![]() ![]() For a college course, she was required to observe the conditions of factory workers and later recalled: “I was horrified at the work that many women and children had to do in factories. She was told that it was the result of “alcohol or laziness,” and that “little girls shouldn’t concern themselves with such things.” But Perkins’ curiosity about the lives of the poor continued. ![]() When she was a young child she asked her parents why some people are poor. Perkins was born in Boston on April 10, 1880, into a very conservative family. An attitude that found voice in expressions like ‘the people are what matter to government,’ and ‘a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life’. Years later, she reflected on those days: “What was the New Deal anyhow? Was it a political plot? Was it just a name for a period in history? Was it a revolution? To all of these questions I answer ‘No.’ It was something quite different… It was, I think, basically an attitude. ![]() She was one of the major architects of the New Deal. Frances Perkins was the first woman in the United States to hold a cabinet-level position, serving as President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945. ![]()
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