Frances Perkins: A Women's Rights Activist

Frances Perkins was born on April 10th, 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts. From birth, her parents wanted her to follow the role of the typical American woman. They hoped that she would get married young and have children, but Frances had other ideas. After high school, she pleaded with her father to allow her to attend a local university in Massachusetts where she would receive a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics. This lead her to travel to many different cities where she taught, and helped struggling poor immigrant communities. Frances had a passion for teaching but also for people. In 1907 she became the secretary of the Philadelphia Research and Protective Association. Their main goal was to assist women who were new to the city. They would help them
This outraged Frances knowing that the majority of the women working in that factory were immigrants that had been working in harsh conditions. This led Perkins to get involved and become the executive secretary for the Committee on Safety in New York. For many years, Frances worked in this position traveling around New York with architects, fireman, and police officers working to make the conditions in factories safe. Simultaneously, she was working with the government to get the 54-hour act passed and by 1912 it was set into motion. By this time, Frances Perkins had gotten her name out there and she was well known within the City of New York. After a whole year of campaigning in 1918 for Al Smith to become governor, Perkins was appointed in 1919 to be one of the five members of the New York State Industrial commission. In 1929 when Perkins was working on campaigning for Al Smith to be in office for a third term he was beaten by his Democratic competitor Franklin Roosevelt. Frances followed Roosevelt and was a part of his committee until he took office in 1932 where she was later appointed by Roosevelt as Secretary of