Frances Perkins: FDR's secretary of labor in 1932

[hfojvt]

FDR's biography, part 2 is on PBS at 8:00 central.

They mentioned his secretary of labor and said 'she'. Which kinda blew my mind. A woman in the cabinet way back in 1932!

She was the first woman in the cabinet and served longer than anybody else, for twelve years. Wiki says:

"s Secretary of Labor, Perkins played a key role writing New Deal legislation, including minimum-wage laws. However, her most important contribution came in 1934 as chairwoman of the President's Committee on Economic Security. In this post, she was involved in all aspects of the reports and hearings that ultimately resulted in the Social Security Act of 1935."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Perkins

Kinda funny that I never learned something so bodacious in school.

It's a miracle that I found this show while channel surfing last week, although I might have found it sooner if PBS had a better show at 7 than the antiques road show.

[oldleftguy]

1. Really, really cool!

[AllentownJake]

2. FDR

Was the President of the 20th Century. He is on par with Lincon and Washington.

JFK would have been great too had he had 8 years. The 3 he had were very telling.

[hfojvt]

3. it was quite interesting to get that overview and see contrasts and similarities

The press sorta coddled him for the most part. He was able to hide a fairly severe handicap without having somebody spill the beans or dig it out and expose it. The secret meeting with Churchill and the statement that they wanted to find an incident that would induce the American public to support entry into WWII. The way he ran in 1932 without offering any specifics as to what he would do, and the way the 1936 election was about HIM rather than his policies.

Also, now that I reflect, the lack of militarism in 1930s America. By necessity he kinda switched us over to major armaments manufacturing and we never really switched back. That's probably a huge exaggeration though since it's probably not more than 10-15% of our huge economy.