The Perkins New Deal

 Somebody probably not associated with the greeting card industry has designated March as Women’s History Month.  It so happens that this month I’ve been reading about the 1930s, a decade in which several of the women in American history I most admire were prominent, including Jane Addams, Dorothy Day, Eleanor Roosevelt and Halle Flanagan (who ran the Federal Theatre Project.)  But the woman I’ve been reading most about is Frances Perkins.

 Maybe it’s an oxymoron by now that this incredibly important woman in history is not very well known. But as FDR’s first and only Secretary of Labor, she was not just the first woman to run that department—she was the first female Cabinet officer in US history.  She was also one of the longest serving cabinet heads in history: all 12-plus years of FDR’s presidency. 

 She was among the most consequential cabinet heads in American history as well, mostly for the innovations during the New Deal that she advocated and worked to achieve, some of which she designed.

  And she knew what she wanted when she took the job at the crucial moment of the Great Depression in early 1933, and told FDR so: immediate federal aid to states and local governments to support relief for the unemployed; a large scale public works program; federal minimum wage and maximum hours laws; a ban on child labor; unemployment insurance and old-age insurance we now know as Social Security.  Eventually she got them all. 

 She was also an effective advocate for unions’ right to organize, and for workplace health and safety, with particular attention to the needs of women in the workplace.  All of these were new, and most were controversial and opposed by vested interests and reactionaries.  She was the model for effective compassion, for the practical heart.

 When she left office a little known and apparently unpopular figure, Collier’s magazine boldly suggested that “when the definitive history of this Administration is written, it is quite likely that [Secretary] Perkins will be hailed as the most successful of the New Dealers, for the Roosevelt pattern of government contains more of her ideas than any other of the President’s followers...What this country has been operating under for the past twelve years is not so much the Roosevelt New Deal as the Perkins New Deal.”

 But what she began did not end with the New Deal.  Consider the provisions of the new Covid Rescue Act that echo her innovations, as well as proposals for the infrastructure package.  Plus the safety net that so many of us depend on, and the further innovations that structures like Social Security have made possible, like the Affordable Care Act. 

 Nor was her contribution only in the ideas.  She knew how to get things done, to bring people and ideas together, to solve problems, gather support—and convince an often reluctant FDR.  She dealt with determined and underhanded opposition, including out-maneuvering FDR’s devious budget director.  She was an able administrator, who helped turn FDR’s idea for a Civil Conservation Corps into a reality that saved young lives and supported entire families, including my father’s.  She transformed the Labor Department from a clubhouse for cronies into a large and effective administrative arm.

 Though she also had to deal with family tragedies, she managed to survive the Roosevelt years and beyond (as FDR and Harry Hopkins did not).  She met President Kennedy, taught and lectured, describing her political experiences in a speech, part of which Laurence O’Donnell played on his MSNBC hour in 2014 or so, all when she was in her eighties.

 She taught at Cornell in her final years, and was so beloved that the male students of Telluride House, a residence for high-achievers, invited her to move in.  She did.  Secretary Frances Perkins remained at Cornell until her death at the age of 85.