National Monument Pushed for New Deal Leader Frances Perkins, First Woman in Cabinet

The Frances Perkins Center on Wednesday launched a campaign calling for its 57-acre site in Maine to be named a national monument in honor of the trailblazing woman who led former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Labor Department and ushered in some of the most important legislation in the country's history.

Frances Perkins became the first woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet when she was named secretary of labor in 1933. She was instrumental in establishing Social Security, unemployment benefits, a minimum wage, and a 40-hour work week.

Campaigners called for President Joe Biden to designate the site, which is already a national historic landmark, as a national monument, and media reports indicated that he's likely to do so.

Members of Congress from Maine came out in strong support of the proposal.

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said in a statement that the designation would mean that "more people could learn about this incredible woman and the power of government to be a force for good."

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) also supported the push to honor Perkins.

"Her commitment to ensuring hardworking families have the resources to succeed and thrive is still felt today throughout the nation," he said.

"[The designation] would not only be a tribute to her incredible legacy, but also a testament to the leadership and resolve of so many Maine women following in her footsteps," he added.

Perkins was born in Massachusetts in 1880 and lived much of her adult life in New York and Washington, D.C., but came from a Maine family and spent time there throughout her life—she owned the house that's now home to the Frances Perkins Center, in the small town of Newcastle on the Damariscotta River, from 1927 until her death in 1965.

Perkins witnessed firsthand the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village in 1911—one of the worst industrial disasters in U.S. history, which left 146 workers dead, and an event she made reference to for the rest of her life—and was appointed to lead a New York City safety committee. She successfully pushed for a wide range of workplace health and safety reforms in the city that became a model elsewhere.

Perkins later became a New York state official, and when Roosevelt became the state's governor in 1929 he made her the industrial commissioner, with oversight over the state labor department. Four years later, when he became president, he again tapped her to run labor affairs. Unionists initially opposed Perkins' appointment because she didn't have a union background, but they grew to support her.

One of only two Cabinet members to serve for Roosevelt's entire 12-year tenure, Perkins was a tireless advocate for workers rights who gave a huge number of speeches across the country, some of which were aimed at encouraging union organizing.

Most notably, Perkins organized the drafting of both the Social Security Act of 1935, which included unemployment compensation, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which banned child labor, established a federal minimum wage, and required overtime pay for employees working more than 44 hours a week. (Two years later, it was changed to 40 hours a week.)

"If you had a weekend, you can thank Frances Perkins," Stephanie Dray, the author of a historical fiction novel about Perkins, told the Portland Press Herald, Maine's leading newspaper. "If you or anyone you ever loved has collected Social Security benefits, you can thank her. If you're a child who got to go to school instead of to work in a factory, you can thank her. She's just everywhere around us."

Perkins' crucial place in U.S. history has been largely overlooked, like that of many women. Only about a dozen national monuments out of more than 100 in total honor women. Biden in March issued an executive order calling for more recognition of women's history, and the push for the Perkins monument is seen by many as fitting perfectly into that initiative.

Biden has so far named five new national monuments and expanded four others. The president has the authority to do so under the Antiquities Act of 1906, aimed at protecting lands and waters. National monuments are "intended to preserve at least one nationally significant resource," whereas national parks generally cover a larger area and have a wide variety of resources worth protecting, according to the National Park Service.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Biden plans to agree to the Frances Perkins Center's proposal and make the site a national monument, citing anonymous sources, though the White House responded by saying that no such decision had been made.