April 24, 2024 • 47 mins
In 1958, Frances Perkins was preparing a lesson for her students when she received a call from the future…
In this episode, you’ll learn how Frances managed to make such an enormous impact in an industry dominated by men. She’ll also share the horrifying story of 140 people burning to death that inspired her life’s mission.
Start the episode now to join the conversation.
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Janet Parnes takes overlooked sculptors of the American evolution out of history’s dusty archives and onto the stage. Audiences hear stories from Frances Perkins, Dolley Madison, Deborah Sampson, and more.
Website: www.women-history.com.
Email: LadiesTell@gmail.com
Frances Perkins has been described as one of America’s most influential women in the first half of the 20th century. Yet she sits in the back seat of American history. Thank you, Janet, for keeping her story alive.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:28):
I'm Tony Dean.
And today we'll be calling historyto speak with Francis Perkins.
She'll be answering our callin 1958 at 78 years old.
If you're not sure who FrancesPerkins is, don't be surprised, but
I guarantee, you know, her boss'sname F D R Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The only president who served 12 years,who guided America through the great
(00:51):
depression and then world war two, hehas as many votes for best president.
As George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
as president during the great depression,he needed to put people back to work.
So who did he choose as his secretaryof labor for this critical position?
In the hopes of leveling the playingfield for workers being exploited
(01:14):
by robber barons, and the giants ofindustry, he hired a woman with the
capabilities to outsmart them all.
At that time, therewas no social security.
If you got old, you were either livingwith your kids or you were destitute.
Before leaving her post though.
Social security became a permanentsafety net for all Americans.
(01:35):
When ten-year-olds and immigrantworkers were working 90 hours a week.
Francis would have none of that.
She created a minimum wage anda limit of how many hours a
person could work per week.
She found a Wade stand up in a world,controlled by men to create fairness
for workers and get children from theirfactories back to the playgrounds.
(01:57):
Had she not been at FDR side,many of the safeguards that we now
take for granted may never havebeen legislated into existence.
Ladies and gentlemen, fellowhistory, lovers, and wares of
mother's pearls everywhere.
I give you Frances Perkins.
Hello, is that you,
Ms.
Perkins?
To whom do I have thepleasure of speaking?
(02:18):
Ms.
Perkins, my name is Tony Dean.
I am so excited to speak with you today.
I'm actually calling youfrom the 21st century.
The device that you're holding inyour hand is called a smartphone.
And it's kind of like, The modernphones that you have without all the
wires, but because of the improvedtechnology, it allows us to share
a record of our conversation todaywith people around the world.
(02:39):
And I was hoping that I could ask you afew questions today, but before I do, I
understand this is a strange introduction.
Can I answer any questionsthat you might have first?
Well, Mr.
Dean, you know, it's interestingyou mentioned the smart phone
phones are already smart for you.
It seems you might need anoperator in order to make a call.
So phones have become even smarter?
Yeah, I mean, , in our time, whatyou're describing, we might call that
(03:04):
a dumb phone, because they don't doactually anything, and they require
so many people to manage them.
But no, in our time, thetechnology is out of control.
I mean, these phones, they haveenough technology in them to run a
car, I mean, they can do anything.
They're pretty fascinating.
Oh my, this ought to be anexciting conversation then.
(03:24):
I do thank you for calling.
You see, I'm quite honoredbecause you see I am a nobody.
Oh, I am a professor at Cornelluniversity in the school of industrial
labor relations, of course, but,and I was a somebody, but in the
public eye, I am now a nobody, sir.
And yet you choose to call me.
Well, I have to be honest with you.
I have done quite a bit of reading aboutyour life and I can assure you that in
(03:49):
our time, nobody refers to you as a nobodybecause your list of accomplishments
have been like they're extraordinary.
They're so inspiring., when you talkabout everything that you had to do with,
FDR and social security and the thingsyou did for the 40 hour work week and
everything that you did for workers.
(04:10):
I mean, it's, it's magnificent.
But as, as I was reading and learningabout you, to prepare for this
conversation, it all seems to goback to this moment, this triangle.
Shirt Factory, I thinkis what it was called.
That was a big moment in your life.
Could you tell me about that?
Oh,
the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Oh, my.
(04:31):
Oh, my heart starts beating.
Five times in speed, normalspeed, the mere thought of it.
I was at the time, it was1911, March 25th, 25th, 1911.
I was 31 years old, I was living inNew York, , I had been working with
reformers in Chicago and Philadelphia,and moved to New York to pursue a
master's degree at Columbia University.
(04:53):
During that time I accepted aposition at the National Consumer
League's office, the New York site.
I was director there.
That put me into Tammany Hall andthe politicians at Tammany Hall, and
all of this has to do with the fire.
I started working with them, and the firewas An accelerant, you might say, to that.
I was taking tea with a friend of mine ina fancy apartment on Washington Square.
(05:16):
We heard the fire enginesrumble by, thorns blaring.
They were heading towards aplume of smoke in the distance.
Curious, I put my hand on my hat andgathered my skirts and started running.
I ran with other people.
We were all headed towards the fire.
I ran until I looked up,and then I could not move.
(05:37):
The Triangle Shirtwaist ManufacturingCompany was afire, I thought.
But it wasn't that paralyzed me.
It was the people.
People were jumping fromthe 8th, 9th, 10th stories.
People who were themselves a fire.
They ended up as rumpledheaps on the ground.
I remember a woman, she stoodat the 8th story window.
(05:57):
She took a couple of bills anda few coins out of her pockets.
She dropped them, then threw up herarms as if to say, I'm This is what I
amorth to them, and then she jumped.
Wow.
They had no choice.
It was all that faced thewall, a fire behind them, a
wall of air in front of them.
One hundred forty six people,mostly exploited immigrant
(06:19):
women, perished in that fire.
And I will tell you, Mr.
Dean, that fire set ablaze mydetermination to be a voice
for those who are mired inmisery and scared into silence.
I became a voice.
Unstoppable.
Now, the fire ignited publicoutrage as well as grief.
I learned that I could use thisin order to implement change.
(06:42):
So as a result of that fire weorganized an investigation, the New
York Factory Investigation Commission.
We were tasked with investigatingsuspicious workplaces for fire hazards.
Well, over four years.
We than 3, 000 workplaces, factoriesand processing centers and the like.
We took testimony fromnearly 500 witnesses.
(07:04):
We worked with the politicians in TammanyHall to pass 26 bills that improved life
for the working families of New York.
Boy, that's a lot.
That was a
It's one of those instances wheresometimes a deep tragedy is required
in order for change to take root.
Unfortunately, it seems like historyhas proven that is the case, that
politicians don't get a lot doneuntil there is the tragedy, , till
(07:27):
it's something that the public isscreaming about, and then they act.
what happened with this fire?
I mean, if the building's on fire,why don't people just walk out of
the building and not burn to death?
Why do they have to, like,,jump out of the building?
The eighth floor, I don't understand.
Oh.
Well, the, they were forced tojump because the fire laws were
either non existent or flouted.
(07:48):
For example, the exit doorswere illegally locked.
The owners were afraid peoplewould leave and steal products.
The the fire escape, which wasrickety to begin with, was broken.
The fire was coming up the elevator shaft.
So, of course, people ask,well, why didn't people take the
stairs when they've got stairs?
Well, the stairs are so narrowin such rickety condition
(08:11):
that they were not navigable.
So it didn't matter , what floorthey were on, they were trapped.
They were trapped.
firefighter ladders didreach to the 7th floor.
It is the people on the 8th, 9th, and10th floors that were truly trapped.
It was either face the wall of fire behindthem or the wall of air in front of them.
Wow.
So the firemen pull up in these trucks andthey can run the ladders to the 7th floor
(08:36):
and the people on the 8th and 9th and10th, I didn't know how tall this building
was, but on the 10th floor, people, theycan't even get down one floor because
the fire is, the fire's everywhere.
Cause I'm assumingeverything's made of wood.
Correct.
Correct.
And what happened in the, There wasan accelerant to the fire, there were
several of them actually, but one wasthe fact that the wastebaskets were
(08:58):
overflowing with fabrics and fibers.
People tracked them through the rooms.
That, that all became kindlingfor the ashes that dropped as the
supervisors flicked their cigars.
People could not descend the stairs,the staircases were decrepit.
The next question I was going to askyou is, with all of this flammable
(09:18):
material around there, are people walkingaround smoking cigarettes and cigars?
And I can totally see what you're saying.
You got these big wigs that are workingthese people to death and locking them
in this building, and then they'rejust flicking cigar ashes on the floor.
I mean, the place, there's justno laws against any of this.
No.
(09:39):
No.
So tell me about the peoplethat were trapped in the fire.
You said that there werea lot of immigrants.
, are they mostly women?
Are they older?
Are they younger?
Are they men?
Most of them were immigrant women.
Actually Jewish andItalian immigrant women.
And most of them wereyoung In their twenties.
We lost a lot of young people.
(10:01):
Young promising people.
At that time in history, so we're talking,you said, I think this was 1911, would
there have been, in a factory like that,would there have been younger women?
Would there have been teenage girls?
Oh, there were no child labor laws.
So families were so impoverished,they were forced to pull their
children out of school and putthem to work in the factories.
(10:22):
The children were working on machines thatwere far too cumbersome for them, too big
for them, it put them in terrible danger.
That is unbelievable.
So more than 140 people died there.
And what I didn't know is I didn'tknow that they would lock the doors
with them in there you just can'tlock people in a building in case
(10:42):
something like this does happen.
I mean, they need to have a wayto get out of a window or, a door.
That's unbelievable.
So anyhow, so now you've gotthis terrible fire, okay?
And you're in your thirties.
And at this point, you'realready working in government.
You're just not theSecretary of Labor, correct?
Well, I was Director of the New YorkOffice of the National Consumers League.
(11:05):
So I was not working in government.
However, That position put meinto, took me to Tammany Hall.
I was at Tammany Hall about once a week.
So I was actually trying to cultivaterelationships with the politicians.
Those infamous yet powerfulpoliticians at Tammany Hall.
Tell me about Tamy Hall.
What is Tamy Hall?
(11:26):
I understand that this is like somesort of group of politicians that
were very powerful at the time.
What can you tell me about this?
Well, Tamy Hall, they, it did constitutea group of powerful politicians.
Tam Hall was the seat for theelite of the Democratic Party.
So of course, as such, thebuilding reflected that the
building featured long dark halls.
(11:46):
Smoke infested rooms.
From behind closed doors youcould hear hollers, raucous
laughter, and hushed tones.
And the floors!
The floors were spotted with brown stains!
It took but a minute forme to figure out why.
You see, the politicians would chewtobacco, spit in them, this is platoons.
So the politicians in TammanyHall were generally characterized
(12:08):
as thugs, Bullies and loafers.
They did serve their constituentsand of course expected to be richly
rewarded, as you can understand.
I'm rubbing my fingers together.
But these politicians hada way of getting their way.
So I thought, I need to formrelationships with them.
How do I earn their trust?
(12:29):
I started observing them,gathering material I could
use with which to build trust.
One eye opening incidentoccurred, in an elevator.
Mr.
Dean, do you have time to hearabout the elevator incident?
Yes, please.
No, I'm on the edge of my seat.
William Selvester had been electedgovernor of New York, of course
with assistance from Tammany Hall.
(12:50):
Once the governor took office, though,the politicians discovered he was more
reform minded than they found palatable.
So they raised the call, Impeach the man!
Now there were sentiments on bothsides of the impeachment issue.
I was in an elevator withlegislator Hugh Frawley.
(13:10):
Of course, you never met Hugh Frawley.
You probably have not seenpictures of him either.
If you had, you wouldfind him unforgettable.
Hugh Frawley, he was a short man,five feet tall and four feet wide.
He had a reddish face andsported a checkered suit.
started talking about theimpeachment, clearly in anguish.
(13:31):
At one point, he looked down atthe floor and muttered, How can
they do this to the governor?
He has a family.
He has a mother.
Did you follow, looked up at me,grabbed my arm, and through teary eyes
blurted out, everybody has a mother.
I thought,
mother, who do men trustmore than their mother?
So, I replaced my fashionable,somewhat fitted clothing with
(13:55):
shapeless black dresses, loosefitting suits, and a string of pearls.
The press up to that point hadreferred to me as cute and perky.
That changed to mother.
Perkins.
was 31 years old.
So that is one of theclues that I gathered.
As material with which tobuild trust, which did pay off.
(14:17):
There's a very of the picturesthat exist in our time.
Every, whenever I see a picture ofyou, I see you dressed that way.
And so that was intentional, so that whenyou were dealing with these men That we're
chewing tobacco and spitting on the floorin Tammany Hall and smoking cigars that
when you walked in the room, they weren'tlooking at you as a man might look at
(14:40):
a woman, but as an authority figure astheir mother, that was all intentional.
It absolutely was.
Wow.
That's brilliant.
Those pearls get it done.
Don't they?
The pearls were , thefinishing touch, you might say.
So now you go into Tammany halland , this is literally the
boys club of all boys clubs.
It sounds, I mean, if there's blackstains on the floor, I mean, I can see
(15:03):
this, what this looks like in my headso clearly and you walk in and what's
the response that they have to you asyou're trying to, Get them to negotiate
and get them try to accomplish things.
And you'd mentioned these 26 bills.
I mean, what did that look like initially?
Well, they were leery of me.
Of course they kept their distance.
I had to approach them.
(15:25):
, so I spent time with them.
For example, instead ofeating in the dining room.
I would be out on the floor, rubbingelbows with them, them questions.
How are you?
Asking about any billsthat were being sponsored.
Developing conversations withwhich to form relationships.
It was not easy, and Ihad to play the game.
(15:46):
But that paid off.
Would you like to hear aboutthe 54 hour with Bill incident?
Yes, please, go ahead.
It was 1911.
For 10 years, the NationalConsumers League had been trying
to pass a bill that would limita woman's work week to 54 hours.
That would give her sometime to attend to her family.
Repeatedly, however, TammyHall had rejected the bill.
(16:08):
One day, out of the blue,Charles Murphy, the then head
of Tammy Hall, approached me.
Miss Perkins, we would like toreconsider the 54 hour week bill.
Resubmit it.
Now, of course, when I brought this newsback to my staff at the Consumer's Legal
Office, they were giddy with optimism.
I was well guarded.
You see, I knew the peoplewith whom I was dealing,
(16:30):
and my instincts were correct.
While the Senate and the Assemblymet to consider the bill, politician
Tim Sullivan tipped me off.
Ms.
Parkins, I know they are leading youto believe that they are inclined
to pass the 54 hour week bill.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is what they are going to do.
They are going to send that bill back toyou with an An amendment they know the
(16:54):
progressives will find so distastefulthat they will reject the bill.
While this is happening, thepoliticians will pass another bill.
, this bill makes it unlawful for them toever revisit the 54 hour week issue again.
So, The progressives reject the 54 hourweek bill, and when you try to present it
later, the politicians say, oh, we cannot,we consider this, it would be unlawful.
(17:18):
I felt my fingernails digging into thepalms of my hand, and my just grinding.
, you're trying to trick me.
Yes.
So I played the game.
I went back to the staff at theNational Consumers League office.
The politicians did send back the bill.
The amendment stated that the 54hour a week restriction would apply
(17:42):
to all women working in New Yorkexcept those in the canneries.
40, 000 women in the canneries.
So, I told supporters, the progressives,I told the progressives, approve the bill.
But Ms.
Perkins, it excludes thewomen in the canneries.
Approve the bill.
If I have to hang for it, I will.
So, to the chagrin of thepoliticians in Tammany Hall,
(18:03):
the 54 hour week bill passed.
Shortly thereafter, Charles Murphy Again,the head of Tammany Hall approached me,
ms.
Perkins, I will never again block abill simply because it is progressive.
Within a year, the bill was amended againto include the women in the canneries.
So as a result of this bill,440, 000 women had their work
(18:25):
week reduced to 54 hours.
I learned how to play with them.
Did you find that because you were awoman, that men were constantly trying
to trick you and pull one over on you?
Well, certainly.
Almost certainly.
They thought I was stupid.
Right.
Now, I remember when, as Secretaryof Labor, we were sworn in on
(18:48):
Inauguration Day, March 4th, 1933.
FDR called for a meeting of theCabinet Secretaries three days later.
And because of the crisis in thecountry with the depression, the
president had compressed the time frame.
So I barely had time to cleanup my affairs in New York and no
time to think, what do I wear?
(19:09):
How do I want these other cabinetsecretaries to perceive me?
Well, I wanted them to seeme as a quiet, orderly woman.
So I purchased suits ofblack, gray, and dark blue.
The hats are each, of course.
I was born wearing a hat, I say.
I determined that at the meeting,I would not speak unless spoken to.
When I did speak, I wouldbe clear and concise.
(19:30):
The last thing I wanted were thosecabinet secretaries rolling their eyes
at the woman who buzzed on and on.
The meeting went well.
When it was my turn to speak,the president asked for my
perspectives on the economy.
I looked at the cabinet secretaries.
They looked at me.
I began to speak.
Some appeared to besurprised I could speak.
Could speak.
(19:51):
You see, they expected very little of me.
Because they thought I was incapable.
I can totally see these menthinking, Oh my gosh, she can speak.
What's next?
She can read?
Right..
Correct.
Some of them learned,some of them never did.
Harold Ickes, the Secretary ofthe Interior, He had a saying, A
woman, a dog, and a walnut tree.
The more you beat them,the better they'll be.
(20:12):
Oh my gosh,
yes.
Yes.
Your ability to be calm and as you say,to go into this situation thinking, okay,
I've gotta be this quiet, orderly woman.
And even suppress maybe some ofthe the passion that you have about
what you were doing, knowing thatif you went in guns blazing, that
(20:35):
none of them would listen to you.
If you had played poker with anyof these guys, you would have
beat them all, because you were 20steps ahead of every one of them.
Thank you.
So then, so you're in the meeting and youstart speaking, and so what happens next?
Well, I shared my, it was verybrief, the meeting was quite brief.
My part of it was quite brief.
I shared my perspective.
The president asked me a few questionsand then we, then he moved on.
(20:57):
It was really, it wasnot a meeting for debate.
It was a meeting for the cabinetsecretaries to come together , to become
familiar with each other and to reallyshare their perspectives, particularly
on the economy because of the crisisthe country was in, the depression.
Let me ask you something about that.
So, FDR, Franklin Delano Rooseveltis, his reputation is phenomenal.
(21:23):
I mean, he, an incredible president.
One of the best, for sure.
And here you are, as you'retalking right now, it's 1933.
So we're in the middle ofthe Great Depression, right?
Because the Depressionis 29 to 41, I think.
So we're in the middle of that.
The world is a mess.
Or not the world, but thenation is kind of a mess.
(21:44):
And FDR, decides that he's going to bringan The first woman into a presidential
cabinet, because you are the first womanin a presidential cabinet, correct?
Correct.
He decides that he's going to bringthe first woman in the history of
the United States to be in chargeof the biggest problem that we have.
(22:06):
People need jobs.
You're the Secretary of Labor.
Did he trust you that much?
Because from the outside, you almost gota, if I didn't know what happened next,
in the moment, I could almost see wherethis is such an impossible task, where you
look at it like, he's almost looking wherehe could bring somebody in, so that when
they fail, there'd be somebody to blame.
There's a lot of politicians thatwould do something like that.
(22:27):
But why did he bring you in?
Well, we had, remember,we had a bit of history.
I can understand your thinking.
That it's, it may sound as if he closedhis eyes and plucked someone to be the
Secretary of Labor, and oh, she's a woman.
But, first of all, he wantedto have a woman in government.
He saw the potential in women.
He, remember, he also had apowerful, smart, capable wife.
(22:51):
Ah, that's right.
And the President and I hada bit of history together.
You see, President Roosevelt wasonce Governor Roosevelt of New York.
When he took over the helm asGovernor, I had been placed on
the state's Industrial Commission.
The Industrial Commission oversawindustry and labor for the state.
Governor Al Smith had appointedme to that position, and I was the
(23:13):
first woman to serve in that role.
So I've been serving in thatrole for 10 years, when President
Roosevelt became governor.
He promoted me to the head of theIndustrial Commission, and that was
essentially the head of the Departmentof Labor for the state of New York.
Okay.
So he knew my capabilities.
So
, by the time he's president, and heneeds somebody to be the Secretary
(23:36):
of Labor, and he's trying to figureout somebody that can trust, He's
not wondering how you're going to do.
He's already seen you in action.
And I'm guessing as you were on thestate industrial commission in New
York I'm guessing that you probablyaccomplished a lot during that time.
Otherwise he wouldn't haveplucked you out of that position.
So, he already trusts you at that point.
He did.
(23:57):
He knew we could trust me.
In fact, as president, he spoke tome in a way that he did not other
members of the administration.
He said, Francis, I can trust you.
You're the only one whodoesn't have an axe to grind.
We had a lovely relationship.
He was probably thinking you're theonly one that doesn't have an axe
to grind, and you're also the onlyone that doesn't spit tobacco on the
(24:18):
floor, and he probably liked that too.
He probably did.
I'm sure he did.
So you had a specialrelationship with him.
I did.
Now, I have to guess that if he pullsyou in 1933 for, arguably is the most
important job at that time outside of his.
People needed jobs.
(24:39):
We're in the Great Depression.
And he pulls you in, which itwould be a challenge for him
to get a woman on the cast.
And yet, he pulls you in, he'sgot to trust you implicitly.
But I have to guess that everybodyelse did not feel the same way.
And, was that a real challenge?
Oh, it was.
Oh, it most certainly was.
I did have my allies, Mr.
(25:00):
Joe Lubin being one of them.
He was head of the Bureauof Labor Statistics.
I put him in that position.
There were others as well.
Pell Dickies, of course,was not one of them.
Henry Wallace was theSecretary of Agriculture.
He was an ally.
I had a few allies.
Actually, also, Supreme Court JusticeLouis Brandeis was also an ally.
(25:20):
Most of the men were, it wasvery difficult to deal with them.
I knew from the outset it would be.
For I've experienced in New York.
In addition, the first clue came my firstday as cabinet secretary of labor, not
a single other cabinet secretary duckedout of his office to to say as much
as how do you do, I knew this would bea lonely journey and a difficult one.
(25:42):
I can picture you in this joband clearly you are qualified.
You are.
Extremely educated and you have, youactually have the on the job history
that you spent time with FDR when he wasgovernor and you're just a steady flow
of accomplishing things for the people.
(26:03):
And I'll bet that as you are having theseconversations with some of these men
that, I don't know, maybe you've beenin their seats for a long time, as they
see you come in and negotiate and theysee you coming in and speaking as, as
well as you do, you probably could seethis look on their face like, Okay, like
she's actually a formidable opponent.
(26:24):
I mean they probably stunned.
Some of them were.
This brings to mind a story fromthe Civilian Conservation Corps.
That was one of the veryearly New Deal programs.
It targeted young, Unemployed men.
, the president said, I'm going tohave the federal government hire
these men and put them to work inthe woods to care for the land.
(26:45):
. I put together a program and I , Ipresented this proposal to Congress.
They were actually quitealmost excited about it.
They were quite receptive to the idea.
And after the session, anattendee passed on a comment
made by one of the congressmen.
Frances Perkins did awful well.
She's awful smart, but Iwant to be married to her.
(27:05):
So there was that, they looked at me asa, in a stereotypical woman role, and
yet had to acknowledge the fact that Iwas an accomplished, I don't even like to
say politician, but I was an accomplishedadvocate for the working person.
I think this might be one thing that wehave in common, , because there's a lot
of people, when they meet me, they'relike, Tony's a lot of fun to talk to,
(27:27):
he's got some interesting ideas, but,I pray for his wife, because I think
he'd be difficult to be married to, , Ithink we both have this in common.
I'm not sure she wouldagree with that, Mr.
Dean.
I'm not sure
your wife would agree with that.
Maybe she'll be your next call.
And you'll have to see for yourself.
So tell me about the new deal.
You're the secretaryof labor and that's it.
(27:49):
We're going to put people back to work.
So what did this look like?
What role did you play in all of this?
Well, the new deal, of course, it's,It was very broad in its scope.
I had my fingers into different programs.
There were three in particular, though.
One was the Civilian ConservationCorps, the second was Social
Security Act, and the third was theFair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
(28:13):
Purpose of the New Deal was tofortify and stabilize the economy.
The desired effect from that would bethat people, would be back to work,
and , that would keep the economy going.
So the New Deal really focused on bringingpeople back to work, as you had said.
One way was through theCivilian Conservation Corps.
Through that program the young unemployedmen, and some women, They planted 3.
(28:37):
5 billion trees on barren land.
They created more than 700 new stateparks and restored endless acres of land.
Wow.
, , four months after the Presidentand I first spoke about this
program, there were 1, 400 campsand 300, 000 men and women enlisted
so the new deal was at first puttingpeople to work back on the country.
(28:58):
I mean , even as simple as plantingtrees is putting, them to work
on making our country better.
Yes.
So
was that something you were involved with?
Like the idea of planting all these trees?
Yes.
The president had the idea forthe federal government to hire
young men to work the land.
He had me design the program.
So I can tell you the basicsof the program I designed.
(29:19):
Yeah, tell me.
I'd love to hear
it.
The CCC will be open to unemployed,unmarried men ages 18 to 22.
At age would later be extended to 28.
The men will be paid 30 a month, 22 ofthat will be sent home to their families.
The government would provide food,lodging, clothing, and transportation.
(29:42):
Of course that raised the question,who's going to administer this?
Who's going to, who is equippedto distribute such goods to
hundreds of thousands of people?
Yeah.
The army, of course.
So the army became a critical component.
And what would these men do in the woods?
They'd plant trees, buildbridges, dams, and fire towers.
They'd build wildlife refugees, restorenational parks, beautify national parks.
(30:07):
That was the gist of the programthat I presented to Congress.
That's fantastic.
You know what this remindsme of a little bit?
I had this conversation with Ulysses S.
Grant and he was talking about how when,when the army wasn't fighting that he
would have them digging something ordoing something because if they weren't
doing something useful, then theywere absolutely involved in mischief.
(30:31):
This kind of sounds like that a littlebit, we definitely need trees, but at
the same time, if people aren't doingsomething useful, they're doing something
bad, and I wonder if something as simpleas planting trees and, and, cleaning up
state parks and creating state parks,give them some sort of pride that led
to the next thing that was more useful.
Oh, that's absolutely true, Mr.
(30:52):
Dean.
Absolutely true.
The president not only wanted theseyoung men to have a job, but he
thought that they would gain something.
More than a paycheck.
He said, this will build their confidence.
It will teach them new skills.
He added, it will also instillin them a reverence for the land.
No, Francis, he said, wedon't want another dust bowl.
(31:15):
So, both the participants and.
The country benefited from theCivilian Conservation Corps.
The Corps ran for six years, 1932 to 1939.
So simple and so useful.
I mean we, unfortunately in this time,you have a very small group of people that
provide service in that way to the nation.
(31:37):
And, you can just see that if, like,everybody had to spend time doing
something like that, that there wouldbe some sort of pride, not only for the
work that they've completed but also,just in the nation, that, hey, this
is my nation this is actually mine.
I mean, those people would driveby those parks on their way to work
or, and I'm sure they would see themand they would have pride that I
(31:59):
did that as those trees got bigger.
That's really neat.
When you were talking about the 54hour work week for women, how many
hours were they working before that?
Oh, they worked 16 hourdays, six days a week.
The 54 hour work week was asignificant reduction in time.
You would forget whatyour family looked like.
If you worked 16 hours a day, sixdays a week, you'd be so tired.
(32:22):
You just have to sleepthat whole seventh day.
You would.
And the interesting thing is they notonly worked so many hours, but they could
barely afford to put food on the table.
The wages were so scanty.
Yeah, that sounds really terrible.
And so that brings us to wages.
At some point in your life, youstarted fighting for minimum wage.
(32:43):
Yes.
Tell me about that.
What was the plan there?
Well, the, when the president Rooseveltwas governor of New York, we instituted
a minimum wage for the state of New York.
Then in 1938, through the FairLabor Standards Act, the minimum
wage was applied to the country.
There's a bit of a storybehind that as well.
When the Fair Labor Standards Act,that, that act forbade child labor,
(33:07):
it instituted a 40 hour work weekand a minimum wage, it also gave
workers the right to organize.
Four of the many goals that I had.
It was, of course, fist thumping choicewords and grudging compromise as this
bill wended its way through Congress.
And that was certainlytrue of the minimum wage.
(33:27):
I did not see a national minimumwage as being the best route to take.
I did not see a national minimum wageas being feasible or the most effective
way of implementing this principle.
The cost of living differs indifferent parts of the country.
I wanted to create regional boards.
These boards would decide upon theappropriate minimum wage for their region.
(33:49):
However the union shot backno national minimum wage.
The Northern Congress implemented.
If the minimum wage in Georgiais less than that in New York,
companies will move South.
Well, I knew that wouldn't happenfor an FDR and I implemented
the minimum wage in New York.
Puppies didn't leave the state.
However, . If you want to turnthe wheel, you have to give
(34:09):
it a little bit of grease.
So we negotiated on a nationalminimum wage of 25 cents an hour.
That wasn't ideal for a cost of familyof four twice that in order to live.
However, that 25 cents an hour, Mr.
Dean, it represented a pay increasefor the most exploited workers.
In addition, it gave all workers theassurance that they would be paid at least
(34:32):
25 cents an hour for each hour worked.
before there were child labor acts andthere was some sort of minimum for that.
Like how young would a youngestchild be working in a factory?
Would they put a 6-year-old to work?
Under the age of 10?
They would, I don't,I'm not sure about six.
But eight, ten years old, certainly.
Eight or ten years oldsometime, that's amazing.
(34:55):
Yeah.
Okay, good.
I'm glad you figured that one out,because we don't need to have eight year
olds working, or ten year olds working.
Like, they need to be outsideplaying with other ten year olds.
They absolutely do.
They absolutely do.
There's a poem that waswritten by a Sarah M.
Clughorn.
It's called Little Toilers.
The golf links lie so near to Mills, thatnearly every day, the labored children
(35:20):
can look out and see the men at play.
Oh, man.
Isn't that cool with your hot strings?
Oh, do you feel somethingwhen you hear that, or what?
I'm so glad that wassomething you figured out.
Kids do not need to be working that young.
That's amazing.
So, as soon as you changed thehourly wage, now everybody's
(35:42):
getting 25 cents an hour.
Are you getting some pushback fromthe industrialists of the time?
Oh, certainly, , however, there wasenough support to push it through.
Anything that affected profitswould generate resistance
from the business community.
Well, that's something, as you canimagine, that will never change.
Anything that affects profitsis always going to have some
(36:04):
resistance, that is for sure.
Speaking of these industrialists, therewere some really powerful industrialists
and business people of your time.
How did you work with these people?
I mean, did you have good relationswith some of these people?
Was it constantly throwingdaggers back and forth?
I did come to meet some of them throughmy work with the labor unions, and of
(36:28):
course , they were opposed to collectivebargaining and workers organizing.
One of the instances actually,that comes to mind with resistance,
what has to do with Harry Bridges.
Do you have time forthe Harry Bridges story?
I'd love to put you on your time.
I have all the time in the world.
. Well, Harry Bridges wasan Australian immigrant.
(36:48):
He incited a strike on the Westcoast among maritime workers.
The workers were striking forimproved working conditions.
It was perfectly valid is more approvedto be so effective that people use
this to create additional strikes.
Of course, the business communityfound this, these strikes to be
unprofitable and, of course, annoying.
So the strategy at combatingthis was to label Harry Bridges a
(37:12):
communist and try to deport him.
Now, I couldn't see that HarryBridges had done anything wrong,
and it was not illegal to strike.
Keep in mind that the Departmentof Immigration and Naturalization
Services was within the Departmentof Labor, so I had some influence
on visas and quotas, deportations.
(37:34):
I approached the immigration officials.
Has Harry Bridges done anything toundermine the United States government?
No.
So you're going to deport himsimply because of his beliefs?
Now keep in mind, I didnot care for Harry Bridges.
In fact, I couldn't stand the man.
But he deserved to be treated fairly.
So I tried to delay the deportationin order for the truth to emerge.
(37:58):
He took this case all theway to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled that therewas insufficient evidence with
which to deport Harry Bridges.
But that the retaliation and the forceof the business community was so strong.
And they had such influencewith the politicians.
That was a vehicle that was used, to push forward my impeachment.
They retaliated by trying to impeach me.
(38:18):
So the business communitywas forceful and formidable.
Frightening actually.
They did not love me because I tendedto advocate in favor of the workers.
Up to that point, thisis, this started in 1933.
, government had been working forthe business owners and more
or less neglecting the workers.
(38:39):
I tried to turn that around.
I see.
They did not appreciate me.
It was adversarial, you might say.
Was, were they required to be part ofsome of these negotiations, though?
Or, not so much.
Were you just basically trying toget these, the legislation through
Congress, and if you got it through,then that's the way things were,
(38:59):
and figure out how to deal with it?
Well, , the business community was part ofthe meetings and debates that were held.
They certainly had a presence.
And of course they had a presencethrough their members of Congress.
I remember being inHomestead, Pennsylvania.
As Secretary of Labor, I visited differentfactories throughout the country.
I wanted to visit with some of thesteel workers in, in, in Homestead.
(39:24):
However, the mayor said, no,gatherings of such are against the law.
You cannot do this, Madam Secretary.
So, I saw an American flag out of thecorner of my eye in a post office.
I said, oh.
The American flag overthere, that is federal land.
We met in the post office.
So I found ways to navigate aroundthe existing laws that favored
(39:47):
the powerful at the expense of theplain common forgotten working men.
Oh, that is brilliant.
, that is so great.
You find a little piece of federalland where you can find a flag.
That's amazing.
I don't know if this is true or not, butwere there times, I heard that you once
dressed in a disguise or went into afactory as a worker without who you were?
(40:10):
Did you do something like that tosee what the conditions were like?
I can't say I remember that particularincident, but I certainly did.
Visit factories to , understand thedirty, dangerous, and unjust conditions
to which workers are subjected.
Okay, so you become Secretary of Laborin 1933, and we're, as I've said, we're
(40:32):
in the middle of the Great Depression.
What was the world like then?
, right now our economy is really good.
We're having like this kind of boomright now, why are there no jobs?
Why are people not startingbusinesses to create jobs?
Why is the New Deal even necessary?
The country had also experienceda boom, of course, in the 1920s.
(40:52):
People were spending money flagrantly.
People gave little thoughtto, to what items cost.
They simply bought them, which thewhole, the economy was inflated
and certainly with real estate.
Real estate suddenly took a plunge.
People started losing their homes.
When they started losing their homes,they started losing their jobs.
(41:13):
plunged.
People did not have the moneywith which to purchase goods.
The economy came to a stalemateand it happened very quickly.
It tends to happen, if you lookthroughout history, you have these
booms, they call them a bubbleperhaps, and the bubble bursts.
And to restart that is very difficult.
I wish that I could say that I don'tknow what a bubble is, but 20 years
(41:35):
ago we had a huge bubble that burst.
And some people say we're approachingone right now, but it does,
eventually, there's this cycle ofwhere people speculate and things get
out of control and then it bursts.
And so when real estateplummeted at that time, just
the whole thing fell apart, huh?
It did.
And keep in mind at that time, they werenot the safeguards in the economy that,
(42:00):
that we have even now in 19 58, theyweren't the safeguards to, or the checks
and balances to stop the single delay.
It was a free fall,
So, and I think that probably bringsus to social security because that
was the intention of social securityto create a safeguard so that people,
(42:20):
like maybe elderly people or disabledpeople or, just people when they
retire that they'd have some place,like they'd have something coming in.
, was that the goal of social securityto prevent that from happening again?
It was also a matter of justicethat our senior citizens have
given so much to this country.
And remember back in 1933, 34,few companies offered pensions
(42:45):
when people could no longer work.
They were reliant ontheir families to support.
And of course, with the depression,the country steeped in the depression,
families are no longer able to do that.
The social security, the program,It's part of a much larger package.
The President called it hiseconomic security package.
targeted four demographics.
Aid to needy women withdependent children.
(43:08):
Aid to those who are unable to work.
Unemployment insurance.
And then this support for retirees.
The president told me, Frances, puttogether a committee on economic
security and design the programs.
So , you were asking about oneof those programs which came
to be known as social security.
(43:28):
The president and I were not theonly people who were concerned about
the plight of our older citizens whohad given so much to this country.
There was a doctor named Dr.
Frances Townsend on the West Coast.
He saw two women rummagingthrough garbage looking for food.
And he raised the call of outrage.
He submitted a measure wherebythe federal government would pay
(43:49):
every senior citizen 200 a month.
Now I knew that was not politicallyor even financially feasible.
And I also knew that
we had no model here forsocial insurance program.
We had models for relief.
The government offered relief to thosewho are unable to work or those who are
women in need, with children in need.
(44:09):
But we saw this, what came tobe known as Social Security as a
program that would continue, wouldendure for years and years to come.
It had to be able to pay for itself.
So I knew that countries in Europetook care of their elder citizens.
So, the committee and I, we hadmeetings with social insurance experts,
what are the models that can work.
(44:31):
They came up with this model,while a person is working, they are
taxed a small percentage of theirincome, that is deposited into
a government administered fund.
The employer matches that contribution.
When the person stops working, whenthey retire, they receive a monthly
check for the rest of their lives.
Of course, detractors raised the call.
(44:51):
This is an old age pension.
My reply was no, it is old age insurance.
The government doesnot contribute to this.
In January of 1937, the governmentstarted collecting the taxes.
The first benefit was paid outin 1940 to an item a fuller.
In Ludlow, Vermont.
Ms.
(45:11):
Fuller received 22.
54 a month for more than 30 years.
Now, the Social Security Program ispart of this economic security package.
The president signed thatinto law on August 14th, 1935.
The whole package came to beknown as the Social Security Act.
So people overseas, when theythink of Social Security, they
(45:35):
thought of this entire act.
But here, Social Securitybrings to mind the one program.
And of course
that program has endured.
And the Social Security card Thatwas the moment where everybody got a
social security number because thattied you to that dollar amount that
you were going to get in the future.
That was the purpose of the card.
(45:57):
Is that correct?
That's correct.
And the post, we used the post officeto distribute the applications.
So people applied and thenthey received their card.
Honestly, Mr.
Dean, the card from 1936 looksidentical to the card in 1958.
Sometimes I wonder what inspiresa person to do great things.
(46:18):
But not Frances Perkins.
When that factory started on fire andall those people died, she knew what
her mission was from that point forward.
And she never swayed from it.
In the next episode, she's goingto talk about the price she paid.
With her family, for the commitmentto her country and her job.
She'll also talk about how hermethods of hard work and fairness cost
(46:41):
her child to go the exact oppositedirection and become a debutante.
I'm glad you're enjoying this podcast.
If you haven't yet subscribed now,and we'll see you at the next episode
of the calling history podcast.
With part two of Francis Perkins.
I'm Tony Dean.
And today we'll be calling historyto speak with Francis Perkins.
She'll be answering our callin 1958 at 78 years old.
If you're not sure who FrancesPerkins is, don't be surprised, but
I guarantee, you know, her boss'sname F D R Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The only president who served 12 years,who guided America through the great
(00:51):
depression and then world war two, hehas as many votes for best president.
As George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
as president during the great depression,he needed to put people back to work.
So who did he choose as his secretaryof labor for this critical position?
In the hopes of leveling the playingfield for workers being exploited
(01:14):
by robber barons, and the giants ofindustry, he hired a woman with the
capabilities to outsmart them all.
At that time, therewas no social security.
If you got old, you were either livingwith your kids or you were destitute.
Before leaving her post though.
Social security became a permanentsafety net for all Americans.
(01:35):
When ten-year-olds and immigrantworkers were working 90 hours a week.
Francis would have none of that.
She created a minimum wage anda limit of how many hours a
person could work per week.
She found a Wade stand up in a world,controlled by men to create fairness
for workers and get children from theirfactories back to the playgrounds.
(01:57):
Had she not been at FDR side,many of the safeguards that we now
take for granted may never havebeen legislated into existence.
Ladies and gentlemen, fellowhistory, lovers, and wares of
mother's pearls everywhere.
I give you Frances Perkins.
Hello, is that you,
Ms.
Perkins?
To whom do I have thepleasure of speaking?
(02:18):
Ms.
Perkins, my name is Tony Dean.
I am so excited to speak with you today.
I'm actually calling youfrom the 21st century.
The device that you're holding inyour hand is called a smartphone.
And it's kind of like, The modernphones that you have without all the
wires, but because of the improvedtechnology, it allows us to share
a record of our conversation todaywith people around the world.
(02:39):
And I was hoping that I could ask you afew questions today, but before I do, I
understand this is a strange introduction.
Can I answer any questionsthat you might have first?
Well, Mr.
Dean, you know, it's interestingyou mentioned the smart phone
phones are already smart for you.
It seems you might need anoperator in order to make a call.
So phones have become even smarter?
Yeah, I mean, , in our time, whatyou're describing, we might call that
(03:04):
a dumb phone, because they don't doactually anything, and they require
so many people to manage them.
But no, in our time, thetechnology is out of control.
I mean, these phones, they haveenough technology in them to run a
car, I mean, they can do anything.
They're pretty fascinating.
Oh my, this ought to be anexciting conversation then.
(03:24):
I do thank you for calling.
You see, I'm quite honoredbecause you see I am a nobody.
Oh, I am a professor at Cornelluniversity in the school of industrial
labor relations, of course, but,and I was a somebody, but in the
public eye, I am now a nobody, sir.
And yet you choose to call me.
Well, I have to be honest with you.
I have done quite a bit of reading aboutyour life and I can assure you that in
(03:49):
our time, nobody refers to you as a nobodybecause your list of accomplishments
have been like they're extraordinary.
They're so inspiring., when you talkabout everything that you had to do with,
FDR and social security and the thingsyou did for the 40 hour work week and
everything that you did for workers.
(04:10):
I mean, it's, it's magnificent.
But as, as I was reading and learningabout you, to prepare for this
conversation, it all seems to goback to this moment, this triangle.
Shirt Factory, I thinkis what it was called.
That was a big moment in your life.
Could you tell me about that?
Oh,
the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Oh, my.
(04:31):
Oh, my heart starts beating.
Five times in speed, normalspeed, the mere thought of it.
I was at the time, it was1911, March 25th, 25th, 1911.
I was 31 years old, I was living inNew York, , I had been working with
reformers in Chicago and Philadelphia,and moved to New York to pursue a
master's degree at Columbia University.
(04:53):
During that time I accepted aposition at the National Consumer
League's office, the New York site.
I was director there.
That put me into Tammany Hall andthe politicians at Tammany Hall, and
all of this has to do with the fire.
I started working with them, and the firewas An accelerant, you might say, to that.
I was taking tea with a friend of mine ina fancy apartment on Washington Square.
(05:16):
We heard the fire enginesrumble by, thorns blaring.
They were heading towards aplume of smoke in the distance.
Curious, I put my hand on my hat andgathered my skirts and started running.
I ran with other people.
We were all headed towards the fire.
I ran until I looked up,and then I could not move.
(05:37):
The Triangle Shirtwaist ManufacturingCompany was afire, I thought.
But it wasn't that paralyzed me.
It was the people.
People were jumping fromthe 8th, 9th, 10th stories.
People who were themselves a fire.
They ended up as rumpledheaps on the ground.
I remember a woman, she stoodat the 8th story window.
(05:57):
She took a couple of bills anda few coins out of her pockets.
She dropped them, then threw up herarms as if to say, I'm This is what I
amorth to them, and then she jumped.
Wow.
They had no choice.
It was all that faced thewall, a fire behind them, a
wall of air in front of them.
One hundred forty six people,mostly exploited immigrant
(06:19):
women, perished in that fire.
And I will tell you, Mr.
Dean, that fire set ablaze mydetermination to be a voice
for those who are mired inmisery and scared into silence.
I became a voice.
Unstoppable.
Now, the fire ignited publicoutrage as well as grief.
I learned that I could use thisin order to implement change.
(06:42):
So as a result of that fire weorganized an investigation, the New
York Factory Investigation Commission.
We were tasked with investigatingsuspicious workplaces for fire hazards.
Well, over four years.
We than 3, 000 workplaces, factoriesand processing centers and the like.
We took testimony fromnearly 500 witnesses.
(07:04):
We worked with the politicians in TammanyHall to pass 26 bills that improved life
for the working families of New York.
Boy, that's a lot.
That was a
It's one of those instances wheresometimes a deep tragedy is required
in order for change to take root.
Unfortunately, it seems like historyhas proven that is the case, that
politicians don't get a lot doneuntil there is the tragedy, , till
(07:27):
it's something that the public isscreaming about, and then they act.
what happened with this fire?
I mean, if the building's on fire,why don't people just walk out of
the building and not burn to death?
Why do they have to, like,,jump out of the building?
The eighth floor, I don't understand.
Oh.
Well, the, they were forced tojump because the fire laws were
either non existent or flouted.
(07:48):
For example, the exit doorswere illegally locked.
The owners were afraid peoplewould leave and steal products.
The the fire escape, which wasrickety to begin with, was broken.
The fire was coming up the elevator shaft.
So, of course, people ask,well, why didn't people take the
stairs when they've got stairs?
Well, the stairs are so narrowin such rickety condition
(08:11):
that they were not navigable.
So it didn't matter , what floorthey were on, they were trapped.
They were trapped.
firefighter ladders didreach to the 7th floor.
It is the people on the 8th, 9th, and10th floors that were truly trapped.
It was either face the wall of fire behindthem or the wall of air in front of them.
Wow.
So the firemen pull up in these trucks andthey can run the ladders to the 7th floor
(08:36):
and the people on the 8th and 9th and10th, I didn't know how tall this building
was, but on the 10th floor, people, theycan't even get down one floor because
the fire is, the fire's everywhere.
Cause I'm assumingeverything's made of wood.
Correct.
Correct.
And what happened in the, There wasan accelerant to the fire, there were
several of them actually, but one wasthe fact that the wastebaskets were
(08:58):
overflowing with fabrics and fibers.
People tracked them through the rooms.
That, that all became kindlingfor the ashes that dropped as the
supervisors flicked their cigars.
People could not descend the stairs,the staircases were decrepit.
The next question I was going to askyou is, with all of this flammable
(09:18):
material around there, are people walkingaround smoking cigarettes and cigars?
And I can totally see what you're saying.
You got these big wigs that are workingthese people to death and locking them
in this building, and then they'rejust flicking cigar ashes on the floor.
I mean, the place, there's justno laws against any of this.
No.
(09:39):
No.
So tell me about the peoplethat were trapped in the fire.
You said that there werea lot of immigrants.
, are they mostly women?
Are they older?
Are they younger?
Are they men?
Most of them were immigrant women.
Actually Jewish andItalian immigrant women.
And most of them wereyoung In their twenties.
We lost a lot of young people.
(10:01):
Young promising people.
At that time in history, so we're talking,you said, I think this was 1911, would
there have been, in a factory like that,would there have been younger women?
Would there have been teenage girls?
Oh, there were no child labor laws.
So families were so impoverished,they were forced to pull their
children out of school and putthem to work in the factories.
(10:22):
The children were working on machines thatwere far too cumbersome for them, too big
for them, it put them in terrible danger.
That is unbelievable.
So more than 140 people died there.
And what I didn't know is I didn'tknow that they would lock the doors
with them in there you just can'tlock people in a building in case
(10:42):
something like this does happen.
I mean, they need to have a wayto get out of a window or, a door.
That's unbelievable.
So anyhow, so now you've gotthis terrible fire, okay?
And you're in your thirties.
And at this point, you'realready working in government.
You're just not theSecretary of Labor, correct?
Well, I was Director of the New YorkOffice of the National Consumers League.
(11:05):
So I was not working in government.
However, That position put meinto, took me to Tammany Hall.
I was at Tammany Hall about once a week.
So I was actually trying to cultivaterelationships with the politicians.
Those infamous yet powerfulpoliticians at Tammany Hall.
Tell me about Tamy Hall.
What is Tamy Hall?
(11:26):
I understand that this is like somesort of group of politicians that
were very powerful at the time.
What can you tell me about this?
Well, Tamy Hall, they, it did constitutea group of powerful politicians.
Tam Hall was the seat for theelite of the Democratic Party.
So of course, as such, thebuilding reflected that the
building featured long dark halls.
(11:46):
Smoke infested rooms.
From behind closed doors youcould hear hollers, raucous
laughter, and hushed tones.
And the floors!
The floors were spotted with brown stains!
It took but a minute forme to figure out why.
You see, the politicians would chewtobacco, spit in them, this is platoons.
So the politicians in TammanyHall were generally characterized
(12:08):
as thugs, Bullies and loafers.
They did serve their constituentsand of course expected to be richly
rewarded, as you can understand.
I'm rubbing my fingers together.
But these politicians hada way of getting their way.
So I thought, I need to formrelationships with them.
How do I earn their trust?
(12:29):
I started observing them,gathering material I could
use with which to build trust.
One eye opening incidentoccurred, in an elevator.
Mr.
Dean, do you have time to hearabout the elevator incident?
Yes, please.
No, I'm on the edge of my seat.
William Selvester had been electedgovernor of New York, of course
with assistance from Tammany Hall.
(12:50):
Once the governor took office, though,the politicians discovered he was more
reform minded than they found palatable.
So they raised the call, Impeach the man!
Now there were sentiments on bothsides of the impeachment issue.
I was in an elevator withlegislator Hugh Frawley.
(13:10):
Of course, you never met Hugh Frawley.
You probably have not seenpictures of him either.
If you had, you wouldfind him unforgettable.
Hugh Frawley, he was a short man,five feet tall and four feet wide.
He had a reddish face andsported a checkered suit.
started talking about theimpeachment, clearly in anguish.
(13:31):
At one point, he looked down atthe floor and muttered, How can
they do this to the governor?
He has a family.
He has a mother.
Did you follow, looked up at me,grabbed my arm, and through teary eyes
blurted out, everybody has a mother.
I thought,
mother, who do men trustmore than their mother?
So, I replaced my fashionable,somewhat fitted clothing with
(13:55):
shapeless black dresses, loosefitting suits, and a string of pearls.
The press up to that point hadreferred to me as cute and perky.
That changed to mother.
Perkins.
was 31 years old.
So that is one of theclues that I gathered.
As material with which tobuild trust, which did pay off.
(14:17):
There's a very of the picturesthat exist in our time.
Every, whenever I see a picture ofyou, I see you dressed that way.
And so that was intentional, so that whenyou were dealing with these men That we're
chewing tobacco and spitting on the floorin Tammany Hall and smoking cigars that
when you walked in the room, they weren'tlooking at you as a man might look at
(14:40):
a woman, but as an authority figure astheir mother, that was all intentional.
It absolutely was.
Wow.
That's brilliant.
Those pearls get it done.
Don't they?
The pearls were , thefinishing touch, you might say.
So now you go into Tammany halland , this is literally the
boys club of all boys clubs.
It sounds, I mean, if there's blackstains on the floor, I mean, I can see
(15:03):
this, what this looks like in my headso clearly and you walk in and what's
the response that they have to you asyou're trying to, Get them to negotiate
and get them try to accomplish things.
And you'd mentioned these 26 bills.
I mean, what did that look like initially?
Well, they were leery of me.
Of course they kept their distance.
I had to approach them.
(15:25):
, so I spent time with them.
For example, instead ofeating in the dining room.
I would be out on the floor, rubbingelbows with them, them questions.
How are you?
Asking about any billsthat were being sponsored.
Developing conversations withwhich to form relationships.
It was not easy, and Ihad to play the game.
(15:46):
But that paid off.
Would you like to hear aboutthe 54 hour with Bill incident?
Yes, please, go ahead.
It was 1911.
For 10 years, the NationalConsumers League had been trying
to pass a bill that would limita woman's work week to 54 hours.
That would give her sometime to attend to her family.
Repeatedly, however, TammyHall had rejected the bill.
(16:08):
One day, out of the blue,Charles Murphy, the then head
of Tammy Hall, approached me.
Miss Perkins, we would like toreconsider the 54 hour week bill.
Resubmit it.
Now, of course, when I brought this newsback to my staff at the Consumer's Legal
Office, they were giddy with optimism.
I was well guarded.
You see, I knew the peoplewith whom I was dealing,
(16:30):
and my instincts were correct.
While the Senate and the Assemblymet to consider the bill, politician
Tim Sullivan tipped me off.
Ms.
Parkins, I know they are leading youto believe that they are inclined
to pass the 54 hour week bill.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is what they are going to do.
They are going to send that bill back toyou with an An amendment they know the
(16:54):
progressives will find so distastefulthat they will reject the bill.
While this is happening, thepoliticians will pass another bill.
, this bill makes it unlawful for them toever revisit the 54 hour week issue again.
So, The progressives reject the 54 hourweek bill, and when you try to present it
later, the politicians say, oh, we cannot,we consider this, it would be unlawful.
(17:18):
I felt my fingernails digging into thepalms of my hand, and my just grinding.
, you're trying to trick me.
Yes.
So I played the game.
I went back to the staff at theNational Consumers League office.
The politicians did send back the bill.
The amendment stated that the 54hour a week restriction would apply
(17:42):
to all women working in New Yorkexcept those in the canneries.
40, 000 women in the canneries.
So, I told supporters, the progressives,I told the progressives, approve the bill.
But Ms.
Perkins, it excludes thewomen in the canneries.
Approve the bill.
If I have to hang for it, I will.
So, to the chagrin of thepoliticians in Tammany Hall,
(18:03):
the 54 hour week bill passed.
Shortly thereafter, Charles Murphy Again,the head of Tammany Hall approached me,
ms.
Perkins, I will never again block abill simply because it is progressive.
Within a year, the bill was amended againto include the women in the canneries.
So as a result of this bill,440, 000 women had their work
(18:25):
week reduced to 54 hours.
I learned how to play with them.
Did you find that because you were awoman, that men were constantly trying
to trick you and pull one over on you?
Well, certainly.
Almost certainly.
They thought I was stupid.
Right.
Now, I remember when, as Secretaryof Labor, we were sworn in on
(18:48):
Inauguration Day, March 4th, 1933.
FDR called for a meeting of theCabinet Secretaries three days later.
And because of the crisis in thecountry with the depression, the
president had compressed the time frame.
So I barely had time to cleanup my affairs in New York and no
time to think, what do I wear?
(19:09):
How do I want these other cabinetsecretaries to perceive me?
Well, I wanted them to seeme as a quiet, orderly woman.
So I purchased suits ofblack, gray, and dark blue.
The hats are each, of course.
I was born wearing a hat, I say.
I determined that at the meeting,I would not speak unless spoken to.
When I did speak, I wouldbe clear and concise.
(19:30):
The last thing I wanted were thosecabinet secretaries rolling their eyes
at the woman who buzzed on and on.
The meeting went well.
When it was my turn to speak,the president asked for my
perspectives on the economy.
I looked at the cabinet secretaries.
They looked at me.
I began to speak.
Some appeared to besurprised I could speak.
Could speak.
(19:51):
You see, they expected very little of me.
Because they thought I was incapable.
I can totally see these menthinking, Oh my gosh, she can speak.
What's next?
She can read?
Right..
Correct.
Some of them learned,some of them never did.
Harold Ickes, the Secretary ofthe Interior, He had a saying, A
woman, a dog, and a walnut tree.
The more you beat them,the better they'll be.
(20:12):
Oh my gosh,
yes.
Yes.
Your ability to be calm and as you say,to go into this situation thinking, okay,
I've gotta be this quiet, orderly woman.
And even suppress maybe some ofthe the passion that you have about
what you were doing, knowing thatif you went in guns blazing, that
(20:35):
none of them would listen to you.
If you had played poker with anyof these guys, you would have
beat them all, because you were 20steps ahead of every one of them.
Thank you.
So then, so you're in the meeting and youstart speaking, and so what happens next?
Well, I shared my, it was verybrief, the meeting was quite brief.
My part of it was quite brief.
I shared my perspective.
The president asked me a few questionsand then we, then he moved on.
(20:57):
It was really, it wasnot a meeting for debate.
It was a meeting for the cabinetsecretaries to come together , to become
familiar with each other and to reallyshare their perspectives, particularly
on the economy because of the crisisthe country was in, the depression.
Let me ask you something about that.
So, FDR, Franklin Delano Rooseveltis, his reputation is phenomenal.
(21:23):
I mean, he, an incredible president.
One of the best, for sure.
And here you are, as you'retalking right now, it's 1933.
So we're in the middle ofthe Great Depression, right?
Because the Depressionis 29 to 41, I think.
So we're in the middle of that.
The world is a mess.
Or not the world, but thenation is kind of a mess.
(21:44):
And FDR, decides that he's going to bringan The first woman into a presidential
cabinet, because you are the first womanin a presidential cabinet, correct?
Correct.
He decides that he's going to bringthe first woman in the history of
the United States to be in chargeof the biggest problem that we have.
(22:06):
People need jobs.
You're the Secretary of Labor.
Did he trust you that much?
Because from the outside, you almost gota, if I didn't know what happened next,
in the moment, I could almost see wherethis is such an impossible task, where you
look at it like, he's almost looking wherehe could bring somebody in, so that when
they fail, there'd be somebody to blame.
There's a lot of politicians thatwould do something like that.
(22:27):
But why did he bring you in?
Well, we had, remember,we had a bit of history.
I can understand your thinking.
That it's, it may sound as if he closedhis eyes and plucked someone to be the
Secretary of Labor, and oh, she's a woman.
But, first of all, he wantedto have a woman in government.
He saw the potential in women.
He, remember, he also had apowerful, smart, capable wife.
(22:51):
Ah, that's right.
And the President and I hada bit of history together.
You see, President Roosevelt wasonce Governor Roosevelt of New York.
When he took over the helm asGovernor, I had been placed on
the state's Industrial Commission.
The Industrial Commission oversawindustry and labor for the state.
Governor Al Smith had appointedme to that position, and I was the
(23:13):
first woman to serve in that role.
So I've been serving in thatrole for 10 years, when President
Roosevelt became governor.
He promoted me to the head of theIndustrial Commission, and that was
essentially the head of the Departmentof Labor for the state of New York.
Okay.
So he knew my capabilities.
So
, by the time he's president, and heneeds somebody to be the Secretary
(23:36):
of Labor, and he's trying to figureout somebody that can trust, He's
not wondering how you're going to do.
He's already seen you in action.
And I'm guessing as you were on thestate industrial commission in New
York I'm guessing that you probablyaccomplished a lot during that time.
Otherwise he wouldn't haveplucked you out of that position.
So, he already trusts you at that point.
He did.
(23:57):
He knew we could trust me.
In fact, as president, he spoke tome in a way that he did not other
members of the administration.
He said, Francis, I can trust you.
You're the only one whodoesn't have an axe to grind.
We had a lovely relationship.
He was probably thinking you're theonly one that doesn't have an axe
to grind, and you're also the onlyone that doesn't spit tobacco on the
(24:18):
floor, and he probably liked that too.
He probably did.
I'm sure he did.
So you had a specialrelationship with him.
I did.
Now, I have to guess that if he pullsyou in 1933 for, arguably is the most
important job at that time outside of his.
People needed jobs.
(24:39):
We're in the Great Depression.
And he pulls you in, which itwould be a challenge for him
to get a woman on the cast.
And yet, he pulls you in, he'sgot to trust you implicitly.
But I have to guess that everybodyelse did not feel the same way.
And, was that a real challenge?
Oh, it was.
Oh, it most certainly was.
I did have my allies, Mr.
(25:00):
Joe Lubin being one of them.
He was head of the Bureauof Labor Statistics.
I put him in that position.
There were others as well.
Pell Dickies, of course,was not one of them.
Henry Wallace was theSecretary of Agriculture.
He was an ally.
I had a few allies.
Actually, also, Supreme Court JusticeLouis Brandeis was also an ally.
(25:20):
Most of the men were, it wasvery difficult to deal with them.
I knew from the outset it would be.
For I've experienced in New York.
In addition, the first clue came my firstday as cabinet secretary of labor, not
a single other cabinet secretary duckedout of his office to to say as much
as how do you do, I knew this would bea lonely journey and a difficult one.
(25:42):
I can picture you in this joband clearly you are qualified.
You are.
Extremely educated and you have, youactually have the on the job history
that you spent time with FDR when he wasgovernor and you're just a steady flow
of accomplishing things for the people.
(26:03):
And I'll bet that as you are having theseconversations with some of these men
that, I don't know, maybe you've beenin their seats for a long time, as they
see you come in and negotiate and theysee you coming in and speaking as, as
well as you do, you probably could seethis look on their face like, Okay, like
she's actually a formidable opponent.
(26:24):
I mean they probably stunned.
Some of them were.
This brings to mind a story fromthe Civilian Conservation Corps.
That was one of the veryearly New Deal programs.
It targeted young, Unemployed men.
, the president said, I'm going tohave the federal government hire
these men and put them to work inthe woods to care for the land.
(26:45):
. I put together a program and I , Ipresented this proposal to Congress.
They were actually quitealmost excited about it.
They were quite receptive to the idea.
And after the session, anattendee passed on a comment
made by one of the congressmen.
Frances Perkins did awful well.
She's awful smart, but Iwant to be married to her.
(27:05):
So there was that, they looked at me asa, in a stereotypical woman role, and
yet had to acknowledge the fact that Iwas an accomplished, I don't even like to
say politician, but I was an accomplishedadvocate for the working person.
I think this might be one thing that wehave in common, , because there's a lot
of people, when they meet me, they'relike, Tony's a lot of fun to talk to,
(27:27):
he's got some interesting ideas, but,I pray for his wife, because I think
he'd be difficult to be married to, , Ithink we both have this in common.
I'm not sure she wouldagree with that, Mr.
Dean.
I'm not sure
your wife would agree with that.
Maybe she'll be your next call.
And you'll have to see for yourself.
So tell me about the new deal.
You're the secretaryof labor and that's it.
(27:49):
We're going to put people back to work.
So what did this look like?
What role did you play in all of this?
Well, the new deal, of course, it's,It was very broad in its scope.
I had my fingers into different programs.
There were three in particular, though.
One was the Civilian ConservationCorps, the second was Social
Security Act, and the third was theFair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
(28:13):
Purpose of the New Deal was tofortify and stabilize the economy.
The desired effect from that would bethat people, would be back to work,
and , that would keep the economy going.
So the New Deal really focused on bringingpeople back to work, as you had said.
One way was through theCivilian Conservation Corps.
Through that program the young unemployedmen, and some women, They planted 3.
(28:37):
5 billion trees on barren land.
They created more than 700 new stateparks and restored endless acres of land.
Wow.
, , four months after the Presidentand I first spoke about this
program, there were 1, 400 campsand 300, 000 men and women enlisted
so the new deal was at first puttingpeople to work back on the country.
(28:58):
I mean , even as simple as plantingtrees is putting, them to work
on making our country better.
Yes.
So
was that something you were involved with?
Like the idea of planting all these trees?
Yes.
The president had the idea forthe federal government to hire
young men to work the land.
He had me design the program.
So I can tell you the basicsof the program I designed.
(29:19):
Yeah, tell me.
I'd love to hear
it.
The CCC will be open to unemployed,unmarried men ages 18 to 22.
At age would later be extended to 28.
The men will be paid 30 a month, 22 ofthat will be sent home to their families.
The government would provide food,lodging, clothing, and transportation.
(29:42):
Of course that raised the question,who's going to administer this?
Who's going to, who is equippedto distribute such goods to
hundreds of thousands of people?
Yeah.
The army, of course.
So the army became a critical component.
And what would these men do in the woods?
They'd plant trees, buildbridges, dams, and fire towers.
They'd build wildlife refugees, restorenational parks, beautify national parks.
(30:07):
That was the gist of the programthat I presented to Congress.
That's fantastic.
You know what this remindsme of a little bit?
I had this conversation with Ulysses S.
Grant and he was talking about how when,when the army wasn't fighting that he
would have them digging something ordoing something because if they weren't
doing something useful, then theywere absolutely involved in mischief.
(30:31):
This kind of sounds like that a littlebit, we definitely need trees, but at
the same time, if people aren't doingsomething useful, they're doing something
bad, and I wonder if something as simpleas planting trees and, and, cleaning up
state parks and creating state parks,give them some sort of pride that led
to the next thing that was more useful.
Oh, that's absolutely true, Mr.
(30:52):
Dean.
Absolutely true.
The president not only wanted theseyoung men to have a job, but he
thought that they would gain something.
More than a paycheck.
He said, this will build their confidence.
It will teach them new skills.
He added, it will also instillin them a reverence for the land.
No, Francis, he said, wedon't want another dust bowl.
(31:15):
So, both the participants and.
The country benefited from theCivilian Conservation Corps.
The Corps ran for six years, 1932 to 1939.
So simple and so useful.
I mean we, unfortunately in this time,you have a very small group of people that
provide service in that way to the nation.
(31:37):
And, you can just see that if, like,everybody had to spend time doing
something like that, that there wouldbe some sort of pride, not only for the
work that they've completed but also,just in the nation, that, hey, this
is my nation this is actually mine.
I mean, those people would driveby those parks on their way to work
or, and I'm sure they would see themand they would have pride that I
(31:59):
did that as those trees got bigger.
That's really neat.
When you were talking about the 54hour work week for women, how many
hours were they working before that?
Oh, they worked 16 hourdays, six days a week.
The 54 hour work week was asignificant reduction in time.
You would forget whatyour family looked like.
If you worked 16 hours a day, sixdays a week, you'd be so tired.
(32:22):
You just have to sleepthat whole seventh day.
You would.
And the interesting thing is they notonly worked so many hours, but they could
barely afford to put food on the table.
The wages were so scanty.
Yeah, that sounds really terrible.
And so that brings us to wages.
At some point in your life, youstarted fighting for minimum wage.
(32:43):
Yes.
Tell me about that.
What was the plan there?
Well, the, when the president Rooseveltwas governor of New York, we instituted
a minimum wage for the state of New York.
Then in 1938, through the FairLabor Standards Act, the minimum
wage was applied to the country.
There's a bit of a storybehind that as well.
When the Fair Labor Standards Act,that, that act forbade child labor,
(33:07):
it instituted a 40 hour work weekand a minimum wage, it also gave
workers the right to organize.
Four of the many goals that I had.
It was, of course, fist thumping choicewords and grudging compromise as this
bill wended its way through Congress.
And that was certainlytrue of the minimum wage.
(33:27):
I did not see a national minimumwage as being the best route to take.
I did not see a national minimum wageas being feasible or the most effective
way of implementing this principle.
The cost of living differs indifferent parts of the country.
I wanted to create regional boards.
These boards would decide upon theappropriate minimum wage for their region.
(33:49):
However the union shot backno national minimum wage.
The Northern Congress implemented.
If the minimum wage in Georgiais less than that in New York,
companies will move South.
Well, I knew that wouldn't happenfor an FDR and I implemented
the minimum wage in New York.
Puppies didn't leave the state.
However, . If you want to turnthe wheel, you have to give
(34:09):
it a little bit of grease.
So we negotiated on a nationalminimum wage of 25 cents an hour.
That wasn't ideal for a cost of familyof four twice that in order to live.
However, that 25 cents an hour, Mr.
Dean, it represented a pay increasefor the most exploited workers.
In addition, it gave all workers theassurance that they would be paid at least
(34:32):
25 cents an hour for each hour worked.
before there were child labor acts andthere was some sort of minimum for that.
Like how young would a youngestchild be working in a factory?
Would they put a 6-year-old to work?
Under the age of 10?
They would, I don't,I'm not sure about six.
But eight, ten years old, certainly.
Eight or ten years oldsometime, that's amazing.
(34:55):
Yeah.
Okay, good.
I'm glad you figured that one out,because we don't need to have eight year
olds working, or ten year olds working.
Like, they need to be outsideplaying with other ten year olds.
They absolutely do.
They absolutely do.
There's a poem that waswritten by a Sarah M.
Clughorn.
It's called Little Toilers.
The golf links lie so near to Mills, thatnearly every day, the labored children
(35:20):
can look out and see the men at play.
Oh, man.
Isn't that cool with your hot strings?
Oh, do you feel somethingwhen you hear that, or what?
I'm so glad that wassomething you figured out.
Kids do not need to be working that young.
That's amazing.
So, as soon as you changed thehourly wage, now everybody's
(35:42):
getting 25 cents an hour.
Are you getting some pushback fromthe industrialists of the time?
Oh, certainly, , however, there wasenough support to push it through.
Anything that affected profitswould generate resistance
from the business community.
Well, that's something, as you canimagine, that will never change.
Anything that affects profitsis always going to have some
(36:04):
resistance, that is for sure.
Speaking of these industrialists, therewere some really powerful industrialists
and business people of your time.
How did you work with these people?
I mean, did you have good relationswith some of these people?
Was it constantly throwingdaggers back and forth?
I did come to meet some of them throughmy work with the labor unions, and of
(36:28):
course , they were opposed to collectivebargaining and workers organizing.
One of the instances actually,that comes to mind with resistance,
what has to do with Harry Bridges.
Do you have time forthe Harry Bridges story?
I'd love to put you on your time.
I have all the time in the world.
. Well, Harry Bridges wasan Australian immigrant.
(36:48):
He incited a strike on the Westcoast among maritime workers.
The workers were striking forimproved working conditions.
It was perfectly valid is more approvedto be so effective that people use
this to create additional strikes.
Of course, the business communityfound this, these strikes to be
unprofitable and, of course, annoying.
So the strategy at combatingthis was to label Harry Bridges a
(37:12):
communist and try to deport him.
Now, I couldn't see that HarryBridges had done anything wrong,
and it was not illegal to strike.
Keep in mind that the Departmentof Immigration and Naturalization
Services was within the Departmentof Labor, so I had some influence
on visas and quotas, deportations.
(37:34):
I approached the immigration officials.
Has Harry Bridges done anything toundermine the United States government?
No.
So you're going to deport himsimply because of his beliefs?
Now keep in mind, I didnot care for Harry Bridges.
In fact, I couldn't stand the man.
But he deserved to be treated fairly.
So I tried to delay the deportationin order for the truth to emerge.
(37:58):
He took this case all theway to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled that therewas insufficient evidence with
which to deport Harry Bridges.
But that the retaliation and the forceof the business community was so strong.
And they had such influencewith the politicians.
That was a vehicle that was used, to push forward my impeachment.
They retaliated by trying to impeach me.
(38:18):
So the business communitywas forceful and formidable.
Frightening actually.
They did not love me because I tendedto advocate in favor of the workers.
Up to that point, thisis, this started in 1933.
, government had been working forthe business owners and more
or less neglecting the workers.
(38:39):
I tried to turn that around.
I see.
They did not appreciate me.
It was adversarial, you might say.
Was, were they required to be part ofsome of these negotiations, though?
Or, not so much.
Were you just basically trying toget these, the legislation through
Congress, and if you got it through,then that's the way things were,
(38:59):
and figure out how to deal with it?
Well, , the business community was part ofthe meetings and debates that were held.
They certainly had a presence.
And of course they had a presencethrough their members of Congress.
I remember being inHomestead, Pennsylvania.
As Secretary of Labor, I visited differentfactories throughout the country.
I wanted to visit with some of thesteel workers in, in, in Homestead.
(39:24):
However, the mayor said, no,gatherings of such are against the law.
You cannot do this, Madam Secretary.
So, I saw an American flag out of thecorner of my eye in a post office.
I said, oh.
The American flag overthere, that is federal land.
We met in the post office.
So I found ways to navigate aroundthe existing laws that favored
(39:47):
the powerful at the expense of theplain common forgotten working men.
Oh, that is brilliant.
, that is so great.
You find a little piece of federalland where you can find a flag.
That's amazing.
I don't know if this is true or not, butwere there times, I heard that you once
dressed in a disguise or went into afactory as a worker without who you were?
(40:10):
Did you do something like that tosee what the conditions were like?
I can't say I remember that particularincident, but I certainly did.
Visit factories to , understand thedirty, dangerous, and unjust conditions
to which workers are subjected.
Okay, so you become Secretary of Laborin 1933, and we're, as I've said, we're
(40:32):
in the middle of the Great Depression.
What was the world like then?
, right now our economy is really good.
We're having like this kind of boomright now, why are there no jobs?
Why are people not startingbusinesses to create jobs?
Why is the New Deal even necessary?
The country had also experienceda boom, of course, in the 1920s.
(40:52):
People were spending money flagrantly.
People gave little thoughtto, to what items cost.
They simply bought them, which thewhole, the economy was inflated
and certainly with real estate.
Real estate suddenly took a plunge.
People started losing their homes.
When they started losing their homes,they started losing their jobs.
(41:13):
plunged.
People did not have the moneywith which to purchase goods.
The economy came to a stalemateand it happened very quickly.
It tends to happen, if you lookthroughout history, you have these
booms, they call them a bubbleperhaps, and the bubble bursts.
And to restart that is very difficult.
I wish that I could say that I don'tknow what a bubble is, but 20 years
(41:35):
ago we had a huge bubble that burst.
And some people say we're approachingone right now, but it does,
eventually, there's this cycle ofwhere people speculate and things get
out of control and then it bursts.
And so when real estateplummeted at that time, just
the whole thing fell apart, huh?
It did.
And keep in mind at that time, they werenot the safeguards in the economy that,
(42:00):
that we have even now in 19 58, theyweren't the safeguards to, or the checks
and balances to stop the single delay.
It was a free fall,
So, and I think that probably bringsus to social security because that
was the intention of social securityto create a safeguard so that people,
(42:20):
like maybe elderly people or disabledpeople or, just people when they
retire that they'd have some place,like they'd have something coming in.
, was that the goal of social securityto prevent that from happening again?
It was also a matter of justicethat our senior citizens have
given so much to this country.
And remember back in 1933, 34,few companies offered pensions
(42:45):
when people could no longer work.
They were reliant ontheir families to support.
And of course, with the depression,the country steeped in the depression,
families are no longer able to do that.
The social security, the program,It's part of a much larger package.
The President called it hiseconomic security package.
targeted four demographics.
Aid to needy women withdependent children.
(43:08):
Aid to those who are unable to work.
Unemployment insurance.
And then this support for retirees.
The president told me, Frances, puttogether a committee on economic
security and design the programs.
So , you were asking about oneof those programs which came
to be known as social security.
(43:28):
The president and I were not theonly people who were concerned about
the plight of our older citizens whohad given so much to this country.
There was a doctor named Dr.
Frances Townsend on the West Coast.
He saw two women rummagingthrough garbage looking for food.
And he raised the call of outrage.
He submitted a measure wherebythe federal government would pay
(43:49):
every senior citizen 200 a month.
Now I knew that was not politicallyor even financially feasible.
And I also knew that
we had no model here forsocial insurance program.
We had models for relief.
The government offered relief to thosewho are unable to work or those who are
women in need, with children in need.
(44:09):
But we saw this, what came tobe known as Social Security as a
program that would continue, wouldendure for years and years to come.
It had to be able to pay for itself.
So I knew that countries in Europetook care of their elder citizens.
So, the committee and I, we hadmeetings with social insurance experts,
what are the models that can work.
(44:31):
They came up with this model,while a person is working, they are
taxed a small percentage of theirincome, that is deposited into
a government administered fund.
The employer matches that contribution.
When the person stops working, whenthey retire, they receive a monthly
check for the rest of their lives.
Of course, detractors raised the call.
(44:51):
This is an old age pension.
My reply was no, it is old age insurance.
The government doesnot contribute to this.
In January of 1937, the governmentstarted collecting the taxes.
The first benefit was paid outin 1940 to an item a fuller.
In Ludlow, Vermont.
Ms.
(45:11):
Fuller received 22.
54 a month for more than 30 years.
Now, the Social Security Program ispart of this economic security package.
The president signed thatinto law on August 14th, 1935.
The whole package came to beknown as the Social Security Act.
So people overseas, when theythink of Social Security, they
(45:35):
thought of this entire act.
But here, Social Securitybrings to mind the one program.
And of course
that program has endured.
And the Social Security card Thatwas the moment where everybody got a
social security number because thattied you to that dollar amount that
you were going to get in the future.
That was the purpose of the card.
(45:57):
Is that correct?
That's correct.
And the post, we used the post officeto distribute the applications.
So people applied and thenthey received their card.
Honestly, Mr.
Dean, the card from 1936 looksidentical to the card in 1958.
Sometimes I wonder what inspiresa person to do great things.
(46:18):
But not Frances Perkins.
When that factory started on fire andall those people died, she knew what
her mission was from that point forward.
And she never swayed from it.
In the next episode, she's goingto talk about the price she paid.
With her family, for the commitmentto her country and her job.
She'll also talk about how hermethods of hard work and fairness cost
(46:41):
her child to go the exact oppositedirection and become a debutante.
I'm glad you're enjoying this podcast.
If you haven't yet subscribed now,and we'll see you at the next episode
of the calling history podcast.
With part two of Francis Perkins.
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