If you set out to erect a modest monument at the gravesite of the ten Americans who did the most to advance the rights and lives of women in the United States, you would be obliged to get off from Route 1 in the town of Newcastle, Maine and travel a mile south along the west bank of the Damariscotta River to Glidden Cemetery. There, among the Perkins and the Beans, you would find a modest marker designating the last resting place of Frances Perkins Wilson, known professionally by her maiden name, Frances Perkins.
Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in a President’s cabinet. She was the longest serving Labor Secretary in history. That alone should at least earn her honorable mention on any list of important American women. Much more important, however, is the fact that 90% of the advances in the lives of average Americans in general and women in particular can be traced back to the labors of this remarkable human being. Fire codes to prevent workers from being consumed in flames, nonprofit clinics to provide obgyn services to women who could not afford them, unemployment insurance, social security,the ban on child labor, work safety rules, the 8 hour day. This is a partial list of the things that she did before being hired by FDR as Labor Secretary or insisted that he support as a condition of her agreeing to serve as his Labor Secretary.
Then, as Secretary, she played the key role in carrying out this ambitious agenda, while helping to bring others like Harry Hopkins into the administration. She helped Harry launch the WPA after she had set up FDR’s CCC. As a small footnote to history, Frances, on the urging of her daughter, convinced FDR to include work for artists in the WPA. This resulted in art in public buildings all over America. I remember when my daughters, Sam and Robyn, went to Nathan Clifford School in Portland there were two WPA murals by artist Ralph Frizzle in the school auditorium. Now they have been preserved for display in the Ocean Avenue Elementary School where my granddaughter Seguin will go to school.
This week marked the birthday of this remarkable woman and happily it did not go completely unnoticed. Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC did a wonderful two day tribute to the woman. How did Maine, the place she always thought of as home, mark the event? The state’s Governor, Paul LePage, did his best to demonstrate her commitment to the golden rule by underscoring his contempt for it. He highlighted the importance of the system of laws she helped construct to help Americans who were unemployed by trying to intimidate the people charged with the enforcement of those laws. He underscored what good can be accomplished by someone who works with diligence, tact and modesty by once again acting in a way which threatens to give ignorance a bad name.
This of course is not the first time that LePage has not exposed himself as a lout as he ran across the legacy of Miss Perkins. Earlier in his administration, Governor LePage ordered the removal of a mural in the Maine Department of Labor. Among other things the mural depicted Secretary Perkins. He said he ordered it taken down because he had received complaints that it made the Department of Labor seem too pro-labor. It prompted some of us to worry that he would order the DOT to take down pictures of bridges for fear the Department appear to be pro-transportation.
But what about the gravamen of his complaint. Does Frances Perkins’ legacy benefit only working men and women? Well let’s reflect for a minute. We just went through the worst recession in our history. It could have easily been a depression on the scale of the one in Perkins time. It almost certainly would have been if social security, unemployment insurance and support for children had not been continuing the flow of money into our economy. Maine business from LL Beans, to the paper mills, to the local convenience store all benefited mightily from the cash flow generated by those programs created in great part by the woman buried in Glidden Cemetery. Governor LePage is not the only governor in the country who sees humane treatment of working people as “anti-business” but he certainly has excelled at making this contempt his personal calling card.
The greatest influence in Frances’ childhood years was her grandmother Perkins. This flinty old yankee taught her granddaughter about humanity by passing on the sayings that all us old Mainers were raised on. In that spirit, let me suggest that if Secretary Perkins could be given the opportunity to comment upon Paul LePage’s repeated attacks on her legacy, she might remind us that “Empty barrels make the most noise.”
Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in a President’s cabinet. She was the longest serving Labor Secretary in history. That alone should at least earn her honorable mention on any list of important American women. Much more important, however, is the fact that 90% of the advances in the lives of average Americans in general and women in particular can be traced back to the labors of this remarkable human being. Fire codes to prevent workers from being consumed in flames, nonprofit clinics to provide obgyn services to women who could not afford them, unemployment insurance, social security,the ban on child labor, work safety rules, the 8 hour day. This is a partial list of the things that she did before being hired by FDR as Labor Secretary or insisted that he support as a condition of her agreeing to serve as his Labor Secretary.
Then, as Secretary, she played the key role in carrying out this ambitious agenda, while helping to bring others like Harry Hopkins into the administration. She helped Harry launch the WPA after she had set up FDR’s CCC. As a small footnote to history, Frances, on the urging of her daughter, convinced FDR to include work for artists in the WPA. This resulted in art in public buildings all over America. I remember when my daughters, Sam and Robyn, went to Nathan Clifford School in Portland there were two WPA murals by artist Ralph Frizzle in the school auditorium. Now they have been preserved for display in the Ocean Avenue Elementary School where my granddaughter Seguin will go to school.
This week marked the birthday of this remarkable woman and happily it did not go completely unnoticed. Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC did a wonderful two day tribute to the woman. How did Maine, the place she always thought of as home, mark the event? The state’s Governor, Paul LePage, did his best to demonstrate her commitment to the golden rule by underscoring his contempt for it. He highlighted the importance of the system of laws she helped construct to help Americans who were unemployed by trying to intimidate the people charged with the enforcement of those laws. He underscored what good can be accomplished by someone who works with diligence, tact and modesty by once again acting in a way which threatens to give ignorance a bad name.
This of course is not the first time that LePage has not exposed himself as a lout as he ran across the legacy of Miss Perkins. Earlier in his administration, Governor LePage ordered the removal of a mural in the Maine Department of Labor. Among other things the mural depicted Secretary Perkins. He said he ordered it taken down because he had received complaints that it made the Department of Labor seem too pro-labor. It prompted some of us to worry that he would order the DOT to take down pictures of bridges for fear the Department appear to be pro-transportation.
But what about the gravamen of his complaint. Does Frances Perkins’ legacy benefit only working men and women? Well let’s reflect for a minute. We just went through the worst recession in our history. It could have easily been a depression on the scale of the one in Perkins time. It almost certainly would have been if social security, unemployment insurance and support for children had not been continuing the flow of money into our economy. Maine business from LL Beans, to the paper mills, to the local convenience store all benefited mightily from the cash flow generated by those programs created in great part by the woman buried in Glidden Cemetery. Governor LePage is not the only governor in the country who sees humane treatment of working people as “anti-business” but he certainly has excelled at making this contempt his personal calling card.
The greatest influence in Frances’ childhood years was her grandmother Perkins. This flinty old yankee taught her granddaughter about humanity by passing on the sayings that all us old Mainers were raised on. In that spirit, let me suggest that if Secretary Perkins could be given the opportunity to comment upon Paul LePage’s repeated attacks on her legacy, she might remind us that “Empty barrels make the most noise.”