds on behalf of refugees who
otherwise would become public charge or burden the economy. So
she wanted to do that, And the people who wrote
the nineteen seventeen Act were not expecting a female cabinet secretary,
but even more importantly for them, they were not expecting
(14:06):
a labor secretary who wanted to accept more immigrants, because
her predecessors had wanted to limit immigration and that was
a high priority for them.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Just fascinating, fascinating. So then how do the wins of
bad news, bad tidings from Europe start to reach her?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
She worked on a child refugees program between nineteen thirty
four and nineteen forty one. But that was her primary
involvement with the refugee policy until nineteen thirty eight was
really when more of the American public started paying attention.
But there was a child refugee program that came out
(14:46):
of her charge bonds efforts. She never was able to
accept charge bonds in exactly the way that she and
her colleagues had proposed in nineteen thirty three, but it
led to this child refugee program where most Jewish communities
could do the work on the ground to find homes
for these children, and then they would come in facilitated
(15:07):
mostly through not the Ions actually, but through the Children's
Bureau in the Labor Department was responsible for maintaining records
on them. The IONS, of course was also involved, and
there's tons of correspondents in the IONS files. But then
that was her primary involvement, and she of course had
many other things going on, like those nineteen thirty five
(15:28):
acts that I mentioned. But then nineteen thirty eight is
the year that my book opens with because there was
a lot going on that year.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
But in November nineteen thirty.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Eight, that was the Crystal Knox program in Germany and Austria,
and that sent many German Jewish adults to early concentration camps,
and it changed a lot of minds of Jewish people
in Germany where suddenly they wanted to leave more than
they had previously. So that also escalated the refugee crisis.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, we tend to forget because people, I think think
of Crystal Knocked as just a night of breaking shop
windows and things like that. It's not that bad, but
it really is a major dividing line between things getting
increasingly bad and then suddenly turning very horrible. Anyone who's
not paying attention to the Nazis before Crystal Knocked certainly
(16:25):
gets their eyes open by Crystal Locked. And anyone who
continues to apologize for the Nazis after Crystal Locked is
really morally suspect.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And Crystal Knock means knight of broken glass, so we
picture the glass shattering and there are pictures online, but
that also meant people's businesses, people's means of supporting themselves.
By that point, there were many many jobs that Jewish
people were not allowed to have in Nazi territory. And
also just the footage of the synagogues, like that's people's community,
(16:52):
that's what's meaningful to them.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
It was devastating.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So then how does Francis Perkins respond?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And then she came to the next cabinet meeting in
November nineteen thirty eight with several ideas, and one of
them FDR actually used immediately, which was to extend the
visitors visas of Germans already in the US. Perkins had
been suggesting that since nineteen thirty three. Was the first
(17:23):
time she mentioned it in the cabinet meeting, but he
actually announced that in a press conference in November nineteen
thirty eight, maybe it was early December. By that point,
he said that he could not in good conscience force
them out of the US.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So that was the one that happened.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Immediately, But then she also proposed several ideas that did
not happen. Nineteen thirty eight was a time when there
was more interest in the American public about the German
Jewish refugee crisis, so there was more support for expanding
the child refugees program. So she was active in conversations
(17:59):
that led to a bill the following summer called the
Wagner Rogers Bill, and that would have allowed ten thousand
additional German Jewish children in nineteen forty and then again
in nineteen forty one, so twenty thousand children totaled. That
did not pass Congress. It actually did not even make
it to the floor of Congress for a vote. So
(18:20):
that was one idea that she worked on.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Another one was the idea of settling.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
The Jewish refugees in the American colonized territory of Alaska.
That's a whole chapter of my book, and that became
the King Havner Bill the following year in nineteen forty.
So after the US could not allow more children because
it had to come from Congress, because that's where the
quota lagus were from. And I should circle back to
(18:47):
the quota laws in a second, but first, in nineteen forty,
the King Havner Bill wanted to settle Jewish refugees in
the colonized territory of Alaska. It had some behind it
in Washington because Secretary harra Icky's in the Department of
Interior wanted to expand economic development in the Alaskan territory
(19:08):
and also to protect it militarily from the ever growing
Japanese Empire.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
By that point, we.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Should remind folks that that Alaska doesn't become a state
and therefore subject to these quotas until nineteen forty nine,
So as a territory and or an occupied territory, like
you say, the government can kind of fiddle the books,
if you will, if it wants to bring in more
people and shuttle them through Alaska, even though geographically going
from Europe to Alaska is problematic to say the least.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Sorry to interrupt there, No, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I mean researching that chapter was a constant overlap between
Perkins's humanitarian efforts and then also like violent America perialism.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
It was really interesting to learn about that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I should circle back to the quota laws because why
were they trying to add ten thousand children, Why were
they trying to look for colonized territory. It was because
the the United States only allowed a certain amount of
immigrants from every country per year since the immigration active
nineteen twenty four, the Johnson Reed Act, and most countries
(20:12):
in the world there's only one hundred people per year.
I used to say to my high school students, has
fewer people that are in this building right now. So
Western Europe, it was like several thousands. Central Europe it
was fewer. Eastern Europe it was even fewer. And so
those quota waiting lists. By nineteen thirty eight, the waiting
(20:33):
list for immigrants from Hungary was twelve years long.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Wow. Again, that's part of the Eastern Europe division.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah, the quota laws were extraordinarily restrictive, and so legislative
efforts like Wagner Rogers and King Haabner were legislation that
came from people in the executive branch who collaborated with Congress.
Perkins was involved in Congress stations around both. Neither of
them happened because the quota laws came from people who
(21:06):
thought that the US should restrict immigration, and it continued
to do so.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, this is an isolation as Congress, after all, FDRs
has to deal with that for most of his time
in the presidency, and the backlash to.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
The New Deal really found its way into the backlash
against more humanitarian refugee policy. I have a chapter on
a resolution to impeach Francis Perkins, and it came from
the longshoreman's strike led by a communist immigrant from Australia
named Harry Bridges. Harry Bridges was not German or Jewish
(21:44):
or a refugee who was a communist immigrant from Australia.
And the Wagner Act had legalized strikes and unions, and
the anti New Dealers both in the US and Congress
were most unhappy with that, and they even though like
her name wasn't even on it, but they really identified
Perkins as the person they wanted to push back on
(22:06):
and even impeach. They attempted to impeach her literally for treason,
that was the charge, because they viewed strike as something
that could overthrow capitalism, and they equated overthrowing capitalism with
overthrowing the US government. So the resolution to impeach Perkins
(22:26):
did not succeed because as you just heard, that ridiculous,
but it really diminished her political capital. So there's a
huge difference in what she can do politically. From even
nineteen thirty four to like nineteen thirty eight, there were
these huge movements building against her and she received a
(22:49):
lot of hate mail, a lot of bad.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Press, and just a lot of challenges that must have
been very frustrating.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Oh yeah, now we can't give people the actual blow
by blow because we don't have enough time, and we
certainly want them to read the whole story in the
book because the details matter tremendously. But at what stage
does the dear Miss Perkins correspondence thing happen? This is,
after all the title of the book, and these are
(23:16):
actually letters written by individual people. This blew my mind right,
which I'll explain more in a minute. But people in
Europe are actually writing to her, not dear mister Roosevelt,
dear Miss Perkins, a cabinet member other than brother. This
fascinating me.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
She was not the only one that received these letters.
They were definitely also writing often to Eleanor Roosevelt, to
Henry Morgenthau, anyone that they thought might be a sympathetic ear.
They wrote to Roosevelt too sometimes, But those letters to
those other people.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Were not my entry point to the topic.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
I saw these letters for the first time in summer
twenty fourteen when I was doing an internship for the
Francis Perkinson her and they are located in the National
Archives at College Park, and there are about ten boxes,
and they start at the beginning of the FDR administration
in nineteen thirty three, but they pick up in nineteen
(24:16):
thirty seven, and they really pick up in nineteen thirty eight.
The folders are well organized until nineteen thirty eight, and
then nineteen thirty eight, nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty when
the I ands transfers, the folders are overflowing with letters
like historians say that all the time, and their boxes
overflowing like No, these are literally just so many letters.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
They're not only from the refugees themselves.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
They're often from people in the US who have a
loved one who's a refugee, like for example, Francis Perkins's
dentist whose name was Eugene Wiseman, and he literally writes
to her, I have the pleasure of cleaning your teeth.
And my cousin Andre was deported to a concentration camp
(25:02):
on crystal knots and Andre verity I had to trace
the documents with help from the Holocaust Museum. But he
actually survived in New Zealand, but he could not get
into the US, even though Perkins was a dental patient
of his cousin Eugene Wiseman.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, but that shows how people are making this connection,
you know that, like everybody who can get to her
in any way is a conduit for these letters, and
she really.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Had limited influence over immigration slots under the quotas, but
work visas were a way to get people into the
country temporarily and then to extend them repeatedly. So she
was really intentionally laid back on visa policy. Laid back
(25:50):
is probably not the right word, but she wanted people
to be able to stay and to be able to live.
I have a whole chapter on which I know you
also have a whole episode on which is the Von
Tratt Family Singers, and they had a mutual contact with her.
They knew a woman named Gertrude Ely who was one
(26:11):
of Francis Perkins's best friends. Like there's a portrait of
Gertrude Ely and Francis Perkins's home in Newcastle, Maine. The
von Tratt Family Singers contacted her through Ely, and then
she extended their visas repeatedly until they were able to stay.
Those were some of the Dear Miss Perkins letters.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, they're just astounding, and you go through a lot
of them in detail and show how the letters and
also the operation of getting the letters to her and
how she then is able to work through the visas.
It's astounding, But how does she then, I mean I
know this because I read the book, but no one
else will. How does she then take the requests and
(26:53):
put them into visa form if you will? How much
of it is the Alaska thing? How much of it
is the labor you know, we need a work force, etc. Etc.
And how much of it is the humanitarian effort?
Speaker 3 (27:05):
That part is the immigration Naturalization Service. So her commissioner
of Immigration until his death in nineteen thirty seven was
Daniel and Mcorbick.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
They were a power team.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
They worked really well together, like she would forward something
to him and they were always on the same page.
And then after nineteen thirty seven, James Hofftelling was her
Commissioner of Immigration, and so she would correspond with him,
or she would tell someone who worked for her on
immigration to extend someone's visa and they would do it.
(27:40):
Other times she would advise them on how to navigate
the system. It wasn't easy to navigate, like it just
wasn't accessible. People couldn't figure out what to do, so
she would personally write back to them, or she would
have maybe her secretary or someone who worked in the
ins right back to them for her and kind of
advise them. I mentioned Dorothy Thompson, who was a friend
(28:03):
of hers. She was a journalist, but she would also
Dorothy Thompson wrote to Perkins on behalf of refugees multiple times.
One time it was someone who she had crossed paths
with in LA and Perkins explained to Dorothy Thompson how
this particular refugee needed to go to Mexico and then
(28:24):
come back with a visa from Mexico, so that person
followed her instructions. So there was really a wide branch
of things that could happen. But I mentioned James Hoptelling,
who was the Commissioner of Immigration for the rest of
the time that the IONS was under Labor and then
when the ions switched to Justice. I actually just saw
(28:45):
these records at the FDR Presidential Library.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
But basically everyone was.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Like, yeah, he was never really good at the job, right,
everyone knew that and Perkins, and Perkins was like, yeah,
we kind of knew he was a legacy appointment because
his wife grew up with FDR or something like that.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
But again, it's this problem and a constant frustration that
she has to use all these workarounds to get people over.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I mean, you know, and it's deeply unfair. It's deeply unfair.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Like, yeah, in order to have like they had to
have a connection with her with someone else, and even
if they did, that was not an automatic immigration visa.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, it is astounding. Now again, we always try to
say to when again, when we're ever talking about this period,
the thirties and the lead up to the war for Americans,
that you know, there is a strand of kind of
realism in the isolationists standpoint, and they're saying, you know, look,
we can't help solve another European problem, another European war.
(29:50):
They have to solve this themselves. But on the other hand,
it must have been extremely frustrating for someone like Perkins
who actually sees the humanity Harrian crisis happening, and these
isolationists and congress are thinking, well, it's just a it's
just an internal European domestic problem, and we shouldn't get involved.
You know that that sort of thing is something that
(30:13):
the United Nations would later sort of partly handle, but
it would it would have driven me nuts and I
would have lost my temper innumerable times with these isolationist congressmen.
I just find it amazing that she's able to take
the energy that would be me losing my temper and
turn it into Okay, Now I have to figure out
these workarounds. That's how I'm going to get this done. Sorry,
(30:35):
I'm waxing sort of poetic about her abilities.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
But they are amazing.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
You're combining all the interesting strands here. I mean, the
isolationist congressman to a large extent represent the American voters,
and the American voters also.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Wrote to her.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
I mean, I've read her hate hate mail. I've read
a FDRs hate mail, like a lot of them. One
person who ended up in the introduction to my book
just because I was interesting, wrote to the head of
the Children's bureau in the Labor Department who worked with Perkins.
It was a woman named Catherine Lenroup. And he writes
that he is a professional rat catcher in Boston. His
(31:12):
job is like rodent control, and in alleys he sees
children who are orphaned and impoverished and emaciated. And he
is writing that in the context of the Wagner Rogers
bill to let German Jewish children come to the US.
(31:32):
And what struck me so much about this letter was
it Garners sympathy for the starving American children during the
Great Depression until it says, ps are you funded by
John Buller the rich Jews.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
So there was also.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Undercurrents of anti Semitism and xenophobia on bigotry under this isolationism.
But to a large extent, the Congressman represented the American people,
just like today I meant about Congress Shore.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
And like oh, and by the way, we should tell
people that the rat catcher basically says, why are we
trying to help people from halfway around the world when
we have these desperately starving and suffering children right here,
you know, American children right here that need to be
And of course Perkins has presumably answered in her own mind.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Well, we need to do both, which brings me to
the other great point you made about borders, because there
is this paradox where she ascended through what was by
all measurements, an extraordinary career, but she was not. I
actually would not describe Francis Perkins as ambitious. She went
(32:46):
to work because her husband could not, and then she
was propelled through all these levels by her care for
people in need, right, and then she gets to the
highest office that she has is held, or that any
woman has held in the US government up until that point,
and she finds herself limited by borders in a way
(33:10):
that she had not when she was working at more
local levels. So she saw, and I think just because
of her personality, she felt the suffering of immigrants and refugees,
and she found herself severely limited.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah. So my book is the story of her trying.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well even though it's even though
it's trying, and even though it's she's not as successful
as she would want it to have been, we have
to I mean, I generally don't do this because I'm
very anti hero warship people, historical figures are very complicated
things like that. But in many ways we almost have
to look at Francis Perkins as an American hero and
(33:49):
as in one of the early you know, an early
person who would have qualified or for nomination for the
Nobel Peace Prize, at least from the American standpoint, because
she kept trying so hard.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I think I have a healthy distance from her.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
I definitely heroified her when I was in college ten
years ago. This was originally my undergraduate thesis. I don't
heroify Perkins as much as I did when I was
in college, and this was initially my undergraduate thesis. I mean,
I find her fascinating. I find her to be an
interesting tour guide to all these important themes in the
(34:24):
nineteen thirties US.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I mean, really her whole life.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
From the eighteen eighties to the nineteen sixties. She is
grappling with relevant themes and social forces in American history.
If you're looking for someone to heroify, well, in my research,
I liked Dorothy Thompson. Like I just kind of have
a bias in favor of Dorothy Thompson the journalist. I
like her, whereas I wouldn't necessarily say the same. I mean,
(34:48):
I like Princess Perkins. I think she's interesting, but I'm
glad that I had a critical distance from her while
researching and writing.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Oh oh sure, sure, and we all do. And we
all need to need to believe me in some who
works on Churchill Studies, you know that's absolutely central.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Oh and then my other favorite is Hannah Arendt, who's
somehow my rabbit hole on her in chapter eleven never
got edited out.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
But like, I just like her.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
I know that she has some problems too, But Francis
Perkins is an example of someone who works, if you will,
heroically for something that doesn't directly benefit her in any way.
This is not going to help her become vice president.
I mean, I know that that's not possible anyway at
the time, but this is not gonna, in theory after
the war, help her become ambassador to the United Nations
(35:35):
or stuff like that. She is doing it for genuine
humanitarian reasons.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
And there were some there were some cabinet secretaries that
went on to become, like you said, vice president or
even president. I mean, Herbert Hoover was Secretary of Commerce.
He would have sat on Perkins's side at the table
at cabinet meetings if they were in the same administration.
But she had I think something I've realized as I've
thought about Francis Perkins's woman in politics was that she
(36:02):
had so many gender politics to navigate that she actually
was political.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
She was really a political thinker and a political actor.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
But she couldn't navigate politics in a way that would
prevent let's say, an impeachment hearing, or losing most of
her political capital through one instance, because she was busy.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
She had other.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Social dynamics and bigotry even directed at her just for
being female. Even though she was privileged in so many ways,
she had so many personal politics that must have been
so stressful for her, even just the way she had
to carry herself she went into and I mean, by
the time she became Labor Secretary, she was a very
(36:49):
experienced at sitting in rooms with men. She came into
the first meeting the weekend of inauguration telling herself that
she would not speak unless spoken to.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Wow, that's political, yeah, right, because you know, she has
to then continue to work with these people, so she
has to deal with their assumptions and whatever bigotry they
drag into the room with them well before we go.
You know, it's impossible to quantify these things, and I
don't like, you know, the sort of batting average interpretation
of history, but you know, in terms of the numbers
(37:21):
of people she must have saved, it must be very high.
For an American, you know what I mean. This is
not people from another European country taking people in which
where the numbers are much higher. But for an American,
she must be really one of the few who saved
enormous numbers of people.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
She influenced tens of thousands of refugees to find safety
in the US. That number comes from the Holocaust Museum.
I'm not a numbers guy, but the number is tens
of thousands, and we can't know the exactly Oh no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
But and by the way, the alocoust Museum does fabulous research,
so that's significant. That in itself is significant. Well, you know,
this conversation we've had just now is so rich, but
the book Buzzkillers is so much richer. There's so much
more in it. There's so much more detail, there's so
much more virtual context and background. But also explaining how
(38:12):
frankly doing the work and constantly doing the work kept
Francis Perkins. It seems to me going that was the key.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Thank you for having me on, Professor Buzzkill. I've listened
to many episodes over the years. I've probably listened to
the Sounds of Music episode three times. Actually I cited
it in a rabbit Hole that got cut. It's not cited,
but the von Traps do have a chapter in dear
Ms Perkins.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Well, there you go, Buzzkillers. There are connections between us
and everybody. All the cool cutting edge people in the
history field, so thanks again for coming on the show.
Thank you, and please everyone you know what to do.
When you go to professor buzzkill dot com. The book
is there. Please get it, please read it, and we
will talk to all of you next week.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Give TESTI
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