Frances Perkins: Influential and Unknown

Even though we haven't physically held in our hands yet, it's like we have Chuck in our dreams so far. I can't wait to actually see and hold this thing and smell it. And so should you, so pre order now. It means a lot to us. The support is a very big deal, So pre order anywhere books are sold. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, And welcome to the podcast Time Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant

and this is Stuff you Should Know. The amazing Unsong Woman Edition volume to at least more than two What number would you say then? I don't know, but I'll tell you what if you want to take a vote on maybe one of the most undersung while at the same time being most influential Americans to ever live, Neil Diamond. He was very sung. I know, I'm not a big fan. Anyway, you would be hard pressed to overlook ms Perkins. Yeah, miss Francis Perkins totally agree. Had never heard her name before,

had never even known she existed. But yeah, the more you dig into, the more you just like, it was almost a crime that this this woman was virtually written out of the history books. Yeah. And if you are one of those people who was unfortunate to not be able to work right now during quarantine and the effects of COVID nineteen and you are um, not lucky enough, but uh, you know, deservedly enough receiving unemployment insurance, you

can thank Francis Perkins for that. That's right. And every single person who's getting check as easily as they've gotten lately is getting one because of this system that Francis Perkins set up. And what's really I think worth noting too, is this, this is exactly the kind of situation that she got this past four that she helped design this

for because there's a quote. I can't remember exactly where the quote was, but to paraphrase it, it's basically like, we need to we need to always keep our eye on the long term and playing for the worst case scenario. While yes, there's a lot of immediate needs that we need, but there's always going to be something that comes down the road, and we have planned for it. We're way

better off. Just imagine how disasters it would be on top of the current disaster if there wasn't such a thing as unemployment insurance and this is how we found out that we really kind of needed. Yeah, it would be dark ages stuff in this country. Yeah. So if you have gotten your unemployment insurance check and it has helped you, thank Francis Perkins somehow. Yeah, And we want to thank how stuff works. That's where part of this

research come came from. And some other places, but notably And I don't want to shout this out because this is a library intern at the FDR Library who wrote a paper called Honoring the Achievements of FDR Secretary of Labor Jessica Brightman. This is really good stuff and and she's a library intern, and we want to shout her out. Yeah, she did great, or she was at the time. I imagined she's moved on from that internship after after she turned that essay in you bet your Pippy she did so.

Francis Perkins was born uh Fanny Corala Perkins in Boston in eight but her relatives in her ancestors came from Maine. And it's kind of funny here at the beginning of this how stuff works thing, it says she's so understung the even residence of her hometown of Damera Scotta, Maine, didn't seem familiar with her legacy. I think that says more about Maine, right, They're like, oh, we don't need to help her put on airs. Well, then, just like you know, I don't ask, I don't tell, I just don't.

Whatever what she lives here, great good for her, I want to say. Also, before the residents of Newcastle bust a vein in their forehead, she's also cited as um a native of Newcastle, Maine. They're right across the demarro Scotta River from one another. I think she's from Newcastle. So is this like an Adidas Puma thing? Maybe? Maybe, except to imagine if neither town knew what us were that would be for the accurate analogy. Oh boy, so she uh yeah, she was. She came from really like

died in the wool Yankee stock. Um. Her family came over I think in the sixteen eighties. Her um she had like her family had built an outpost during the French Indian War. Her grandmother, who had more of an influence on her, she said than anybody, had a cousin who she was close to, UM who founded Howard University and fought for the rights of newly freed African Americans. Um. She came from like a long line of people who like cared about other people. And yet UM. Surprisingly her

parents were very conservative. They were in favor of, you know, helping the poor, but not mingling with them, helping them, like helping them by like you know, sending some money or something like that. At UM and they produced a child, Fanny Francis. She changed her name, I thinking I don't know her twenties or thirties. Um, she she was the

opposite way. She was like, no, like, like, people are people, and they all deserve help, and there's a lot of injustice in this world, and I want to change it myself and she's one of those people who actually did enact tremendous change for all the right reasons. Yeah, she said, people are people, so why should it be you and I should get along so awfully? Which one was that? Mode? Depeche Mode? I can't, baby, Hey, that's Emily's jam. I mean she would. She probably has that tattooed on her

body somewhere. Uh. In fact, we're both that none of my business. We're both doing that that silly and I never do these things on Facebook. But a time now the top ten most influential albums, and I was like, which one? Are you gonna pick? A New Order or Depeche Mode for her? Because that's a that's a tough one. Well, I mean can't. She's got tend to choose from right. Yeah, but I think for her those two are so inextricably

tied that it was one or the other. I got you, and she went with Depeche Mode because they were first and thus probably more influential. Depeche Mode is before New Order. Huh yes, I mean technically, if you count New Order as an out outcropping of Joy Division, then they were first. Oh so well, Joy Division was different, though it was pretty different, different enough that they might as well be

two different bands, which they were. You know who we need to to give us the judgment call is Francis Perkins, who who apparently would not have enjoyed our banter. She was very much known as like a dour, serious woman. But from what I can tell, that's actually a public persona that she wore to get men to take her seriously. Yeah, well, who can blame her because we'll see later on out her. It's no accident that she's lost to history in many ways.

But what she was also was highly educated. Um. She graduated from Mount Holyoke in nineteen o two, where she majored in chemistry in physics. Even though she made her name in economics, which is means she was a very well rounded human and had a very large brain. And apparently she had made it all the way through college and UM. In her senior year, I think she attended an economics lecture by Florence Kelly, who was a huge um wage justice crusader UM and that just changed her life.

Yeah big time. Uh. In nineteen this is post college, she went to Philly and she became general secretary of the Philadelphia Research and pro Protective Association. What did she do there, Well, she was in charge of investigating uh employment agencies that were fake and that prayed on women, immigrant women's specifically, and she had to sort of deal with the dregs of society and that job and did so very successfully, and then decided she wanted to keep

her education going. So while she was in Philly, she went to the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania because that's super easy in light learning, uh And then after that she went to Columbia where she earned uh m A and social economics in nineteen ten. And we should say, like, she's getting all of this schooling, but at the same time, she's also set herself off on a m what's that like, learned while you work

program called internship? I guess, so that's not exactly what I'm looking for, but yeah, I mean it makes sense. So she set herself up on a real world internship program. So while she wasn't Philly working for that that bureau,

she was investigating those those fake employment rackets. Like she was on the ground doing this stuff, like carrying out these inspections, UM, investigating factories, like taking notes in like yeah, basically, yeah, while she's studying this stuff, she's also out doing and seeing the stuff firsthand that she's learning about, which from what I can tell, she really kind of digested and held onto and it just kept driving her for the rest of her life. What she saw. I think that's

called the School of Hard Knocks. It is, but she enrolled in the Wharton School and the School of Hard Knocks at the same time, which is pretty impressive, that's right. And after Columbia, after she got that masters, for two years she served as executive secretary of the Consumers League of New York And this is where she really felt her life calling to improve wages, improved working to conditions because this was nineteen ten through nineteen twelve and things

weren't great in factories at the time. We could do a podcast on I don't know what the focus would be, neces sarily because we've done labor unions, but just labor conditions. Yeah, maybe so I opening, But there's she did. She This is one of the things she did. There's very few, uh more depressing words than these strong together. She improved working conditions for children. That was one of the things she did, and that was at the Consumers League of

New York. And she got there and was like, yes, I've I've achieved my one of my first goals, which is working directly with the same Florence Kelly who gave the economics lecture that changed her life years before Mount Holyoke. That's right. Yeah, so she was one of those ones who said I want to do this, and then would do it and then would move on to the next thing. Yeah, she wouldn't stand around and wait for the statue to be built in her honor. Exactly, yeah, exactly. So we

take a break. Uh, yes, all right, We're gonna take a break and talk about a pretty devastating fire in New York City that changed the course of her life right after this What fire, Chuck, I'm talking about the Triangle shirtwaist fire. Uh in Manhattan, sort of near Washington Square Park in green It's right next to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. I think it's an n y U building now it is, And I tried to pinpoint if that was the building where I actually had my

film classes. Was it? I don't know, I can't quite tell. We gotta no, Chuck, I'll see if I can find out. But a shirt waist was a woman's blouse, is what they called it at the time. And this was a factory that made women's blouses. If you worked there, you were probably a young woman. Uh, you might be an immigrant. You would work about fifty two hours a week. Oh I saw twelve hours a day, seven days a week. What does that math turn out to, Let's see seventy

seven hundred and twenty Uh wait, I can't do math. Well, let's say between fifty two and eighty hours a week. You know it was way more than that, twelve times seven eighty four. Yeah, that's what I said, eighty four hours a week. But like, even that doesn't sound that big. Twelve hour days, seven days a week, just to keep your job, right, So I saw fifty two either way. Uh, they made between seven and twelve dollars a week. Uh, making these blouses for women, which was not good even

back then. Yeah, it wasn't good. And because this was a factory in New York in nineteen eleven, Uh, they had the doors locked, they had the staircases locked. They thought it prevented theft if you were umber. What happened to locked doors and stairwells. In our Hotel Fire episode, the same thing happened here on March nineteen eleven when the triangle shirt waist fire started because they think of a of a matt a cigarette but thrown into a waist bin and it just, you know, everything in there

was flammable. Practically that wasn't metal because of all these fabrics like highly flammable. It went up really quick. It's one of the deadliest US workplace disasters of all time to this day. UH. Four hundred and forty six workers died, a hundred and twenty three of which were women, UH and girls between the ages of UH, generally between fourteen and twenty three. The oldest was forty three, but that

was kind of an outlier. And sixty two of those people jumped to their death in front of full view of New York City, including UH Francis Perkins. Right in front of Francis Perkins. She didn't jump to her death, no, no no, no, so she Yeah, she's literally witnessing one of the turning points in history as it happens seeing women, teenage girls jump out of the ninth floor of this building because it's on fire. And not only is she

witnessing a fire that will change history. She is one of the people that will force history to change because of this fire. The the the fate or the destiny that that put her a block away from this fire when it happened is it's just astounding to me that she was there, because she went on to be one of the people who said this is never going to

happen again, and under her watch, it basically didn't. It was the worst that it ever got and it never got that bad again because of the um the safeguards she forced the state and then later on other states and the federal government to adopt. Yeah. I mean she was already kind of headed down this road anyway. She was already part of the Knee Ork State Factory Investigating Commission, and because of this fire, which she I don't think we said, she was just having team across the park there,

ran over and saw this. Uh. One of the things she saw that at one point there were twenty people that had managed to get out a window onto a fire escape, one of those tiny, little flimsy New York fire escapes, and that all twenty of those people, uh, the thing collapsed and they all felt to their hundred feet to their death right in front of her face. Yeah, we need to do an entire episode on that, at the very least just to to shame the two owners,

who's who were just totally responsible for all those deaths. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, but this was sort of just the way it was, I mean, not absolving them. But she saw this as part of the bigger problem, not like these two owners are responsible, but she was like, it was an indictment of the system. Yeah, it was. But at the same time, those guys were particularly nasty examst for the system. They weren't.

They weren't average by any mean from what I understand. No, but what was average was the fact that they didn't have fire codes. And she's the person that brought that in.

By the time she was in her early thirties, she had called for and successfully called for exit signs, UM occupancy limits, sprinklers, fire escapes, UM, unlocked doors and stairwells, how wide the doorways had to be depending on your factory floor, like all these sort of common sense things, Like a lot of people saw this stuff happen and and and saw this incident that day and were horrified.

But Francis Perkins said, Nope, I'm gonna change it. I'm a woman in nineteen eleven and I'm in my early thirties, but I'm gonna make this happen. And she did. She did um. She was appointed to the New York Committee on Safety under the recommendation of Teddy Roosevelt, which says a lot because that means she had already made a name for herself in her twenties in New York City politics, to to the point where Teddy Roosevelt would say, like,

you really kind of need this woman on there. And then let's not forget the fact that he the operative word here was woman as far as society was concerned at the time. And this, this legislation that she got passed through in New York, or that she helped get passed through New York, like I was saying, it became a model for other states and then eventually the federal fire codes um because of this, because of largely because of her efforts, and she she made a name for herself.

She had already made a name for herself, but this really kind of helps cement her name. And she started working closely with a guy named alfredy Smith who was an assemblyman from New York, right, but um he uh, she won his respect um pretty easily. I think they worked on this um New York Committee on Safety together. Um. And so when he became governor, she kind of um

rose along with him. She was appointed by him to New York States Industrial Commission, which made her the first woman to be appointed to a state government position in the country. And with her eight thousand dollar salary, she was the highest paid woman to hold any office in the United States at the time. So she became important

pretty quick. But she became important everybody. This is really important to remember by hard work and heart, which is a just a wonderful combination, Like amazing things happened in from people who have that combination. Yeah, and she um. She ingratiated herself to these male politicians a couple of different important times in her life. And the first one was alfredy Smith, like you were saying, so she rose along with him because he knew he was like, man,

i don't care if she's a woman or not. She works harder than anyone I know, and she gets the job done. So I'm just gonna bring her along with me and not just not just works harder. She was known as a policy expert about workers safety and um wage justice by this time too. Well, yeah, I mean I talked about her very large brain. In her higher education, she was super super smart, like it said, she majored in chemistry and physics, even though her real love was econ.

So it's like, are you kidding me? No, we're not kidding at all. So um So, like you were saying, she first kind of rose to prominence with Alfred E. Smith, who, from what I could tell, I didn't get to research him very much, but the stuff that I ran across, the references to him, he seemed like a genuine, like true believer crusader in justice social justice as well. Um So they were like a good a good pair. Um. And he made it as far as New York governor.

He ran for president uh and didn't win. Uh. And when he didn't win, he, I guess lost the governorship and was succeeded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And so Roosevelt came in came into power in New York as the

governor of New York uh. And Francis Perkins was already there and had already built up a reputation, and Roosevelt recognized the kind of person she was pretty quickly, because a lot of people are you know, you can give a lot of credit or a lot of vilification to Roosevelt for his New Deal policies, depending on your political stripes. But if you, you know, if you admire him for it, and I think most people should. He Um, it wasn't

just him. One of his great talents was to recognize talent in others and to bring those people together and then enact policies based on their expertise and their recommendations. And one of those people was Francis Perkins, starting when he was Governor of New York and then also when he became president too. Yeah. So when he came into his governorship, she had already been named and was the chairperson called it a chairman back then in six of

the State Industrial Board. Um. She was doing a great job there. And then in nine FDR appointed her as the Industrial Commissioner of the State of New York. And what happens. The stock market crashes, the Great Depression hits America like a punch in the face, and she was the one who stepped in and got in his ear and said, you know what, like I know that we have to to feed people right now, we have really

immediate needs. But like you mentioned earlier in the episode, she thought about the the big picture and long term goals. She said, we need to really take swift action here. So with her help, they created a committee unemployment. He appointed her the head of that, and then when he was elected president in nine he said, you know what, I'm gonna point you to be my Secretary of Labor that I've been working with you for twenty years, I

trust you, and you're gonna do a great job. And the public roundly said, what a woman in the cabinet, they really did, I mean, like she she was the first cabinet, first woman to serve as a cabinet member. I mean women had just gotten the right to vote about thirteen twelve or thirteen years before, so you just didn't vote until she was forty, I know. And yet she held public public appointed offices and still couldn't vote,

but wasn't allowed to vote for her boss, right exactly. Yeah, So it was a really big deal that FDR appointed a woman as a to a cabinet position, and an important cabinet position too. I mean, like, it's not like there's any necessarily unimportant cabinet positions, but Secretary of Labor is pretty big, especially yeah, especially then, right, and especially um.

You know, at a time when this this emerging superpower too took a huge punch in the face and got knocked on its But like the rest of the world by the Great Depression, this was important stuff that they

were trying to figure out on the fly. But he he chose a really, really great person, Um who wasn't really accepted at first, not just by the public but by virtually anybody of the labor unions weren't happy she was there because she had a background in social work and policy, yes, but she eventually won him over just by virtue of what she did. Like, the labor movement

was on the ropes at the time. The Progressive era ran from I think about nineteen twenty, so by the time comes around, it's it's dying off the labor movement, but under her leadership as the Department of Labor secretary, she um revived it and and by the time she either died or left office, I can't remember. Um. I think a third of all Americans were members of unions yeah, and and and pre the union stuff like kind of

right after the Great Depression hit. One of the first things they did together was created the Civilian Conservation Corps the c c C, which was a really big success, one of the big early successes of the New Deal in that they said, you know what, we have all this, We have this workforce of these unskilled, unmarried men, and let's get these guys working in conservation. We have these this vast areas of rural land and natural resources, and let's send these guys out there to work on this stuff.

And they did, and it provided a ton of jobs through the Civilian Conservation Corps. It did, and it also helped reinforce and build out America's infrastructure too, because they had all this labor that the government was putting to work doing it right. So she was in charge of overseeing that. UM and one of the one of the other, I guess. The next big thing I think it was before Social Security, was something called the Wagner Act and the Wagner Act. Think you mean the Wagner Act, the

the the Wagner Wagner Act, depending on your persuasion. UM. It gave workers the right to unionize in the right to collectively bargain and UM. One of her roles was to go out and promote this stuff, not just to you know, other members of the government UM or members of industry, but to individual Americans too. So in n three alone, she gave a hundred different policy speeches in just that one year on new deal projects, promoting them UM.

And one of the speeches she gave, I don't know if it was in that year or not, but she went to Homestead, Pennsylvania, right across the river from Pittsburgh, where Carnegie Steel was headquartered, and she was going to inform these workers about their newly one rights through the Wagner Act, and Carnegie Steel and the local government would not give her any place to hold this this meeting. They wouldn't give the Secretary of Labor a place to

talk to voters. So she and there's apparently a famous picture of her leading all of these steel workers um on foot to a post office. She's like, oh, I can think of a play to where I can assemble legally, and that is the post office. So she gave her speech on the grounds of the Homestead Post Office two thousands of steel workers, informing them that they could legally um unionize and bargain collectively for workers rights. That's amazing.

I feel like if I feel like we had to have talked about her in our union's episode, and if we didn't, shame on us, but also shame on the fact that she probably didn't pop up in our research, which is one of the problems. Yeah, mostly the second one. All right, So I'm gonna pass that buck right book stops over there. Well, we're making up for it now

either way, okay, Chuck. So we were staying at the outset that if you um got an unemployment check, thank Francis Perkins, or if you ever get an unemployment check, if you even like the idea of the fact that an unemployment insurance policies out there for you in case you ever need it, thank Francis Perkins. And the reason you thank Francis Perkins is because she basically oversaw the creation of the legislation that became the Social Security Act of nineteen five UM. And when I say oversaw the

creation of that legislation, like she that was it. She was the head of this cabinet level committee that was assigned, um the task of coming up with a social insurance policy, a social safety net for the country, and they came up with this within six months, this full policy report. Within two days of delivering the report, FDR turned around and unveiled the social security program idea to Congress, and

another six months or so later, maybe eight, passed into law. Yeah, and boy, we should do one on social security at some point, I agree. I think we have. Man, I'm positive, yeah, it really rings a bell. Go ahead, I'm looking at at No, I'm gonna have our little our assistant that we here check that. Can you go and check on that? Okay, they're on it? Who is Tommy Chong? Like we've ever

had anyone that worked for us. That's the funny thing is when we get emails over the years that like, well to Josh and Chuck and Jerry or whoever on your staff is reading this, It's like, yeah, it's pretty much us. Yeah. While we're we're reading these emails while we're having to sweep up the studio. Well, I want

to be fair. To be fair, we work for a big podcasting network and there are a lot of people that help us get stuff out in the world, But we have never had like a stuff you should know staff of eight people who only work for us in research for US and all that stuff. And I feel like it really shows in the podcast, like I'm glad you said that, because I felt like I was patting ourselves on the back for a second there the opposite you dash that very fast self deprecation, Chuck. That's our specialty.

That's right. So social security, what we're talking about in general, everyone knows what this is is UM basically a system where um, younger, hardy people working hard in this country help out older people, retired people, perhaps disabled people, people that have had work related accidents, people who wear funny hats, people who wear funny hats, um, and and pay into this system that uh, ideally, and you know we're not going to get into the weeds here that that would

come on our Social Security podcast. But ideally, then when you are old or in need, then you have that same money waiting for you because of the younger generation and the younger workforce. Right. That's the brilliance of the whole thing is it's a transfer payment system to where you are directly funding the people who have retired now, but it's on the premise that people behind you are going to fund into this to support you later on.

It's beautiful. It's a genius idea. And apparently FDR sent her Francis Perkins to study um the British system of unemployment insurance even before he was president, back when he was governor of New York, and he became the first public official to commit to developing an unemployment insurance plan. And it was at the persistent behest of Francis Perkins that he did that. Yeah, and it's not like, uh, I mean, he he didn't run for office with social

security on his list of things to do. Well, Yeah, that's the thing a lot of people say, like, if it weren't for her, no joke, this stuff probably wouldn't exist, certainly not in the form that it does now. And that's not necessarily fair. There are like there were programs that had like Social Security type programs among the states, including unemployment programs, but they were ad hoc, they were patchwork.

Most states didn't have them. And it's the kind of the the the beauty of this the federal program is they're basically like, Okay, states do this, but we're going to oversee and organize it and and how fund it. Yeah, And It's not like I was saying that all the FDR was like not a champion of it or was

just lazy. He was he had a bunch of stuff going on, and he had a bunch of irons in the fire, so he needed her to come in and say, hey, listen, this is all great because we're in a in a a tragic situation right now, Like we're trying to put out a fire, but what I want to do is make sure another fire doesn't happen in the future. Yes, And that was like her whole thing, like, we do need to make sure that people get peanut butter sandwiches

because their families are going to starve. Like, yes, these immediate needs have to be met, but we also simultaneously have to plan for the future too. It was it was just this persistent drum that she'd be like, we're going to continue to have problems, let's plan for him now. Like the level of visionary nous um in this in

this person was you just don't see that. I can't think of too many other people who have come and gone in the federal government in the United States at least had that level of I guess awareness of looking down the line that far rather than just you know,

four years out or to the next election. Yeah. And she also, you know, we talked about some of the things she did earlier in terms of of her career in terms of fair labor practices, but once she was Secretary of Labor, she had real teeth to make real change, and during her tenure UM she helped craft the Fair Labor Standards Act. Um, she helped establish minimum wage laws, maximum work hours laws, and she finally said, you know what,

maybe we shouldn't make labor for children better. Maybe we should not bring our children to work and make them work. So let's just get rid of child labor altogether. And you can make the case, Chuck, that she is the woman who gave America's kids the concept of a childhood. At the very least, she extended it by many, many years. Um. I've got another amazing fact about her. She I believe is the first cabinet member UM who Congress ever sought

to impeach. Oh really, yes, I'm almost positive that's correct. I know that they did try to impeach her, and they failed in the impeachment, not just the conviction. She they couldn't get enough support for articles of impeachment. But it was because she refused to deport a an Australian longshoreman who had successfully organized a general strike in San Francisco and the anti common Communist elements in Congress because he suspected that this guy was a Communist and wanted

him out. And she said, you know, I don't think very highly of this guy. I don't really agree with a lot of what he stands for. But um, I don't think that you have really good evidence, and I think this is all retaliation for the strike you organized. So I'm not going to deport him. And you might say, well, what did this lady have to do with deporting? Apparently, back in the day, the immigration the power of immigration or control of immigration was up to the the Department

of Labor. So the Secretary of Labor was also in charge of immigration, which really kind of gives you an idea of where America's immigration policies. You know, where their mind was at that it was about importing you know, good um good and good workers, or also controlling who came in to keep competition for jobs down. But she's so she was in charge of immigration, which, as we'll see later on she used to great effect, is that our little uh is that our cherry on top at

the end? Yeah? I think so, okay, that's a good idea. It's it's the kid with the last question in Q and a man uh, and not the drunk guy. I hate that guy. So when FDR passed away, she was the longest serving Labor Secretary uh and one of only two cabinet members UM to serve the entire length of his super super long presidency, and she held over into Truman as well. He was like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So you're welcome to stay, which you

don't see a lot of that anymore. Um. She published a biography, a bestseller about FDR called The Roosevelt I Knew and UH. Here a few other just sort of uh career feathers in her cap. She was the head of the American delegation to the International Labor Organization in Paris. Truman appointed her to the US Civil Service Commission, which was a position she held till nineteen fifty three, and she basically accomplished every single one of her goals while

she was Secretary of Labor except for one thing. She went in there wanting to do, which was universal access to healthcare. Yeah, which is kind of a bummer. Some people might say it's a bummer. Some people might say good. Sure. She also played drums for Dockin for a brief time, for a little bit. She did it all and all while wearing a frumpy tricornered hat. That's right. Uh. And then after that she did what a lot of people

and UM public policy do. She went on to teach and lecture at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. She did that too, until she was eighty five years old when she passed away in n Yes, there are a couple of other things to throw into Both her husband and her daughter suffered from what we today called bipolar disorder. She cared

for them their entire lives. Um that little thing. Yeah right, No, while she's doing all this other stuff, she she made sure that they were cared for, took care of them

directly herself. UM. And one of the other things I think is worth mentioning too that while before um FDR became president, while she was working in New York, she was already known publicly UM before she became secretary of labor because she was the first public official to call Hoover out on his BS when he was downplaying obelossness numbers and unemployment figures, um and just general terrible economic news and pretending things were way better than they were.

She was the first person to step up and publicly contradict him and made national news for that, and um, you know, again, this is a woman doing this in like n thirty, So just that alone makes snational news. But she was also calling him out on his BS. And one thing that we have to say, um, before you you finished with the cherry on top, Chuck, she had guys figured out. She had a folder called Notes on the Male Mind, and she would just take notes on guys and men that she worked with and just

kind of try to get an understanding of them. And she she realized that the way to get male colleagues to treat you normally or maybe even respect you is to remind them of their mother. And that's what it takes, apparently to get a guy to treat a woman with respect at work. Well, and you know, we mentioned why she's undersung there. You know, history is written by men.

We all know this, and a lot of those New Deal histories in the seventies and eighties didn't even mention her, which is just staggering that you can write a history of the New Deal and not mentioned Francis Perkins. It's just like a black eye on on any author that did something like that. It almost seems malicious in a weird way, like I I'd like to think that that's not the case, but it's nuts. It's weird. So the cherry on top here at the end is World War Two.

She um World War two was not a cherry on the top. But she was watching Hitler uh do his thing in Germany and got really worried. She's like, man, that guy's cranked. She was read about anti Semitism and everything that was going on with the violence there, and

she wanted to help German refugees escape. And at the time, the Coolidge administration the immigration laws that came through his administration, and we're really tough, and Americans were very fearful that relaxing these laws would increase the job competition and that Americans were going to have these jobs. And she said, you know what, I don't agree. Um. The Immigration services under the Department of Labor and so I am going to put some quotas down to get some of these

refugees here and to aid them. And she did that to great success. Yes, she made sure that about at least fifty five thousand UM Jewish German immigrants made their way into the United States through these Department of Labor Immigration quotas uh and another I think two hundred thousand people in general were rescued from Europe as as World War two was starting to develop over there because of her.

Just on top of everything else, she also saved a bunch of tens of thousands of Jewish people from Hitler in World War two. Amazing, amazing chick. I guess that's it for Francis Perkins. Huh Ti, Well, if you want to know more about Frances Perkins, go start reading about her, because there's even more detail to her life than we captured here, and she's worth reading about. Very admirable person. Since I said admirable, it's time for listener mail. I'm

gonna call this helping a helper uh. And this is from a Tawny. Tony says this. Hey, guys have been sewing face masks for almost a month now, and I'm close to my one mask. It's a lot I have given and donated to friends, family, co workers. I'm a nine one one dispatcher by the way, healthcare workers, retail workers, delivery people, postal workers and other essential workers. And people wearing funny hats, be pouring funny hats, and complete strangers.

Now that face masks have become mandatory here in San Diego, the need has grown substantially. And through all of this, you three have been with me and keeping me company. Should Cherry too, Well, yeah, okay, she wasn't talking about Tommy Chong. I'll tell you that old episodes and new have entertained me through the tedious hours of cutting fabric, ironing, pinning, and sewing. I started listening to your podcast while I was in the Navy, and soon introduce you guys to

my husband, who was still in the military. We have both listened um and learned through the years together. Thank you for continuing your show and helping the helpers of the world. Side note love Dispatcher episode and thank you for clearing up the pizza order myth. Second side note, I wrote my master's thesis on the use of body Warren cameras by law enforcement and I decided to focus on that tap topic after listening to that awesome episode. Yeah,

that's pretty cool. All three of you are thanked and mentioned in the thesis. Even when I'm tired and don't want to sew anymore, I think of this quote from Mr Rogers head Down. When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, look for the helper. You will always find people who are helping. Go to them and they will help you. And that is from Tanny And that's a great quote, Tonny. I'm gonna and use that

my own house. It's kind of like, um, if you're afraid of flying, watch the flight attendants and as long as they're not freaking out, you're fine. It's the exact same thing he's saying when the S. When the s goes down, there's people helping. So that's always good. God bless Mr Rogers and man man. Yep, thanks a lot, is it, Tony, Tawny t a w n Y. I couldn't tell if you were just putting a little mustard on the Tony No, like Tawny Kitaine. Sure. Yeah, from

the White Snake video. That cultural icon. Well, thanks a lot, Tawny, I apologize for Chuck calling you Tawny Kitain. Okay, can I apologize for you? Okay, well I'm gonna do that. If you want to get me to apologize for Charles, let's see if you can do it. You can send us an email, wrap it up, spanking on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff Podcasts at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production

of i Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts, for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H