"Be Ye Steadfast": Part One

the quote comes from the New Testament of the Bible: 1 Corinthians 15 and was a personal motto of Frances Perkins. If you don't know who Perkins was, she was the first female cabinet member in US history, under FDR, and the person after whom my scholarship and experience at Mt Holyoke College (she was an alumna) is named.

At a time when men will still reeling from women voting, and in the heat of the Great Depression, Ms. Perkins dedicated herself to the fruition of her life-long work of improving conditions for workers. Having seen with her own eyes, the carnage of The Triangle Factory Fire, where 146 mostly young women either died when they jumped from the eight stories up, or burned to death inside. Read more here.

The incident propelled the already aware Frances to action, and a life that would be spent insuring an end to child-labor, advanced legislation for the 40 hour work week, (vs typical work week of a minimum of 60 hours). Her most important influence was as architect for Social Security. Facing opposition from an inflamed congress that was losing free-reign to do what they would to benefit their own purses, Ms Perkins faced accusations of  impeachment ... all while trying to coordinate care of her mentally ill (think schizoid here...not depression) husband.  The famous picture of her standing behind FDR while he signs the Social Security Act, shows Ms Perkins staring into the crowd; she was in actuality looking to see if her husband had found her, since he had recently left his sanitarium looking for her.

Here is information for Ms Perkins, taken from the recent exhibition at the Columbia Univeristy Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and includes some of the strangest collection of fear mongering propaganda. Sadly, nothing has changed.

The next blog entry will exhibit stupidity masked as the Governor of Maine, and his thoughts on our Ms. Perkins. I laughed, and then got ticked off. not to worry: Lynn P had it covered.