Perkins told FDR she would take the job only if he would commit to pursuing seven key policies: a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, unemployment compensation, worker's compensation, abolition of child labor, direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief, Social Security, a revitalized federal employment service and universal health insurance.
Perkins became the longest-serving labor secretary in history, holding the role from 1933 to 1945. During that time, she accomplished all but one of her original goals: universal health care.
Speaking in a radio address in 1935, Perkins explained, "It has taken the rapid industrialization of the last few decades, with its mass-production methods, to teach us that a man might become a victim of circumstances far beyond his control."
"Finally it took a depression to dramatize for us the appalling insecurity of the great mass of the population, and to stimulate interest in social insurance in the United States," she added.
Written out of the history books
Perkins died in 1965, and now few Americans know her name even as they rely on her programs.
"She was hugely well known in her lifetime and when FDR was alive," Downey said. "But very quickly after her death, male historians started to write her out of the story. It's really extraordinary."
Suzi Levine is trying to channel Frances Perkins lately. As head of Washington State's Employment Security Department, she and her staff are grappling with skyrocketing claims for unemployment benefits during the coronavirus pandemic. They're hiring hundreds more employees to help process claims, push out technology updates and keep the department running — all while also working under crisis conditions, many from home.
"It's going to take a collective effort the likes of which we have not seen before, and I feel humbled to be a part of the team that will get us there," Levine said. "When you roll back the clock a hundred years, I suspect Frances Perkins and her colleagues felt similarly as they looked at the devastation, the Depression and the oncoming World War II. I think there's a lot that we can learn from then and apply now, but with a modern context and with our modern tools."
