the woman behind the new deal by kirstin downey

After graduating in 1902, Perkins, a progressive and woman suffragist, did not want to return to her parents’ Massachusetts home or join debutante society. The students visited factories, observed working conditions, and saw first hand how long hours, low pay, child labor, and unsafe conditions undermined the lives of workers. She attended Mount Holyoke College, where she was impressed by her course in American economic history. Perkins’s life is an object lesson in what women-Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and even Sarah Palin-endure in the rock-’em-sock-’em chauvinistic dust up of national politics.įanny Perkins was born on April 10, 1880, and grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, the oldest daughter in a conservative New England family. She was so effective, in fact, that many in Congress, the labor movement, and various cabinet offices resented her presence. From 1933 until 1945, she was every bit as powerful as the men around FDR. She ranked social justice above personal fame and glory. Although Perkins engineered many of the most important New Deal victories, her feminist sensibilities relegated her to the sidelines. Reading about Perkins’s heroic contributions, I kept wondering why her story is being told only now, nearly 65 years since she stepped down from her twelve-year, record-setting stint as secretary of labor.

Kirsten Downey’s exciting, fast-paced biography makes it clear that FDR depended on Perkins’s formidable legislative skills, her ability to bring opposing sides to the table, and her near infallible insight into people’s characters. The economic catastrophe of the Great Depression would have been much worse if Frances Perkins, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor and the first woman to serve in the US cabinet, had not been there to push, prod, and cajole Roosevelt into doing the right thing.

The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience

The woman behind the new deal by kirstin downey