Frances Perkins (Courtesy photo)
The Whitefield Library’s next Lunch & Learn event on Wednesday, Feb. 4 will be about the life and career of Frances Perkins. Mary Reid, the programs and partnerships coordinator at the Frances Perkins Center in Newcastle, will be the speaker.
Perkins was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of labor and the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. She was the driving force behind the New Deal, credited with formulating policies to shore up the national economy following the nation’s most serious economic crisis and helping to create the modern middle class.
“The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life,” Perkins said.
Born in Boston in 1880, Perkins descended from a long line of Maine farmers and craftsmen. She was in every respect a self-made woman who became America’s leading advocate for industrial safety and workers’ rights.
Perkins witnessed the 1911 NY Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire where 46 young women jumped to their deaths. She later proclaimed that the factory fire was “the day the New Deal was born.”
When President-elect Roosevelt asked Perkins to serve in his cabinet as secretary of labor in February 1933, she outlined for him a set of policy priorities she would pursue: 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.
She made it clear to Roosevelt that his agreement with these priorities was a condition of her joining his cabinet. Roosevelt said he endorsed them all, and Perkins became the first woman in the nation to serve in a presidential cabinet.
“I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain, common working men,” she said.
In 2024, former President Joe Biden designated her family’s 57-acre homestead in Newcastle as the Frances Perkins National Monument.
The presentation will begin at noon and be followed by lunch and roundtable Q&A. A brown bag lunch will be provided. The cost is $10. Tickets can be purchased at whitefieldlibrary.org or at the library during business hours.
The second floor of the library is currently only accessible by stairs. Donations are welcome and help support future programming.
Snow date is Feb. 11 at noon.
There is one more event in the Historic Women of Maine series. The Wednesday, March 4 talk is on Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in Bowdoin. All tickets are available for purchase now.
The Whitefield Library & Community Center is at 1 Arlington Lane in Whitefield. For more information, call 549-0170, email info@whitefieldlibrary.org, go to whitefieldlibrary.org, or find the library on Facebook.
