Frances Perkins

Born Boston, Massachusetts

The first female cabinet member in the United States, Frances Perkins served as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945. Her early interest in activist causes such as the abolition of child labor and sweatshops led her to study economics and sociology at Columbia University. In 1911 she became the executive secretary of the newly formed Committee on Safety of the City of New York, where her work connected her to local assembly leaders. Her advocacy of legislative reform led Al Smith, governor of New York, to name her to the state’s industrial commission in 1919, where she was the highest-salaried female state employee in the nation. Roosevelt, Smith’s successor as governor, then named her to his cabinet when he was inaugurated president in 1933. She shaped policies of social responsibility such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, but also public works projects and the Social Security Act.