Who Was Frances Perkins? Meet the Trailblazing Workers’ Rights Advocate Whose Homestead Just Became a National Monument

The country’s newest national monument honors Frances Perkins, America’s first female cabinet secretary and a champion of workers’ rights.

On Monday, President Joe Biden established the Frances Perkins National Monument in Newcastle, Maine. The designation encompasses the saltwater farm and homestead established by Perkins’ ancestors in the 1750s.

The site includes an 1837 brick home, as well as 57 acres of fields and forest along the Damariscotta River. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2014 and has been managed by the nonprofit Frances Perkins Center since 2020.

Perkins was born in Boston in 1880 and spent her childhood in Worcester, Massachusetts. For most of her adult life, she lived in New York and Washington, D.C. But she often retreated to the family homestead for rest and relaxation. She is buried in Newcastle.

After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts in 1902, Perkins moved to Illinois—much to the chagrin of her parents, who wanted her to live at home until she found a husband. She taught at an elite school for girls, and worked with impoverished individuals at two settlement houses called Chicago Commons and Hull House.

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In 1907, she became general secretary of the Philadelphia Research and Protective Association, a new organization that sought to keep immigrants and Black women out of prostitution. She studied briefly at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, then took a fellowship with the New York School of Philanthropy.

In 1910, Perkins earned a master’s degree in sociology and economics from Columbia University, where she wrote her thesis on childhood malnutrition. She took a job with the New York City Consumers League, where she helped develop rules to protect workers in bakeries and factories.

On March 25, 1911, Perkins witnessed a scene that would change the course of her life forever. She watched 47 workers jump to their deaths from the upper floors of a burning building, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. In the end, 146 employees—most of them young women—died as a result of the blaze.

A citizen’s committee formed to investigate the accident and prevent similar workplace tragedies from occurring in the future. Perkins became the group’s executive secretary, and, under her direction, it came up with the most rigorous workplace health and safety laws in the country. The committee’s regulations became the model for other states and the federal government.

After Al Smith was elected governor of New York in 1918, he appointed Perkins to the New York State Industrial Commission. With a salary of $8,000, she became the highest-paid woman in public office in the United States and the first woman to hold an administrative position in the New York state government.

Smith ran unsuccessfully for president in 1928, and Franklin D. Roosevelt became New York’s new governor. Under Roosevelt, Perkins became the state’s Industrial Commissioner and the two worked together to combat rising unemployment.

Perkins made headlines in January 1930, when she held a press conference and publicly challenged President Herbert Hoover’s claims that employment numbers were improving. She presented data from the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics and chided the administration for making misleading statements.

After Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, he asked Perkins to be Secretary of Labor. But before she would agree to join his cabinet, Perkins laid out her conditions: She expected him to pursue a variety of policies that would support and protect working-class Americans, such as a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage and a ban on child labor, among others.

Roosevelt agreed to her priorities, and Perkins became the country’s first female cabinet member. She held that role from 1933 to 1945. As the longest-serving Secretary of Labor, she was the “leading architect” behind Roosevelt’s New Deal reform programs after the Great Depression, according to the White House. During her tenure, Perkins helped establish the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Social Security, among other accomplishments. She also helped establish unemployment insurance, minimum wages, maximum hours and the rights of workers to organize.

Today, the Department of Labor’s Washington, D.C. headquarters are located inside the Frances Perkins Building. On Monday, Biden described Perkins as “one of America’s greatest labor leaders,” reports the Associated Press’ Chris Megerian, Aamer Madhani and Darlene Superville. “She cemented the idea that if you’re working a full-time job, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty,” Biden added.

The Frances Perkins National Monument is the country’s 433rd national park site, but it’s one of just a handful focused on women. The Biden administration has been working to change that and says it has invested more than $40 million in sites that elevate women’s stories throughout history.

“Women sometimes don't get the recognition that they deserve for having these ideas and bringing them forward,” says Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, to USA Today’s Eve Chen. “Frances Perkins, to many people, was a buried history. Today changes that, and so I feel like it's just a really special moment to honor her, but also remind ourselves that we need to do our homework a little bit more and not let these women sort of go without the recognition that they deserve.”

Also this week, the administration designated five new National Historic Landmarks with an emphasis on women’s history: the Charleston Cigar Factory in Charleston, South Carolina; the Furies Collective House in Washington, D.C.; the Lucy Diggs Slowe and Mary Burrill House in Washington, D.C.; Azurest South in Petersburg, Virginia; and the Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth House and Studios in San Patricio, New Mexico. The Department of Interior also released a new report this month that details women’s representation at national sites.

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.