Frances Perkins: Champion of Workers’ Rights

Thursday, February 29, 2024 – Monday, April 15, 2024
East Rotunda Gallery

“I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten plain common workingmen.” —Frances Perkins

Chances are you benefit from the legacy of Frances Perkins, one of U.S. history’s most consequential figures. As Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, she was the main architect of the New Deal, securing retirement, disability, and unemployment benefits still in effect today. Her life’s mission, however, was set decades before. “The New Deal began on March 25th, 1911,” Perkins said. “The day that the Triangle factory burned.” Living in New York City at the time, Perkins watched in horror as garment workers jumped to their deaths. The doors of the crowded factory had been locked to prevent workers from taking breaks. In all, 146 people died in the calamity.\

Nomination of Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor, March 4, 1933
National Archives, Records of the U.S. Senate

An Ambitious To-Do List

According to the Frances Perkins Center, she made it clear to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that she would only accept his appointment if he supported her goals: “a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, unemployment compensation, worker’s compensation, abolish child labor, direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief, Social Security, a revitalized federal employment service, and universal health insurance.” When she finished her term, she had checked all but health insurance off her list.

For more information, click here.

Past Featured Records

Mr. Santa Claus: Romance of the Postal Service
On Display 12/5/2024 – 1/8/2025 This holiday featured film is one of a series of silent movies produced by the Post Office Department in 1921. The mini melodrama shows how the postal service helps make a happy Christmas for a boy and his sister when their “Dere Sandy Claws” letter is answered by a young married couple. https://catalog.archives....
Bring Them Home, Uncle Sam
Soldiers arrive home aboard the S.S. Haverford as the transport ship pulls into Philadelphia, 1918. Records of War Department General and Special Staffs On Display 10/31/2024 – 12/4/2024 More than two million American service members were overseas with the American Expeditionary Forces when the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918, ending World War I. Americans would continue to ...
Betty Ford: Raising Breast Cancer Awareness
On Display 10/03/2024 - 10/30/2024 Just weeks after she became First Lady, Betty Ford was diagnosed with breast cancer. On September 26, 1974, doctors discovered a lump in her breast during a routine medical examination. She underwent a mastectomy two days later. Breaking with social conventions of the time, Betty Ford shared her cancer diagnosis with the public. This ...
Title IX
An Act of June 23, 1972, Public Law 92-318, 86 STAT 235, to Amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Vocational Educational Act of 1963, the General Education Provisions Act (Creating a National Foundation for Postsecondary Education and a National Institute of Education), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Public Law 874, Eighty-First Congress, and Related Acts, ...
Court-Martial record of Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin, March 10, 1778.
On March 10, 1778, Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin became the first U.S. soldier court-martialed for “attempting to commit sodomy” with another soldier. His sentence was to be literally drummed out of the Continental Army by its regiments’ fifes and drums. Enslin was told “never to return.” More than 230 years after Enslin’s court martial, gay men, lesbians, ...