Speaker 1: Hello friends, It's Josh and for this week's Select, I've
Speaker 1: chosen our September twenty twenty episode on Francis Perkins. If
Speaker 1: you haven't heard of her, that's okay. She's one of
Speaker 1: the most unsung Americans ever and was even left out
Speaker 1: of the history books for a while, all because she
Speaker 1: was a woman. Check out this episode where Francis Perkins
Speaker 1: gets her due.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 1: there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, The Amazing Unsung Woman Edition Volume two. At
Speaker 1: least more than two. What number would you say then?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'll tell you what if you
Speaker 2: want to take a vote on maybe one of the
Speaker 2: most undersung while at the same time being most influential
Speaker 2: Americans to ever live.
Speaker 3: Of Neil Diamond be Oh, he was very sung.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm not a big fan.
Speaker 2: Anyway, you would be hard pressed to overlook ms Perkins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, miss Francis Perkins.
Speaker 1: Totally agree. Had never heard her name before, had never
Speaker 1: even known she existed. But yeah, the more you dig injury,
Speaker 1: the more you was like, it was almost a crime
Speaker 1: that this woman was virtually written out of the history books.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you are.
Speaker 2: One of those people who was unfortunate to not be
Speaker 2: able to work right now during quarantine and the effects
Speaker 2: of COVID nineteen, and you are not lucky enough, but
Speaker 2: you know, deservedly enough receiving unemployment insurance, you can thank
Speaker 2: Francis Perkins for that.
Speaker 1: That's right. And every single person who's getting a check
Speaker 1: as measley as they've gotten lately is getting one because
Speaker 1: of this system that Francis Perkins set up. And what's
Speaker 1: really I think worth noting too, this is exactly the
Speaker 1: kind of situation that she got this passed for, that
Speaker 1: she helped design this for totally. Because there's a quote
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly where the quote was, but to
Speaker 1: paraphrase it, it's basically like, we need to we need
Speaker 1: to always keep our eye on the long term and
Speaker 1: plan for the worst case scenario. While yes, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of immediate needs that we need, but there's always
Speaker 1: going to be something that comes down the road, and
Speaker 1: if we have planned for it, we're way better off.
Speaker 1: Just imagine how disastrous it would be on top of
Speaker 1: the current disaster. If there wasn't such a thing as
Speaker 1: unemployment insurance and this is how we found out that
Speaker 1: we really kind of needed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be dark age's stuff in this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you have gotten your unemployment insurance check
Speaker 1: and it has helped you, thank Francis Perkins somehow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we want to thank How Stuff Works. That's
Speaker 2: where part of this research came from, and some other places,
Speaker 2: but notably. And I want to shout this out because
Speaker 2: this is a library intern at the FDR Library who
Speaker 2: wrote a paper called Honoring the Achievements of FDR Secretary
Speaker 2: of Labor Jessica Brightman. This is really good stuff and
Speaker 2: she's a library intern and we want to shout her out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she did great.
Speaker 2: Or she was at the time. I imagine she's moved
Speaker 2: on from that internship.
Speaker 1: After she turned that say in you bet you're bippy.
Speaker 1: She did so.
Speaker 2: Francis Perkins was born Fanny Coralai Perkins in Boston in
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty, but her relatives in her ancestors, came from Maine.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of funny here at the beginning of
Speaker 2: this how Stuff Works thing, it says she so undersung
Speaker 2: the even residents of her hometown of Demara scott A, Maine,
Speaker 2: didn't seem familiar with her legacy. I think that says
Speaker 2: more about.
Speaker 1: Maine, right, They're like, we don't need to help her
Speaker 1: put on airs.
Speaker 2: Well, then, just like you know, I don't ask, I
Speaker 2: don't tell, I just don't.
Speaker 3: Whatever she lived here, great good for her.
Speaker 1: I want to say. Also before the residents of Newcastle
Speaker 1: busta a vein in their forehead, she's also cited as
Speaker 1: a native of Newcastle, Maine, and they're right across the
Speaker 1: Demara Scatta River from one another. I think she's from Newcastle.
Speaker 3: Was this like Adidas Puma thing?
Speaker 1: Maybe? Maybe, except to imagine if neither town knew what
Speaker 1: shoes were, that would be a pretty accurate analogy. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: I love so she Yeah she was. She came from
Speaker 1: really like died in the wool Yankee stock. Her family
Speaker 1: came over I think in the sixteen eighties. Her she
Speaker 1: had like her family had built an outpost during the
Speaker 1: French Indian and wore her grandmother, who had more of
Speaker 1: an influence on her, she said than anybody. Had a
Speaker 1: cousin who she was close to, who founded Howard University,
Speaker 1: and fought for the rights of newly freed African Americans.
Speaker 1: She came from like a long line of people who
Speaker 1: cared about other people, and yet surprisingly her parents were
Speaker 1: very conservative. They were in favor of, you know, helping
Speaker 1: the poor, but not mingling with them, helping them, like
Speaker 1: helping them by like, you know, sending some money or
Speaker 1: something like that. And they produced a child, Fanny Francis.
Speaker 1: She changed her name, I think in I don't know
Speaker 1: her twenties or thirties. She was the opposite way. She
Speaker 1: was like, no, like, people are people and they all
Speaker 1: deserve help, and there's a lot of injustice in this world,
Speaker 1: and I want to change it myself. And she's one
Speaker 1: of those people who actually did enact tremendous change for
Speaker 1: all the right reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she said, people are people, so why should it
Speaker 3: be you.
Speaker 1: And I should get along so awfully?
Speaker 3: Which one was that? Depeche mode?
Speaker 1: Depeche Mode, I can't baby.
Speaker 3: Hey, that's Emily's jam.
Speaker 2: I mean she would She probably has that tattooed on
Speaker 2: her body somewhere.
Speaker 3: In fact, we're both taking that none of my business.
Speaker 2: We're both doing that that silly, and I never do
Speaker 2: these things on Facebook, But I have time now the
Speaker 2: top ten most influential albums, And I was like, which
Speaker 2: one are you gonna pick? New Order or depeche Mode
Speaker 2: for her? Because that's a that's a tough one.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, can't She's got ten to choose from, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I think for her those two are so inextricably tied.
Speaker 3: That it was one or the other.
Speaker 1: I gotcha.
Speaker 2: And she went to depeche Mode because they were first,
Speaker 2: and that's probably more influential.
Speaker 1: Depeche Mode was before New Order. Huh yes, I mean
Speaker 1: technically if you count New Order as an out outcropping
Speaker 1: of Joy than they were first.
Speaker 3: Oh so well, Joy Division was different, though it.
Speaker 1: Was pretty different, different enough that they might as well
Speaker 1: be two different bands in which they were. You know
Speaker 1: who we need to give us the judgment call is
Speaker 1: Francis Perkins, who apparently would not have enjoyed our banter.
Speaker 1: She was very much known as like a dour, serious woman.
Speaker 1: But from what I can tell, that's actually a public
Speaker 1: persona that she wore to get men to take her seriously.
Speaker 2: Well, who can blame her because we'll see later on
Speaker 2: about her. It's no accident that she's lost to history
Speaker 2: in many ways. But what she was also was highly educated.
Speaker 2: She graduated from Mount Holyoake in nineteen oh two, where
Speaker 2: she majored in chemistry and physics, even though she made
Speaker 2: her name in economics, which means she was a very
Speaker 2: well rounded human and had a very large brain.
Speaker 1: And apparently she had made it all the way through college.
Speaker 1: In her senior year, I think she attended an economics
Speaker 1: lecture by Florence Kelly, who was a huge wage justice crusader,
Speaker 1: and that just changed her life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, big time.
Speaker 2: In nineteen this is post college, she went to Philly
Speaker 2: and she became general secretary of the Philadelphia Research and
Speaker 2: Protective Association.
Speaker 1: What did she do.
Speaker 2: There, Well, she was in charge of investigating employment agencies
Speaker 2: that were fake and that preyed on women, immigrant women specifically,
Speaker 2: and she had to sort of deal with the dregs
Speaker 2: of society in that job and did so very successfully,
Speaker 2: and then decided she wanted to keep her education going,
Speaker 2: so while she was in Philly, she went to the
Speaker 2: Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania because that's super easy and light learning. And then
Speaker 2: after that she went to Columbia where she earned and
Speaker 2: MA and social economics in nineteen ten.
Speaker 1: And we should say, like she's getting all of this schooling,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, she's also set herself off
Speaker 1: on a what's that like, learn while you work.
Speaker 3: Program called internship.
Speaker 1: Guess, So that's not exactly what I'm looking for, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it makes sense. So she set herself up
Speaker 1: on a real world internship program. So while she was
Speaker 1: in Philly working for that bureau, she was investigating those
Speaker 1: those fake employment rackets, Like she was on the ground
Speaker 1: doing this stuff, like carrying out these inspections, investigating factories,
Speaker 1: like taking notes in like.
Speaker 3: The early twenties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, yeah, while she's studying this stuff, she's also
Speaker 1: out doing and seeing this stuff firsthand that she's learning about,
Speaker 1: which from what I can tell, she really kind of
Speaker 1: digested and held on to and it just kept driving
Speaker 1: her for the rest of her life. What she saw.
Speaker 3: I think that's called the School of Hard Knocks.
Speaker 1: It is, But she enrolled then the Wharton School and
Speaker 1: the School of Hard Knocks at the same time, which
Speaker 1: is pretty impressive.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: And after Columbia, after she got that master's, for two
Speaker 2: years she served as executive secretary of the Consumers League
Speaker 2: of New York. And this is where she really felt
Speaker 2: her life calling to improve wages, improve working conditions because
Speaker 2: this was nineteen ten through nineteen twelve and things weren't
Speaker 2: great in factories at the time. We could do a
Speaker 2: podcast on I don't know what the focus would be,
Speaker 2: necessarily because we've done labor unions.
Speaker 1: But just labor conditions. Yeah, maybe so eye opening, But
Speaker 1: she did. This is one of the things she did.
Speaker 1: There's very few more depressing words than these strung together.
Speaker 1: She improved working conditions for children. Yeah, that was one
Speaker 1: of the things she did, I know, And that was
Speaker 1: at the Consumers League of New York. And she got
Speaker 1: there and was like, yes, I've achieved one of my
Speaker 1: first goals, which is working directly with the same Florence
Speaker 1: Kelly who gave the economics lecture that changed her life
Speaker 1: years before Mount Holyoke.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So she was one of those ones who said
Speaker 1: I want to do this, and then would do it
Speaker 1: and then would move on to the next thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She wouldn't stand around and wait for the statue to
Speaker 2: be built in her honor.
Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So we take a break, Yes, all right, we're gonna
Speaker 2: take a break and talk about a pretty devastating fire
Speaker 2: in New York City that changed the course of her
Speaker 2: life right after this. What fire, Chuck, I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the Triangle shirt waist fire in Manhattan, sort of near
Speaker 2: Washington Square Park in Greenwich, right next to Washington Square
Speaker 2: Park in Greenwich Village.
Speaker 1: I think it's an NYU building though.
Speaker 2: It is, and I tried to pinpoint if that was
Speaker 2: the building where I actually had my film classes.
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I can't quite tell.
Speaker 1: We got to know, Chuck.
Speaker 3: I'll see if I can find out.
Speaker 2: But a shirt waist was a woman's blouse, is what
Speaker 2: they called it at the time. And this was a
Speaker 2: factory that made women's blouses. If you worked there, you
Speaker 2: were probably a young woman, you might be an immigrant.
Speaker 3: You would work about fifty two hours a week.
Speaker 1: Oh, I saw twelve hours a day, seven days a week.
Speaker 3: What does that math turn out to Let's.
Speaker 1: See seventy seven hundred and twenty Wait, I can't do
Speaker 1: math out loud.
Speaker 2: Well, let's say between fifty two and eighty hours a week.
Speaker 1: No, No, it was way more than that. Twelve times
Speaker 1: seven eighty four. Yeah, that's what I said, eighty four
Speaker 1: hours a week. But like, even that doesn't sound that big.
Speaker 1: Twelve hour days, seven days a week, just to keep your.
Speaker 3: Job, right, so I saw fifty two.
Speaker 2: Either way, they made between seven and twelve dollars a
Speaker 2: week making these blouses for.
Speaker 1: Women, which was not good even back then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it wasn't good.
Speaker 2: And because this was a factory in New York in
Speaker 2: nineteen eleven, they had the doors locked, they had the
Speaker 2: staircases locked. They thought it prevented theft. If you remember
Speaker 2: what happened to locked doors and stairwells in our Hotel
Speaker 2: Fire episode, the same thing happened here on March twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eleven when the triangle shirt waist fire started because
Speaker 2: they think of a match or a cigarette but thrown
Speaker 2: into a waste spin and it just, you know, everything
Speaker 2: in there was flammable practically that wasn't metal because of
Speaker 2: all these fabrics like highly flammable.
Speaker 3: It went up really quick.
Speaker 2: It's one of the deadliest US workplace disasters of all
Speaker 2: time to this day. Four one hundred and forty six
Speaker 2: workers died, one hundred and twenty three of which were
Speaker 2: women and girls between the ages of generally between fourteen
Speaker 2: and twenty three.
Speaker 3: The oldest was forty three, but that was kind of
Speaker 3: an outlier, and.
Speaker 2: Sixty two of those people jumped to their death in
Speaker 2: front of full view of New York City, including.
Speaker 3: Francis Perkins.
Speaker 1: Right in front of Francis Perkins. She didn't jump to
Speaker 1: her death, no, no, no, So yeah, she's literally witnessing
Speaker 1: one of the turning points in history as it happens,
Speaker 1: seeing teenage girls jump out of the ninth floor of
Speaker 1: this building because it's on fire. And not only is
Speaker 1: she witnessing a fire that will change history, she is
Speaker 1: one of the people that will force history to change
Speaker 1: because of this fire. The fate or the destiny that
Speaker 1: put her a block away from this fire when it
Speaker 1: happened is it's just astounding to me that she was there,
Speaker 1: because she went on to be one of the people
Speaker 1: who said this is never going to happen again, and
Speaker 1: under her watch, it basically didn't. It was the worst
Speaker 1: that it ever got and it never got that bad
Speaker 1: again because of the safeguards she forced the state and
Speaker 1: then later on other states in the federal government to adopt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she was already kind of headed down
Speaker 2: this road anyway, she was already part of the New
Speaker 2: York State Factory Investigating Commission, and because of this fire,
Speaker 2: which she I don't think we said, she was just
Speaker 2: having tea across the park there, ran over and saw this.
Speaker 3: One of the things she saw.
Speaker 2: At one point, there were twenty people that had managed
Speaker 2: to get out a window onto a fire escape, one
Speaker 2: of those tiny, little flimsy New York fire escapes, and
Speaker 2: that all twenty of those people and collapsed, and they
Speaker 2: all fel to their one hundred feet to their death
Speaker 2: right in front of her face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to do an entire episode on that,
Speaker 1: at the very least, just to shame the two owners,
Speaker 1: who's who were just totally responsible for all those deaths.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, but this was sort of just the way it was,
Speaker 2: I mean, not absolving them, but she saw this as
Speaker 2: part of the bigger problem, not like these two owners
Speaker 2: are responsible, but she was like, it was an indictment
Speaker 2: of the system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. But at the same time, those guys
Speaker 1: were particularly nasty examining for sure, the system. They weren't
Speaker 1: averaged by any means from what I understand.
Speaker 2: No, but what was average was the fact that they
Speaker 2: didn't have fire codes, and she's the person that brought
Speaker 2: that in.
Speaker 3: By the time she was in.
Speaker 2: Her early thirties, she had called for and successfully called
Speaker 2: for exit signs, occupancy limits, sprinklers, fire escapes, unlocked doors,
Speaker 2: and stairwells, how wide the doorways had to be depending
Speaker 2: on your factory floor, like all these of common sense things.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of people saw this stuff happen and
Speaker 2: saw this incident that day and were horrified, but Francis
Speaker 2: Perkins said, nope, I'm going to change it. I'm a
Speaker 2: woman in nineteen eleven and I'm in my early thirties,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to make this happen. And she did.
Speaker 1: She did. She was appointed to the New York Committee
Speaker 1: on Safety under the recommendation of Teddy Roosevelt, which says
Speaker 1: a lot because that means she'd already made a name
Speaker 1: for herself in her twenties in New York City politics,
Speaker 1: to the point where Teddy Roosevelt would say, like, you
Speaker 1: really kind of need this woman on there. And then
Speaker 1: let's not forget the fact that that operative word here
Speaker 1: was woman as far as society was concerned at the time,
Speaker 1: and this legislation that she got passed through in New York,
Speaker 1: or that she helped get passed through in New York,
Speaker 1: like I was saying, it became a model for other
Speaker 1: states and then eventually the federal fire codes because of this,
Speaker 1: because of largely because of her efforts, and she made
Speaker 1: a name for so she'd already made a name for self,
Speaker 1: but this really kind of helped cement her name. And
Speaker 1: she started working closely with a guy named alfredy Smith
Speaker 1: who was an assemblyman from New York, right, but he
Speaker 1: she won his respect pretty easily. I think they worked
Speaker 1: on this New York Committee on Safety together, and so
Speaker 1: when he became governor, she kind of rose along with him.
Speaker 1: She was appointed by him to New York States Industrial Commission,
Speaker 1: which made her the first woman to be appointed to
Speaker 1: a state government position in the country. And with her
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars salary, she was the highest paid woman
Speaker 1: to hold any office in the United States at the time.
Speaker 1: So she became important pretty quick. But she became important everybody,
Speaker 1: This is really important to remember by hard work and heart,
Speaker 1: which is just a wonderful combination. Like amazing things happen
Speaker 1: from people who have that combination.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she ingratiated herself to these male politicians a
Speaker 2: couple of different important times in her life, and the
Speaker 2: first one was Alfredy Smith, like you were saying, so
Speaker 2: she rose along with him because he knew He was like, man,
Speaker 2: I don't care if she's a woman or not. She
Speaker 2: works harder than anyone I know, and she gets the
Speaker 2: job done. So I'm just going to bring her along with.
Speaker 1: Me and not just works harder. She was known as
Speaker 1: a policy expert about worker safety and wage justice by
Speaker 1: this time, too.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean I talked about her very large
Speaker 2: brain and her higher education. She was super super smart,
Speaker 2: Like I said, she majored in chemistry and physics, even
Speaker 2: though her real love was econ.
Speaker 3: So it's like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: No, we're not kidding at all.
Speaker 3: So no, it's very much true.
Speaker 1: So, like you were saying, she first kind of rose
Speaker 1: to prominence with Alfredy Smith, who, from what I could tell,
Speaker 1: I didn't get to research him very much, but the
Speaker 1: stuff that I ran across the references to him, he
Speaker 1: seemed like a genuine like true believer crusader and justice
Speaker 1: social justice as well. So they were like a good
Speaker 1: a good pair, and he made it as far as
Speaker 1: New York governor. He ran for president and didn't win. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when he didn't win, he, I guess lost the
Speaker 1: governorship and was succeeded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And so
Speaker 1: Roosevelt came in came into power in New York as
Speaker 1: the governor of New York. Uh, and Francis Perkins was
Speaker 1: already there, and it had already built up a reputation,
Speaker 1: and Roosevelt recognized the kind of person she was pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people are you know, you can
Speaker 1: give a lot of credit or a lot of vilification
Speaker 1: to Roosevelt for his New Deal policies, depending on your
Speaker 1: political stripes. But if you, you know, if you admire
Speaker 1: him for it, and I think most people should. He
Speaker 1: it wasn't just him. One of his great talents to
Speaker 1: recognize talent in othersah and to bring those people together
Speaker 1: and then enact policies based on their expertise and their recommendations.
Speaker 1: And one of those people was Francis Perkins, starting when
Speaker 1: he was governor of New York and then also when
Speaker 1: he became president too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So when he came into his governorship, she had
Speaker 2: already been named and was the chairperson called it a
Speaker 2: chairman back then in nineteen twenty six of the State
Speaker 2: Industrial Board.
Speaker 3: She was doing a great job there, and.
Speaker 2: Then in nineteen twenty nine FDR appointed her as the
Speaker 2: Industrial Commissioner of the State of New York.
Speaker 3: And what happens.
Speaker 2: The stock market crashes, the Great Depression hits America like
Speaker 2: a punch in the face, and she was the one
Speaker 2: who stepped in and got it in his ear and said,
Speaker 2: you know what, I know that we have to feed
Speaker 2: people right now. We have really immediate needs. But like
Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier in the episode, she thought about the
Speaker 2: big picture and long term goal. She said, we need
Speaker 2: to really take swift action here. So with her help,
Speaker 2: they created a committee unemployment. He appointed her the head
Speaker 2: of that, and then when he was elected president in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three, he said, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 2: to point you to be my Secretary of Labor.
Speaker 1: That was huge.
Speaker 2: I've been working with you for twenty years, I trust you,
Speaker 2: and you're going to do a great job. And the
Speaker 2: public roundly said, what a woman in the cabinet.
Speaker 1: They really did, I mean like she was the first cabinet,
Speaker 1: first woman to serve it as a cabinet member. I mean,
Speaker 1: women had just gotten the right to vote about thirteen
Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen years before.
Speaker 3: So she couldn't vote till she was forty, I know.
Speaker 1: And yet she held public public appointed offices and still
Speaker 1: couldn't vote, but.
Speaker 3: Wasn't allowed to vote for her boss.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly. Yeah, So it was a really big deal
Speaker 1: that FDR appointed a woman as a to a cabinet position,
Speaker 1: and an important cabinet position too. I mean, like it's
Speaker 1: not like there's any necessarily unimportant cabinet positions, but Secretary
Speaker 1: of Labor is pretty big, especially, yeah, especially then, right,
Speaker 1: and especially you know, at a time when this emerging
Speaker 1: superpower took a huge punch in the face and got
Speaker 1: knocked on its butt like the rest of the world
Speaker 1: by the Great Depression. This is important stuff that they
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out on the fly. But he
Speaker 1: chose really great person who wasn't really accepted at first,
Speaker 1: not just by the public but by virtually anybody. The
Speaker 1: labor unions weren't happy she was there because she had
Speaker 1: a background in social work and policy.
Speaker 3: Not yeah, labor than to death, yes, but she.
Speaker 1: Eventually won them over, just by virtue of what she did, Like,
Speaker 1: the labor movement was on the ropes at the time.
Speaker 1: The Progressive era ran from I think eighteen ninety to
Speaker 1: about nineteen twenty. So by the time nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty comes around, it's eyeing off the labor movement.
Speaker 1: But under her leadership as the Department of Labor Secretary,
Speaker 1: she revived it. And by the time she either died
Speaker 1: or left office I can't remember, I think a third
Speaker 1: of all Americans were members of unions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and pre the union stuff like kind of right
Speaker 2: after the Great Depression hit.
Speaker 3: One of the first things.
Speaker 2: They did together was created the Civilian Conservation Corps the CCC,
Speaker 2: which was a really big success, one of the big
Speaker 2: early successes of the New Deal in that they said,
Speaker 2: you know what, we have all this, We have this
Speaker 2: workforce of these unskilled, unmarried men, and let's get these
Speaker 2: guys working in conservation. We have this vast areas of
Speaker 2: rural land and natural resources, and let's send these guys
Speaker 2: out there to work on this stuff. And they did,
Speaker 2: and it provided a ton of jobs through the Civilian
Speaker 2: Conservation Corps.
Speaker 1: It did, and it also helped reinforce and build out
Speaker 1: America's infrastructure too, because they had all this labor that
Speaker 1: the government was putting to work doing it right. So
Speaker 1: she was in charge of overseeing that. And one of
Speaker 1: the other I guess the next big thing, I think
Speaker 1: it was before Social Security, was something called the Wagner Act,
Speaker 1: and the Wagner.
Speaker 3: Act came, I mean the Wagner Act.
Speaker 1: The Wagner Wagner Act, depending on your persuasion. It gave
Speaker 1: workers the right to unionize, in the right to collectively bargain.
Speaker 1: And one of her roles was to go out and
Speaker 1: promote this stuff, not just to you know, other members
Speaker 1: of the government or members of industry, but to individual
Speaker 1: Americans too. So in nineteen thirty three alone, she gave
Speaker 1: one hundred different policy speeches in just that one year
Speaker 1: on new Deal projects promoting them. And one of the
Speaker 1: speech as she gave, I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: in that year or not, but she went to Homestead, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: right across the river from Pittsburgh, where Carnegie Steel was headquartered,
Speaker 1: and she was going to inform these workers about their
Speaker 1: newly won rights through the Wagner Act, and Carnegie Steel
Speaker 1: and the local government would not give her any place
Speaker 1: to hold this meeting. They wouldn't give the Secretary of
Speaker 1: Labor a place to talk to voters. So she and
Speaker 1: there's apparently a famous picture of her leading all of
Speaker 1: these steel workers on foot to a post office. She's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I can think of a place where I can assemble legally,
Speaker 1: and that is the post office. So she gave her
Speaker 1: speech on the grounds of the Homestead Post Office two
Speaker 1: thousands of steel workers, informing them that they could legally
Speaker 1: unionize and bargain collectively for workers' rights.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: I feel like if I feel like we had to
Speaker 2: have talked about her in our union's episode, and if
Speaker 2: we didn't, shame on us, but also shame on the
Speaker 2: fact that she probably didn't pop up in our research,
Speaker 2: which is one.
Speaker 3: Of the problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mostly the second one.
Speaker 3: All right, So I'm going to pass that buck.
Speaker 1: Right the book stops over there.
Speaker 3: Well, we're making up for it now either.
Speaker 1: Way, Okay, Chuck. So we were saying at the outset
Speaker 1: that if you got an unemployment check, thank Francis Perkins,
Speaker 1: or if you ever get an unemployment check, if you
Speaker 1: even like the idea of the fact that an unemployment
Speaker 1: insurance policy is out there for you in case you
Speaker 1: ever need it. Thank Francis Perkins. And the reason you
Speaker 1: fut thank Francis Perkins is because she basically oversaw the
Speaker 1: creation of the legislation that became the Social Security Act
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty five. And when I say oversaw the
Speaker 1: creation of that legislation, like she that was it. She
Speaker 1: was the head of this cabinet level committee that was
Speaker 1: assigned the task of coming up with a social insuranrants policy,
Speaker 1: a social safety net for the country. And they came
Speaker 1: up with this within six months, this full policy report,
Speaker 1: and within two days of delivering the report, FDR turned
Speaker 1: around and unveiled the Social Security Program idea to Congress,
Speaker 1: and another six months or so later, maybe eight passed
Speaker 1: into law.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and boy, we should do one on social security
Speaker 2: at some point.
Speaker 1: I agree, I think we have. Man, I'm all really positive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really rings a bell. Go ahead, I'm looking at it.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I'm going to have our little our assistant
Speaker 2: over here check that.
Speaker 3: Can you go and check on that? Okay, they're on it.
Speaker 1: Who is Tommy Chong?
Speaker 3: Like we've ever had anyone that worked for us.
Speaker 2: That's the funny thing is when we get emails over
Speaker 2: the years they're like, well to Josh and Chuck and
Speaker 2: Jerry or whoever on your staff is reading this.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, it's pretty much us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we're these emails while we're having to sweep
Speaker 1: up the studio.
Speaker 2: Well, I want to be fair. To be fair, we
Speaker 2: work for a big podcasting network and there are a
Speaker 2: lot of people that help us get stuff out in
Speaker 2: the world, but we have never had like a stuff
Speaker 2: you should know staff of eight people who only work
Speaker 2: for us in research for us and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And I feel like it really shows in the podcast,
Speaker 1: like I'm glad.
Speaker 2: You said that, because I felt like I was patting
Speaker 2: ourselves on the back for a second.
Speaker 1: There the opposite.
Speaker 3: You dash that very fast.
Speaker 1: Sure self deprecation, Chuck, that's our specialty.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: So social security, what we're talking about in general, everyone
Speaker 2: knows what this is is basically a system where younger,
Speaker 2: hardy people working hard in this country help out older people,
Speaker 2: retired people, perhaps disabled people, people that have had work
Speaker 2: related accidents.
Speaker 1: People who wear funny hats, people.
Speaker 3: Who wear funny hats and pay into this system.
Speaker 2: That ideally, and you know, we're not going to get
Speaker 2: into the weeds here that would come on our Social
Speaker 2: Security podcasts. But ideally then when you are old or
Speaker 2: in need, then you have that same money waiting for
Speaker 2: you because of the younger generation and the younger workforce.
Speaker 1: Right, that's the brilliance of the whole thing is it's
Speaker 1: a transfer payment system to where you are directly funding
Speaker 1: the people who are retired now, but it's on the
Speaker 1: premise that people behind you are going to fund into
Speaker 1: this to support you later on. It's beautiful. It's a
Speaker 1: genius idea. And apparently FDR sent her Francis Perkins to
Speaker 1: study the British system of unemployment and insurance even before
Speaker 1: he was president, back when he was Governor of New York.
Speaker 1: Then he became the first public official to commit to
Speaker 1: developing an unemployment insurance plan. And it was at the
Speaker 1: persistent behest of Francis Perkins that he did that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not like, I mean, he didn't run
Speaker 2: for office with social security on his list of things
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Well. Yeah, that's the thing A lot of people say, like,
Speaker 1: if it weren't for her, no joke, this stuff probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't exist, certainly not in the form that it does now,
Speaker 1: and that's not necessarily fair. There are like there were
Speaker 1: programs that had like Social Security type programs among the states,
Speaker 1: including unemployment programs, but they were ad hoc, they were patchwork.
Speaker 1: Most states didn't have them. And it's the kind of
Speaker 1: the beauty of this the federal program is they're basically like, okay,
Speaker 1: states do this, but we're going to oversee and organize
Speaker 1: it and help fund it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not like I was saying that all
Speaker 2: the FDR was like not a champion of it or
Speaker 2: was just lazy. He was He had a bunch of
Speaker 2: stuff going on, and he had a bunch of irons
Speaker 2: in the fire. So he needed her to come in
Speaker 2: and say, hey, listen, this is all great because we're
Speaker 2: in a tragic situation right now, like we're trying to
Speaker 2: put out a fire, but what I want to do
Speaker 2: is make sure another fire doesn't happen in the future.
Speaker 1: Yes, And that was like her whole thing, like, we
Speaker 1: do need to make sure that people get peanut butter
Speaker 1: sandwiches because their families are going to starve. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: these immediate needs have to be met, but we also
Speaker 1: simultaneously have to plan for the future too. It was
Speaker 1: just this persistent drum that she'd beat, like, we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to have problems. Let's plan for him now.
Speaker 1: Like the level of visionariness in this person was, you
Speaker 1: just don't see that. I can't think of too many
Speaker 1: other people who've come and gone in the federal government
Speaker 1: in the United States at least that had that level
Speaker 1: of I guess, awareness of looking down the line that
Speaker 1: far rather than just you know, four years out or
Speaker 1: to the next election.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And she also, you know, we talked about some of
Speaker 2: the things she did earlier in terms of her career
Speaker 2: in terms of fair labor practices, but when she was
Speaker 2: Secretary of Labor, she had real teeth to make real change,
Speaker 2: and during her tenure she helped craft the Fair Labor
Speaker 2: Standards Act, she helped establish minimum wage laws, maximum work
Speaker 2: hours laws, and she finally said, you know what, maybe
Speaker 2: we shouldn't make labor for children better. Maybe we should
Speaker 2: not bring our children to work and make them work.
Speaker 2: So let's just get rid of child labor altogether.
Speaker 1: And you can make the case, Chuck, that she is
Speaker 1: the woman who gave America's kids the concept of a childhood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at the very least she extended it by many, many years.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 1: I've got another amazing fact about her. She I believe
Speaker 1: is the first cabinet member who Congress ever sought to impeach.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yes, I'm almost positive that's correct. I know
Speaker 1: that they did try to impeach her, and they failed
Speaker 1: in the impeachment, not just the conviction. They couldn't get
Speaker 1: enough support for articles of impeachment. But it was because
Speaker 1: she refused to deport an Australian longshoreman who'd successfully organized
Speaker 1: a general strike in San Francisco and the anti communist
Speaker 1: elements in Congress suspected that this guy was a Communist
Speaker 1: and wanted him out, And she said, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think very highly of this guy. I don't really
Speaker 1: agree with a lot of what he stands for. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that you have really good evidence, and
Speaker 1: I think this is all retaliation for the strike you organized.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to deport him. And you might say, well,
Speaker 1: what did this lady have to do with deporting? Apparently,
Speaker 1: back in the day the immigration the power of immigration
Speaker 1: or control of immigration was up to the Department of Labor,
Speaker 1: so the Secretary of Labor was also in charge of immigration,
Speaker 1: which really kind of gives you an idea of where
Speaker 1: America's immigration policies, you know, where their mind was at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that it was about importing you know, good good, good workers,
Speaker 1: or also controlling who came in to keep competition for
Speaker 1: jobs down totally. But so she was in charge of immigration, which,
Speaker 1: as we'll see later on, she used to great effect.
Speaker 3: Is that our little uh is that our cherry on
Speaker 3: top at the end?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, so, okay, that's a good idea. It's
Speaker 1: it's the kid with the last question in Q and.
Speaker 3: A man uh and not the drunk guy.
Speaker 1: I hate that guy.
Speaker 3: So when FDR.
Speaker 2: Passed away in nineteen forty five, she was the longest
Speaker 2: serving Labor secretary and one of only two cabinet members
Speaker 2: to serve the entire length of his super super long presidency.
Speaker 2: And she held over into Truman as well. He was like,
Speaker 2: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So you're welcome
Speaker 2: to stay, which you don't see a lot of that anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She published a biography, a bestseller about FDR called The
Speaker 2: Roosevelt I Knew. And here are a few other just sort
Speaker 2: of career feathers in her cap she was the head
Speaker 2: of the American delegation to the International Labor Organization in Paris.
Speaker 2: Truman appointed her to the US Civil Service Commission, which
Speaker 2: was a position she held till nineteen fifty three. And
Speaker 2: she basically accomplished every single one of her goals while
Speaker 2: she was Secretary of Labor except for one thing she
Speaker 2: went in there wanting to do, which was universal access
Speaker 2: to healthcare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is kind of a bummer.
Speaker 2: Some people might say it's a bummer. Some people might
Speaker 2: say good.
Speaker 1: Sure. She also played drums for docin for a brief time,
Speaker 1: for a little bit. She did it all and all
Speaker 1: while wearing a frumpy, tri cornered hat.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: And then after that she did what a lot of
Speaker 2: people in public policy do. She went on to teach
Speaker 2: and lecture at the New York State School of Industrial
Speaker 2: and Labor Relations at Cornell University. She did that too,
Speaker 2: till she was eighty five years old when she passed
Speaker 2: away in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: Yes, there are a couple of other things to throw
Speaker 1: into Both her husband and her daughter suffered from what
Speaker 1: we today called bipolar disorder. She cared for them their
Speaker 1: entire lives.
Speaker 3: That little thing yeah, right, can you imagine.
Speaker 1: No, while she's doing all this other stuff, she made
Speaker 1: sure that they were cared for, took care of them
Speaker 1: directly herself. And one of the other things I think
Speaker 1: is worth mentioning too, that while before FDR became president,
Speaker 1: while she was working in New York, she was already
Speaker 1: known publicly before she became Secretary of Labor because she
Speaker 1: was the first public official to call Hoover out on
Speaker 1: his BS when he was downplaying joblessness numbers and unemployment
Speaker 1: figures and just general terrible economic news and pretending things
Speaker 1: were way better than they were. She was the first
Speaker 1: person to step up and publicly contradict him and made
Speaker 1: national news for that.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And you know, again, this is a woman doing this
Speaker 1: in like nineteen thirty, so just that alone makes national news.
Speaker 1: But she was also calling them out on his BS.
Speaker 1: And one thing that we have to say before you
Speaker 1: finished with the cherry on top, Chuck, she had guys
Speaker 1: figured out. She had a folder called Notes on the
Speaker 1: Male Mind, and she would just take notes on guys
Speaker 1: and men that she worked with and just kind of
Speaker 1: try to get an understanding of them. And she realized
Speaker 1: that the way to get male colleagues to treat you
Speaker 1: normally or maybe even respect you is to remind them
Speaker 1: of their mother. Wow, that's what it takes, apparently to
Speaker 1: get a guy to treat a woman with respect. That
Speaker 1: work well.
Speaker 2: And you know we mentioned why she's undersung there. You know,
Speaker 2: history is written by men. We all know this, and
Speaker 2: a lot of those New Deal histories in the seventies
Speaker 2: and eighties didn't even mention her, which is just staggering
Speaker 2: that you can write a history of the New Deal
Speaker 2: and not mentioned Francis Perkins. It's just like a black
Speaker 2: eye on any author that did something like that.
Speaker 1: It almost seems malicious in a weird way, like I'd
Speaker 1: like to think that that's not the.
Speaker 2: Case, but what is there? It's nuts, it's weird. So
Speaker 2: the cherry on top here at the end is World
Speaker 2: War two. World War two is not a cherry on top.
Speaker 2: But she was watching Hitler do his thing in Germany
Speaker 2: and got really worried.
Speaker 1: She's like, man, that guy's cranked.
Speaker 2: She was read about anti Semitism and everything that was
Speaker 2: going on with the violence there, and she wanted to
Speaker 2: help German refugees escape. And at the time, the Coolidge
Speaker 2: administration and the immigration laws that came through his administration
Speaker 2: were really tough, and Americans were very fearful that relaxing
Speaker 2: these laws would increase the job competition and that Americans
Speaker 2: weren't going to have these jobs. And she said, you
Speaker 2: know what, I don't agree the immigration services under the
Speaker 2: Department of Labor, and so I am going to put
Speaker 2: some quotas down to get some of these refugees here
Speaker 2: and to aid them. And she did that to great success.
Speaker 1: Yes, she made sure that about at least fifty five
Speaker 1: thousand Jewish German immigrants made their way into the United
Speaker 1: States through these Department of Labor immigration quotas and another
Speaker 1: I think two hundred thousand people in general were rescued
Speaker 1: from Europe as World War Two was starting to develop
Speaker 1: over there because of her. Just on top of everything else,
Speaker 1: she also saved a bunch of tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: Jewish people from Hitler in World War two. Amazing, amazing, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I guess that's it for Francis Perkins. Huh, that's it. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about Francis Perkins, go
Speaker 1: start reading about her, because there's even more detail to
Speaker 1: her life than we captured here. And she's worth reading about.
Speaker 1: Very admirable person. And since I said admirable, it's time
Speaker 1: for listener mail.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this helping a helper, and this is
Speaker 2: from a Tawny.
Speaker 3: Tony says this.
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, have been sewing face masks for almost a
Speaker 2: month now, and I'm close to my one thousandth mask.
Speaker 2: Nice It's a lot I have given and donated to friends, family,
Speaker 2: co workers.
Speaker 3: I'm a nine one one.
Speaker 2: Dispatcher by the way, healthcare workers, retail workers, delivery people,
Speaker 2: postal workers, and other essential workers.
Speaker 1: And people wearing funny hats.
Speaker 3: People wearing funny hats and complete strangers.
Speaker 2: Now that face masks have become mandatory here in San Diego,
Speaker 2: the need has grown substantially. And through all of this,
Speaker 2: you three have been with me in keeping me company
Speaker 2: about Jerry too.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, okay, she wasn't talking about Tommy Chong. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that.
Speaker 2: Old episodes and new have entertained me through the tedious
Speaker 2: hours of cutting, fabric, ironing, pinning, and sewing. I started
Speaker 2: listening to your podcast while I was in the Navy
Speaker 2: and soon introduce you guys to my husband, who was
Speaker 2: still in the military. We have both listened and learned
Speaker 2: through the years together. Thank you for continuing your show
Speaker 2: and helping the helpers of the world. Side note, love
Speaker 2: the nine to one to one Dispatcher episode and thank
Speaker 2: you for clearing up the pizza order myth Second side note,
Speaker 2: I wrote my master's thesis on the use of body
Speaker 2: worn cameras by law enforcement, and I decided to focus
Speaker 2: on that topic after listening to that awesome episode. Oh Na, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's pretty cool. All three of you are thanked and
Speaker 2: mentioned in the thesis.
Speaker 1: Even oh that's cool.
Speaker 2: When I'm tired and don't want to sew anymore, I
Speaker 2: think of this quote.
Speaker 3: For mister Rogers head down.
Speaker 2: When I was a boy and I would see scary
Speaker 2: things in the news, my mother would say to me,
Speaker 2: look for the helpers. You will always find people who
Speaker 2: are helping.
Speaker 1: Go to them and they will help you.
Speaker 2: And that is from Tawny, And that's a great quote, Tony.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna use that at my own house.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, if you're afraid of flying, watch
Speaker 1: the flight attendants and as long as they're not freaking out,
Speaker 1: you're fine. It's the exact same thing he's saying when
Speaker 1: the s goes down, there's people helping, so that's always good.
Speaker 3: God bless mister Rogers and.
Speaker 1: You man man. Yep, thanks a lot, is it?
Speaker 3: Tony Tawny t a w n Y.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell if you were just putting a little
Speaker 1: mustard on the Tony.
Speaker 3: No like Tawny Kataan.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah from the white Snake video that cultural icon.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks a lot, Tawny. I apologize for Chuck calling
Speaker 1: you Tawny Katane. Okay, can I apologize for you? Charge?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well I'm gonna do that. If you want to
Speaker 1: get me to apologize for Charles, let's see if you
Speaker 1: can do it. You can send us an email, wrap
Speaker 1: it up, spanking on the bottom, and send it off
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.