Frances Perkins was born April 10, 1880 in Boston Massachusetts. Her parents were Frederick W. Perkins and Susan Bean Perkins. Her birth name was Fannie Coralie Perkins, but she decided to change her name to Frances. She graduated from Colombia University in 1910. She received a Master’s Degree in sociology from her studies at Colombia University. During her life she held a variety of teaching positions and also helped at the Hull House in Chicago, Illinois.
She became the head of the New York Consumers League. She first became head of this organization in 1910, but did not become well known until she worked hard to get better working conditions as well as hours. She also said that one event that changed her life was when she saw the damage done after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. In the year 1913 she married Paul Caldwell Wilson. She kept her maiden name after she defended her right to do so in court.Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Frances Perkins the position of state industrial commission in New York. Some of the things that she accomplished included expanding investigations in factories, reducing the workweek for working women, and working for minimum wage laws to be passed. After Roosevelt became President he made Perkins the Secretary of the Department of Labor. She held this position for 12 years starting in 1933. She held this position longer than any other person that preceded her. Frances also became the first women to hold a cabinet position in the United States.Frances helped write the New Deal legislation, as well as minimum wage laws. Some say that her most important thing that she did was helping to pass the Social Security Act in 1935. Following her career in the government she kept teaching at Cornell University. She died at the age of 85 in 1965. The headquarters for the Department of Labor is named after her legacy.
I think that Frances Perkins was an amazing person and paved the way for women that wanted to go into the government field. I also think that she had to be a very hardworking individual because she probably had to work twice as hard as the men doing the same thing. I think that it is good that the headquarters for the Department of Labor is named in her honor.Sourceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Perkinshttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3310269106?profile=original
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