100 Years of 100 Things: Frances Perkins

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we're going to tell you about a Brian Lehrer Show-related event coming up in the Greene Space a little later this month and in conjunction with the latest segment in our 100 Years of 100 Things series because March is Women's History Month. Our thing number 78 looks at the life and legacy of one exceptional New Yorker who has had an impact on every American worker. I think it's fair to say Frances Perkins.

Do you know the name? She was the first female cabinet member ever as secretary of labor for 12 years appointed by FDR. That was longer than any other secretary of labor has ever served since. During her role in the Roosevelt administration, she was a key player in the New Deal. Perkins didn't live to be 100 years old. She passed in 1965 at the age of 85, but her legacy certainly lives on.

If you've never heard of this New Yorker, you have probably come across some of the public assistance programs she had an enormous influence on. Ready for the short list, Social Security, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, a 40-hour work week, workplace safety, child labor regulations, and more. Her work continues to shape the labor protections in the United States even as the Trump administration is eyeing a rollback of some of those programs. Her legacy also continues in the way women have entered the male-dominated political world.

Joining us now to walk us through that legacy and preview the related event that I mentioned is Annie Polland, president of the Tenement Museum. Have you ever taken that tour in Lower Manhattan? I have. It's amazing. The event is Annie Poland and others in the green space at WNYC with the Brian Lehrer Show's very own Amina Srna, our producer who sometimes fills in for me too. They will be joined by historian Annelise Orleck, Margaret Chin, author of Sewing Women, and Suffs creator Shaina Taub.

There are, I'm told, just a few tickets already only left for this free event. It's next Tuesday, a week from tomorrow, March 25th. If you want to go to that, get your tickets at wnyc.org/events, wnyc.org/events. They'll also be live-streaming it at wnyc.org at 6:30 next Tuesday evening. Annie Polland, welcome to WNYC or welcome back to WNYC. Hi there.

Annie Polland: Thank you. It's great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: We'll talk a little bit more about the event later. Frances Perkins, her activism and political career, you might say, trace back to like 20 years before FDR was elected president and he appointed her as labor secretary back to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village in 1911, right?

Annie Polland: Absolutely. Even leading up to that, I mean, her life leading up to that made her ready to seize that moment in 1911 when the fire broke out. She had been studying safety, she had been studying fire practices, working for the National Consumers League, and ever since she was a student at Mount Holyoke College and had taken an economics course where the professor, Annah May Soule, had told the students, "Go look at these mills on the Connecticut River." That opened up Frances Perkins' eyes to the plight of the working class, of families who were working in factories in completely unregulated conditions.

On March 25th, 1911, she was having tea with a friend. Her friend lived on one of those row houses on the north side of Washington Square Park, and she was having tea. Then this fire breaks out. She hears the fire alarms and she goes to see. She basically arrives just in time to see the women who had crowded out of the factory and were standing in the window sills on the fire escapes and sadly beginning to jump because there was no escape. Experiencing that here in New York City and seeing all the needless deaths of working, mostly working girls, really set in motion and connected her to an array of activity that would change the city, the state, and the nation.

Brian Lehrer: Some of the details of that fire, from what I've read, it started in a wastebasket on the eighth floor, and the flames jumped up onto the paper patterns that were hanging from the ceiling. This is from the National Archives. One of the reasons women couldn't escape was because one of the exits was locked. The blaze only lasted 18 minutes but left 146 workers dead. They were mostly young immigrant women employed in those factories, some of them teenagers. I want to play a clip of Frances Perkins looking back on the Triangle fire on the 50th anniversary of the fire. Let's see, that would have been 1961. This audio is courtesy of the New York City Municipal Archives.

Frances Perkins: If I may say so at this time, the stirring up of the public conscience and the act of the people in penitence brought about not only these laws which make still to this day New York State the first state, the best state in relation to its grading of its factory law, but there came also that stirring of conscience which brought about in 1932 the introduction of a new element into our public life for the whole United States.

We had, in the election of Franklin Roosevelt, the beginning of what has come to be called a New Deal, new for the United States, but based really upon the experience that we had had in New York State and upon yet with affection and respect upon those who died on March 25th, 1911 in this great fire. For this, we can be thankful and we can still say these dead have not died in vain and we will never forget them.

Brian Lehrer: It's an amazing clip. Frances Perkins on the 50th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire that was on March 25, 1961. Tie this to her work as Labor Secretary for FDR. She started to do that in that clip.

Annie Polland: She had begun right in the wake of the fire. As she notes, there's this stirring of public conscience. It's very important to note that the people who were upset about this fire were not just the tenement dwellers, the parents, or the children of those who had died. The people that were upset was all of New York. Middle-class, upper-class people couldn't understand and they felt responsible for the needless deaths of all these people.

That stricken consciousness she played on and the creation of the Factory Investigation Commission enabled her and others to investigate over 3,000 factories, create testimony, and suggest the passage of a series of laws that improved workplace conditions. That whole activity and the way in which people of different classes came together as politicians, labor organizers, medical experts, and that came together to create this network of laws that changed New York State, that made New York State a model, and then that becomes a through line to the New Deal because Frances Perkins had worked for FDR when he was governor of New York State in charge of Labor and Industrial Commission.

He then brought her to Washington DC to be the labor secretary and continue the work that she had done, improving workplace conditions, but more broadly, moving into unemployment insurance and Social Security and so many things that we have taken for granted for decades. That was really the result of some of that work that came right after the fire.

Brian Lehrer: I know that through your work at the Tenement Museum, you aim to help tell the stories of factory workers who lived in tenements at that time, not just that triangle. One exhibit shows the home of the Rogarshevsky family, the parents, Fannie and Abraham, and the six children they raised at 97 Orchard Street. I'll let you use this as a platform to tell people what they could see at the Tenement Museum in general.

Annie Polland: Exactly. It's interesting. We celebrate the anniversary of the factory fire every year, March 25th, but every day at the Tenement Museum, probably seven or eight times a day. On that tour about the Rogarshevsky family, a tour called Under One Roof, we share the story of the factory fire, because the Rogarshevskys, at that time, they had three teenage children out in the workforce. One of them, Bessie Rogarshevsky, worked in a garment factory.

You can almost imagine standing in that apartment, Fannie Rogarshevsky hearing that there's been a fire. It's a Saturday afternoon. Saturday was a workday in those days. Hearing about this fire and being worried about her children. Of course, thankfully, her children came home, but so many children did not come home. We have to help tell that story. We have a recreation of The Forward, The Jewish Daily Forward, or The Forwards. The headline for March 26th, 1911, the day after the fire is Our Morgue is Filled With Our Sacrifices or The Morgue is Filled With Our Sacrifices, referring to so many of the victims of the fire who had died.

On that tour, people are able to experience what it would be like to live in a tenement, to understand why teenage children needed to work. The teenage children needed to work to help support the household, but also to get a window onto some of the organizing that happened. We also talk on that tour about the 1909 shirtwaist strike, when girls, women, young women went on a huge strike, 20,000 women, led, initiated by a woman named Clara Lemlich. We show her picture, and our educators love her speech that started the strike.

All these things connect to give people a sense of what it was like to live at the time and how people's lives were so connected to these tragedies, to these factories. Yet the fire was this moment, as horrible as the fire was, as Frances Perkins says in that clip, it led to this public consciousness, this idea that we are all responsible one for another, a sense of social cohesion, a sense of social responsibility that then led to these important legislative changes.

Brian Lehrer: That she brought into the FDR administration or was a leading voice for them at very least Social Security, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, a 40-hour workweek, workplace safety, child labor regulations, more. 212-433-WNYC is our phone number for your oral histories, as we do during these 100 Years of 100 Things segments. It's 100 years of Frances Perkins is the way we're framing this. 212-433-WNYC.

Wondering if any of your families had stories about the Triangle fire or if Frances Perkins and her legacy have influenced you in her role as the first female Cabinet member at all, which took until the early 1930s to have a woman in any Cabinet role and anything that she helped bring about, any of those programs that I mentioned in the New Deal with FDR or anything else you would want to say or ask our guest, Annie Polland, President and CEO of the Tenement Museum. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. 100 Years of 100 Things, thing number 78, 100 Years of Frances Perkins.

Do you know, Annie, if there was a lot of awareness or talk at the time that she was the first woman Cabinet secretary?

Annie Polland: I'm not sure about that. I imagine that that was. By that point, certainly in New York City and New York State, people were accustomed to her work, and she was a known figure at the time. Among the people who knew about labor work, I don't think it would be a huge surprise, but it was certainly a groundbreaking event.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here's Al in Asbury Park. Al, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Al: Hello. I guess you can hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you.

Al: Surprised to be the first caller. Real quick.

Brian Lehrer: You're on Line 1, by the way.

Al: Frances Perkins--

Brian Lehrer: You were the first person to-

Al: I don't know what that means.

Brian Lehrer: -call in, but go ahead.

Al: Okay. Frances Perkins, it's great that this name is being brought up because I want your guest to verify if this is a quote from her, but I attributed it to a male. When I heard the name Frances Perkins, I said, "Who said it?" Long story short, there was some kind of trickle-down economics going down in FDR's time. Ms. Perkins, the quote I remember her saying is, "People don't eat in the long run. They eat every day." That just struck me as so poignant and applies today. First, I want to know, is she the one responsible for that quote? I was going to attribute it to someone else, somebody named Wilson. The second question would be, was Wilson the first somebody to call a president a liar and then retracted it the next day in the newspaper? Those are my questions.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Thank you very much. Those are pretty specific, detailed questions about history. Do you happen to know the answer to either one, Annie?

Annie Polland: Well, for Frances Perkins, I don't know specifically if she said that, but that would be certainly her mode. Her mode was to think about people and their daily lives and to try to create legislation that would make their lives better right away.

Brian Lehrer: A quick Google search produces this from the website Brainly. The phrase people don't eat in the long run is a common saying often attributed to economist John Kenneth Galbraith, highlighting the importance of daily food access and food security over long-term economic strategies. Thank you, Google. Kevin in Astoria, you're on WNYC on Line 2. The second person to have called in. Hi, Kevin, you're on WNYC.

Kevin: Thank you, sir. My name is Kevin Courtemanche. I actually participated in an opera about the Triangle fire with Libretti by Ellen Frankel and composer Leonard Lehrman who conducted us. I did a few performances including one at HBO Studios in which they showed HBO's documentary about the Triangle fire. I played one of the defendants, Max Blanck, who was one of the owners of the company.

He was not only acquitted, but I discovered through the research at the time that when they made compensations from a civil lawsuit, the insurance company paid so much that they did not turn over to the victims and victims' family, that they actually profited over the Triangle fire and its aftermath. They actually made money off of it. Max Blanck did not admit any responsibility for it whatsoever.

Annie Polland: Right. Technically, they were acquitted because they hadn't broken any laws. Therefore, that's what made that factory investigation commission so important to create the law so that that kind of thing couldn't happen to that degree. You're absolutely right. They got off and they opened up more factories and continued.

Kelvin: One of the chief problems that doesn't seem to be resolved today is you're not supposed to lock doors. The door was locked to keep the workers inside. That's probably what caused most of the deaths. Today, you're not supposed to, in New York State, lock a door, but stores still lock one of the doors so that if there's a fire, people can't get out because one of the two doors is locked.

Annie Polland: Yes, they locked the door so that they could have someone stationed there to check the women's bags as they left to ensure that they weren't taking a piece of lace or one of the blouses. That was a common practice that was in place in the factories and it did result in deaths. Also, the fact that they didn't have a sprinkler system and all sorts of things led to the deaths of so many people that day.

Brian Lehrer: Kevin, having performed in an opera about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, you don't happen to have a stanza or a verse memorized that you would share with us, do you?

Kevin: I did it about 10 years ago, so no, not anymore. I've done many operas since then. I'm an opera singer.

Brian Lehrer: Okay. It was worth a try. Thank you very much for your call. You, obviously, learned the background of the material of that opera, which is really fabulous. One more. Angela in Greenwich, you're on WNYC. Hi, Angela.

Angela: Hi. Good morning, Brian. Besides Frances' interest in labor, she was also interested in immigration. This is, I thought, an interesting little story. Frances was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club in New York, a women's club, which I am also a member of. Occasionally, we go through the archives and talk about our members. This whole story came up about her.

Again, she was interested in immigration in 1938, I believe it was. She approached Eleanor and said, "I have this family, a European family, I'd like to bring to America." Eleanor says, "Well, I'll talk to Franklin about it." The two of them talked about it and they went back to Frances, "Yes, we agree you could help them immigrate to America." It turns out it was the von Trapp Family. I thought that was interesting.

Annie Polland: She had a really important role in-- When FDR was president, immigration reform in the middle of the Depression couldn't be a priority. What Frances Perkins and her staff was able to do is use creatively passed legislation to help enable immigrants who were here undocumented to actually become legal, to get documents by a kind of procedural called pre-examination. One of the residents and 58,000 immigrants became documented through that process that she had put together. One of them was Rosaria Baldizzi, who lived at 97 Orchard, where the Tenement Museum is. The justification for these procedures that she created was that these immigrants were parts of families and parts of communities. That was important to maintain their role in the community.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call. By the way, here's another different attribution to where that phrase people don't eat in the long run, people need to eat every day, came from. According to Politico, Harry Hopkins, FDR's man Friday, as it describes him, who would lead the WPA, serve as Commerce Secretary, and become the President's chief White House counselor during World War II, in his first hour as head of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, he spent $5 million, inclined to get money in people's hands as quickly as possible, government money.

Hopkins, a veteran reform administrator, who had previously served as president of the American Association of Social Workers and director of the New York Tuberculosis Association, was indifferent to long-term planning or budgeting. He tartly observed people don't eat in the long run, they eat every day. That Politico article was by the historian Joshua Zeitz, who's been a guest on this show. We have two different, one from the website I cited that came up on my Google search and one from this, but certainly a good quote from history to remember.

Annie, as we wrap up, you want to just give people a little preview of this event that you're going to be in, hosted by Brian Lehrer Show producer and sometimes substitute host Amina Srna at the Green Space next Tuesday?

Annie Polland: Yes. We're so excited to work with Amina. We'll be bringing together Annelise Orleck, who's the author of Common Sense and A Little Fire, a kind of combo biography of Rose Schneiderman, Clara Lemlich, Fannia Cohn, and Pauline Newman, women who are so important and worked in many ways alongside Frances Perkins, and Margaret Chin, the author of Sewing Women. Margaret Chin tells the story of garment workers in the 1980s, mostly Chinese garment workers who learned about the factory fire and learned about the activism through the union. That then led them to go on strike in 1982, a strike that's lesser known, but a strike also of 20,000.

We'll be talking about the fire, but more importantly, we'll be talking about what happened in the wake of the fire as people were stricken by what happened and were motivated to, as Frances Perkins says in that clip that you played, make sure that these women did not die in vain and make sure that the lives of the workers and of all Americans would be improved through legislation. We'll be talking about that.

Shaina Taub, the creator of Suffs, will be on hand to read some of these women's speeches. There might be even more surprises. Please come with us to think about what it's like to come together in the wake of bad things. What can people do together to keep things moving in the spirit of Frances Perkins and others?

Brian Lehrer: Annie Polland, President and CEO of the Tenement Museum. The event is next Tuesday, March 25th. I'm told there are just a few tickets left as people have already been taking them. Get yours if you're interested at wnyc.org/events, wnyc.org/events, to be there at the Greene Space. It's also going to be live-streamed, so you can check out wnyC.org for that. 6:30 next Tuesday night, the 25th. Annie, thank you so much.

Annie Polland: Thank you.

 

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