September 8, 2020 • 44 mins
Frances Perkins was an incredibly influential American yet is virtually unknown. What did she do? A lot! For instance, Social Security was her brainchild. And that's just the tip of the old iceberg.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody. I don't know if you've heard, but we
have a book coming out finally, finally, after all these years.
It's great, it's fun. You're gonna love it. It's called
Stuff You Should Know Colon, an incomplete compendium of mostly
interesting things, and it's twenty six jam packed chapters that
we wrote with another guy named Knows Parker, who's amazing
(00:23):
and is illustrated amazingly by our illustrator, Carl Manardo. And
it's just an all around joy to pick up and read.
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
(00:44):
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
(01:07):
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.
(01:28):
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
(01:51):
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
(02:12):
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
(02:35):
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,
(02:57):
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
(03:18):
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
(03:38):
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
(04:05):
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
(04:27):
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
(04:47):
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
(05:09):
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
(05:32):
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,
(05:52):
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,
(06:16):
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?
(06:38):
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
(06:59):
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
(07:23):
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
(07:43):
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.
(08:04):
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
(08:25):
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
(08:45):
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
(09:06):
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.
(09:29):
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,
(09:51):
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
(10:14):
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
(10:36):
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
(10:57):
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
(11:21):
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
(11:42):
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
(12:25):
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.
(12:48):
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.
(13:09):
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.
(13:33):
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
(13:54):
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
(14:16):
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
(14:38):
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,
(14:58):
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
(15:21):
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
(15:41):
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,
(16:03):
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,
(16:24):
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
(16:45):
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.
(17:07):
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
(17:30):
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
(17:51):
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
(18:11):
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
(18:33):
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
(18:54):
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
(19:17):
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
(19:37):
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
(19:58):
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,
(20:20):
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
(20:42):
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
(21:04):
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
(21:26):
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
(21:46):
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
(22:11):
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
(22:33):
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,
(22:53):
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,
(23:14):
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.
(23:39):
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
(24:01):
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,
(24:27):
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
(24:48):
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
(25:11):
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
(25:32):
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.
(25:56):
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
(26:20):
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
(26:43):
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
(27:03):
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
(27:25):
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,
(27:48):
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
(28:10):
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.
(28:33):
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,
(28:56):
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
(29:18):
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
(29:41):
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
(30:04):
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
(30:24):
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,
(30:46):
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
(31:07):
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,
(31:31):
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
(31:51):
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,
(32:14):
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
(32:36):
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
(32:59):
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,
(33:21):
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
(33:43):
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
(34:03):
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
(34:24):
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
(34:45):
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
(35:06):
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
(35:28):
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
(35:48):
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
(36:09):
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
(36:30):
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,
(36:50):
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
(37:12):
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
(37:33):
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
(37:55):
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
(38:17):
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
(38:38):
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
(38:58):
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
(39:20):
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
(39:41):
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
(40:03):
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
(40:26):
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.
(40:46):
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.
(41:11):
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
(41:31):
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,
(41:52):
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
(42:14):
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
(42:37):
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
(42:57):
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
(43:18):
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
(43:39):
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,
(44:01):
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
Hey, everybody. I don't know if you've heard, but we
have a book coming out finally, finally, after all these years.
It's great, it's fun. You're gonna love it. It's called
Stuff You Should Know Colon, an incomplete compendium of mostly
interesting things, and it's twenty six jam packed chapters that
we wrote with another guy named Knows Parker, who's amazing
(00:23):
and is illustrated amazingly by our illustrator, Carl Manardo. And
it's just an all around joy to pick up and read.
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
(00:44):
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
(01:07):
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.
(01:28):
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
(01:51):
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
(02:12):
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
(02:35):
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,
(02:57):
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
(03:18):
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
(03:38):
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
(04:05):
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
(04:27):
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
(04:47):
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
(05:09):
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
(05:32):
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,
(05:52):
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,
(06:16):
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?
(06:38):
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
(06:59):
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
(07:23):
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
(07:43):
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.
(08:04):
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
(08:25):
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
(08:45):
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
(09:06):
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.
(09:29):
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,
(09:51):
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
(10:14):
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
(10:36):
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
(10:57):
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
(11:21):
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
(11:42):
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
(12:25):
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.
(12:48):
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.
(13:09):
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.
(13:33):
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
(13:54):
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
(14:16):
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
(14:38):
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,
(14:58):
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
(15:21):
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
(15:41):
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,
(16:03):
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,
(16:24):
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
(16:45):
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.
(17:07):
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
(17:30):
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
(17:51):
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
(18:11):
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
(18:33):
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
(18:54):
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
(19:17):
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
(19:37):
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
(19:58):
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,
(20:20):
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
(20:42):
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
(21:04):
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
(21:26):
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
(21:46):
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
(22:11):
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
(22:33):
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,
(22:53):
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,
(23:14):
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.
(23:39):
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
(24:01):
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,
(24:27):
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
(24:48):
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
(25:11):
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
(25:32):
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.
(25:56):
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
(26:20):
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
(26:43):
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
(27:03):
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
(27:25):
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,
(27:48):
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
(28:10):
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.
(28:33):
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,
(28:56):
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
(29:18):
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
(29:41):
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
(30:04):
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
(30:24):
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,
(30:46):
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
(31:07):
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,
(31:31):
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
(31:51):
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,
(32:14):
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
(32:36):
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
(32:59):
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,
(33:21):
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
(33:43):
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
(34:03):
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
(34:24):
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
(34:45):
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
(35:06):
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
(35:28):
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
(35:48):
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
(36:09):
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
(36:30):
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,
(36:50):
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
(37:12):
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
(37:33):
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
(37:55):
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
(38:17):
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
(38:38):
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
(38:58):
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
(39:20):
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
(39:41):
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
(40:03):
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
(40:26):
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.
(40:46):
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.
(41:11):
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
(41:31):
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,
(41:52):
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
(42:14):
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
(42:37):
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
(42:57):
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
(43:18):
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
(43:39):
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,
(44:01):
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,
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