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