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Selects: Frances Perkins: Influential and Unknown · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, It's Josh and for this week's Select, I've
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: chosen our September twenty twenty episode on Francis Perkins. If
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard of her, that's okay. She's one of
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the most unsung Americans ever and was even left out
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of the history books for a while, all because she
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: was a woman. Check out this episode where Francis Perkins
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: gets her due.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff you
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Should Know, The Amazing Unsung Woman Edition Volume two. At
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: least more than two. What number would you say then?
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'll tell you what if you
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: want to take a vote on maybe one of the
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: most undersung while at the same time being most influential
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Americans to ever live.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Of Neil Diamond be Oh, he was very sung.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm not a big fan.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Anyway, you would be hard pressed to overlook ms Perkins.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, miss Francis Perkins.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Totally agree. Had never heard her name before, had never
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: even known she existed. But yeah, the more you dig injury,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the more you was like, it was almost a crime
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that this woman was virtually written out of the history books.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you are.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: One of those people who was unfortunate to not be
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: able to work right now during quarantine and the effects
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: of COVID nineteen, and you are not lucky enough, but
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: you know, deservedly enough receiving unemployment insurance, you can thank
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Francis Perkins for that.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: That's right. And every single person who's getting a check
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: as measley as they've gotten lately is getting one because
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of this system that Francis Perkins set up. And what's
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: really I think worth noting too, this is exactly the
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: kind of situation that she got this passed for, that
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: she helped design this for totally. Because there's a quote
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly where the quote was, but to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: paraphrase it, it's basically like, we need to we need
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: to always keep our eye on the long term and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: plan for the worst case scenario. While yes, there's a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: lot of immediate needs that we need, but there's always
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: going to be something that comes down the road, and
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: if we have planned for it, we're way better off.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Just imagine how disastrous it would be on top of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the current disaster. If there wasn't such a thing as
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: unemployment insurance and this is how we found out that
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: we really kind of needed.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be dark age's stuff in this country.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you have gotten your unemployment insurance check
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and it has helped you, thank Francis Perkins somehow.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we want to thank How Stuff Works. That's
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: where part of this research came from, and some other places,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: but notably. And I want to shout this out because
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: this is a library intern at the FDR Library who
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: wrote a paper called Honoring the Achievements of FDR Secretary
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: of Labor Jessica Brightman. This is really good stuff and
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: she's a library intern and we want to shout her out.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she did great.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Or she was at the time. I imagine she's moved
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: on from that internship.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: After she turned that say in you bet you're bippy.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: She did so.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Francis Perkins was born Fanny Coralai Perkins in Boston in
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: eighteen eighty, but her relatives in her ancestors, came from Maine.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of funny here at the beginning of
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: this how Stuff Works thing, it says she so undersung
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the even residents of her hometown of Demara scott A, Maine,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: didn't seem familiar with her legacy. I think that says
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: more about.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Maine, right, They're like, we don't need to help her
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: put on airs.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Well, then, just like you know, I don't ask, I
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: don't tell, I just don't.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Whatever she lived here, great good for her.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I want to say. Also before the residents of Newcastle
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: busta a vein in their forehead, she's also cited as
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a native of Newcastle, Maine, and they're right across the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Demara Scatta River from one another. I think she's from Newcastle.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Was this like Adidas Puma thing?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe? Maybe, except to imagine if neither town knew what
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: shoes were, that would be a pretty accurate analogy. Oh boy,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I love so she Yeah she was. She came from
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: really like died in the wool Yankee stock. Her family
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: came over I think in the sixteen eighties. Her she
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: had like her family had built an outpost during the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: French Indian and wore her grandmother, who had more of
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: an influence on her, she said than anybody. Had a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: cousin who she was close to, who founded Howard University,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and fought for the rights of newly freed African Americans.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: She came from like a long line of people who
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: cared about other people, and yet surprisingly her parents were
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: very conservative. They were in favor of, you know, helping
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the poor, but not mingling with them, helping them, like
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: helping them by like, you know, sending some money or
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: something like that. And they produced a child, Fanny Francis.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: She changed her name, I think in I don't know
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: her twenties or thirties. She was the opposite way. She
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: was like, no, like, people are people and they all
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: deserve help, and there's a lot of injustice in this world,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and I want to change it myself. And she's one
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: of those people who actually did enact tremendous change for
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: all the right reasons.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she said, people are people, so why should it
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: be you.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And I should get along so awfully?
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Which one was that? Depeche mode?
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Depeche Mode, I can't baby.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Hey, that's Emily's jam.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: I mean she would She probably has that tattooed on
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: her body somewhere.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: In fact, we're both taking that none of my business.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: We're both doing that that silly, and I never do
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: these things on Facebook, But I have time now the
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: top ten most influential albums, And I was like, which
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: one are you gonna pick? New Order or depeche Mode
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: for her? Because that's a that's a tough one.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, can't She's got ten to choose from, right, Yeah.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: But I think for her those two are so inextricably tied.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: That it was one or the other.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I gotcha.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And she went to depeche Mode because they were first,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: and that's probably more influential.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Depeche Mode was before New Order. Huh yes, I mean
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: technically if you count New Order as an out outcropping
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: of Joy than they were first.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Oh so well, Joy Division was different, though it.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Was pretty different, different enough that they might as well
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: be two different bands in which they were. You know
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: who we need to give us the judgment call is
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Francis Perkins, who apparently would not have enjoyed our banter.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: She was very much known as like a dour, serious woman.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: But from what I can tell, that's actually a public
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: persona that she wore to get men to take her seriously.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Well, who can blame her because we'll see later on
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: about her. It's no accident that she's lost to history
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: in many ways. But what she was also was highly educated.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: She graduated from Mount Holyoake in nineteen oh two, where
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: she majored in chemistry and physics, even though she made
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: her name in economics, which means she was a very
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: well rounded human and had a very large brain.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: And apparently she had made it all the way through college.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: In her senior year, I think she attended an economics
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: lecture by Florence Kelly, who was a huge wage justice crusader,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and that just changed her life.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, big time.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: In nineteen this is post college, she went to Philly
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: and she became general secretary of the Philadelphia Research and
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Protective Association.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: What did she do.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: There, Well, she was in charge of investigating employment agencies
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  Speaker 2: that were fake and that preyed on women, immigrant women specifically,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: and she had to sort of deal with the dregs
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: of society in that job and did so very successfully,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: and then decided she wanted to keep her education going,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: so while she was in Philly, she went to the
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  Speaker 2: Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania because that's super easy and light learning. And then
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: after that she went to Columbia where she earned and
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: MA and social economics in nineteen ten.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: And we should say, like she's getting all of this schooling,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: but at the same time, she's also set herself off
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: on a what's that like, learn while you work.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: Program called internship.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Guess, So that's not exactly what I'm looking for, but yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean it makes sense. So she set herself up
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: on a real world internship program. So while she was
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: in Philly working for that bureau, she was investigating those
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: those fake employment rackets, Like she was on the ground
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: doing this stuff, like carrying out these inspections, investigating factories,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: like taking notes in like.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: The early twenties.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, yeah, while she's studying this stuff, she's also
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: out doing and seeing this stuff firsthand that she's learning about,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: which from what I can tell, she really kind of
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: digested and held on to and it just kept driving
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: her for the rest of her life. What she saw.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's called the School of Hard Knocks.
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  Speaker 1: It is, But she enrolled then the Wharton School and
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the School of Hard Knocks at the same time, which
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  Speaker 1: is pretty impressive.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 2: And after Columbia, after she got that master's, for two
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: years she served as executive secretary of the Consumers League
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: of New York. And this is where she really felt
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: her life calling to improve wages, improve working conditions because
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: this was nineteen ten through nineteen twelve and things weren't
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: great in factories at the time. We could do a
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: podcast on I don't know what the focus would be,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: necessarily because we've done labor unions.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: But just labor conditions. Yeah, maybe so eye opening, But
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: she did. This is one of the things she did.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: There's very few more depressing words than these strung together.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: She improved working conditions for children. Yeah, that was one
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of the things she did, I know, And that was
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: at the Consumers League of New York. And she got
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: there and was like, yes, I've achieved one of my
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: first goals, which is working directly with the same Florence
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Kelly who gave the economics lecture that changed her life
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: years before Mount Holyoke.
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  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So she was one of those ones who said
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I want to do this, and then would do it
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and then would move on to the next thing.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: She wouldn't stand around and wait for the statue to
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: be built in her honor.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah, exactly.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: So we take a break, Yes, all right, we're gonna
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: take a break and talk about a pretty devastating fire
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: in New York City that changed the course of her
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: life right after this. What fire, Chuck, I'm talking about
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: the Triangle shirt waist fire in Manhattan, sort of near
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Washington Square Park in Greenwich, right next to Washington Square
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Park in Greenwich Village.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's an NYU building though.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: It is, and I tried to pinpoint if that was
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the building where I actually had my film classes.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Was it?
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I can't quite tell.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: We got to know, Chuck.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: I'll see if I can find out.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: But a shirt waist was a woman's blouse, is what
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: they called it at the time. And this was a
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: factory that made women's blouses. If you worked there, you
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: were probably a young woman, you might be an immigrant.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: You would work about fifty two hours a week.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, I saw twelve hours a day, seven days a week.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: What does that math turn out to Let's.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: See seventy seven hundred and twenty Wait, I can't do
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: math out loud.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Well, let's say between fifty two and eighty hours a week.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: No, No, it was way more than that. Twelve times
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: seven eighty four. Yeah, that's what I said, eighty four
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: hours a week. But like, even that doesn't sound that big.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Twelve hour days, seven days a week, just to keep your.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Job, right, so I saw fifty two.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Either way, they made between seven and twelve dollars a
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: week making these blouses for.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Women, which was not good even back then.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it wasn't good.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: And because this was a factory in New York in
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: nineteen eleven, they had the doors locked, they had the
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: staircases locked. They thought it prevented theft. If you remember
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: what happened to locked doors and stairwells in our Hotel
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Fire episode, the same thing happened here on March twenty fifth,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: nineteen eleven when the triangle shirt waist fire started because
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: they think of a match or a cigarette but thrown
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: into a waste spin and it just, you know, everything
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: in there was flammable practically that wasn't metal because of
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: all these fabrics like highly flammable.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: It went up really quick.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: It's one of the deadliest US workplace disasters of all
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: time to this day. Four one hundred and forty six
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: workers died, one hundred and twenty three of which were
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: women and girls between the ages of generally between fourteen
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: and twenty three.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: The oldest was forty three, but that was kind of
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: an outlier, and.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Sixty two of those people jumped to their death in
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: front of full view of New York City, including.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Francis Perkins.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Right in front of Francis Perkins. She didn't jump to
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: her death, no, no, no, So yeah, she's literally witnessing
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: one of the turning points in history as it happens,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: seeing teenage girls jump out of the ninth floor of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: this building because it's on fire. And not only is
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: she witnessing a fire that will change history, she is
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: one of the people that will force history to change
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: because of this fire. The fate or the destiny that
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: put her a block away from this fire when it
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: happened is it's just astounding to me that she was there,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: because she went on to be one of the people
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: who said this is never going to happen again, and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: under her watch, it basically didn't. It was the worst
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: that it ever got and it never got that bad
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: again because of the safeguards she forced the state and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: then later on other states in the federal government to adopt.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she was already kind of headed down
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: this road anyway, she was already part of the New
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: York State Factory Investigating Commission, and because of this fire,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: which she I don't think we said, she was just
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: having tea across the park there, ran over and saw this.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: One of the things she saw.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: At one point, there were twenty people that had managed
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: to get out a window onto a fire escape, one
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: of those tiny, little flimsy New York fire escapes, and
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: that all twenty of those people and collapsed, and they
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: all fel to their one hundred feet to their death
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: right in front of her face.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to do an entire episode on that,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: at the very least, just to shame the two owners,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: who's who were just totally responsible for all those deaths.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, but this was sort of just the way it was,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, not absolving them, but she saw this as
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: part of the bigger problem, not like these two owners
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: are responsible, but she was like, it was an indictment
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: of the system.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. But at the same time, those guys
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: were particularly nasty examining for sure, the system. They weren't
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: averaged by any means from what I understand.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: No, but what was average was the fact that they
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: didn't have fire codes, and she's the person that brought
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: that in.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: By the time she was in.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Her early thirties, she had called for and successfully called
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: for exit signs, occupancy limits, sprinklers, fire escapes, unlocked doors,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: and stairwells, how wide the doorways had to be depending
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: on your factory floor, like all these of common sense things.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Like a lot of people saw this stuff happen and
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: saw this incident that day and were horrified, but Francis
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Perkins said, nope, I'm going to change it. I'm a
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: woman in nineteen eleven and I'm in my early thirties,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: but I'm going to make this happen. And she did.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: She did. She was appointed to the New York Committee
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: on Safety under the recommendation of Teddy Roosevelt, which says
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a lot because that means she'd already made a name
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: for herself in her twenties in New York City politics,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: to the point where Teddy Roosevelt would say, like, you
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: really kind of need this woman on there. And then
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: let's not forget the fact that that operative word here
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: was woman as far as society was concerned at the time,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and this legislation that she got passed through in New York,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: or that she helped get passed through in New York,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: like I was saying, it became a model for other
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: states and then eventually the federal fire codes because of this,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: because of largely because of her efforts, and she made
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: a name for so she'd already made a name for self,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: but this really kind of helped cement her name. And
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: she started working closely with a guy named alfredy Smith
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: who was an assemblyman from New York, right, but he
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: she won his respect pretty easily. I think they worked
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: on this New York Committee on Safety together, and so
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: when he became governor, she kind of rose along with him.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: She was appointed by him to New York States Industrial Commission,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: which made her the first woman to be appointed to
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: a state government position in the country. And with her
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars salary, she was the highest paid woman
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: to hold any office in the United States at the time.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So she became important pretty quick. But she became important everybody,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: This is really important to remember by hard work and heart,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: which is just a wonderful combination. Like amazing things happen
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: from people who have that combination.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and she ingratiated herself to these male politicians a
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: couple of different important times in her life, and the
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: first one was Alfredy Smith, like you were saying, so
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: she rose along with him because he knew He was like, man,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I don't care if she's a woman or not. She
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: works harder than anyone I know, and she gets the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: job done. So I'm just going to bring her along with.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Me and not just works harder. She was known as
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a policy expert about worker safety and wage justice by
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: this time, too.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean I talked about her very large
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: brain and her higher education. She was super super smart,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Like I said, she majored in chemistry and physics, even
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: though her real love was econ.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: So it's like, are you kidding me?
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: No, we're not kidding at all.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: So no, it's very much true.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: So, like you were saying, she first kind of rose
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to prominence with Alfredy Smith, who, from what I could tell,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't get to research him very much, but the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: stuff that I ran across the references to him, he
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: seemed like a genuine like true believer crusader and justice
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: social justice as well. So they were like a good
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a good pair, and he made it as far as
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: New York governor. He ran for president and didn't win. Uh.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: And when he didn't win, he, I guess lost the
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: governorship and was succeeded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And so
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt came in came into power in New York as
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the governor of New York. Uh, and Francis Perkins was
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: already there, and it had already built up a reputation,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and Roosevelt recognized the kind of person she was pretty quickly,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: because a lot of people are you know, you can
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: give a lot of credit or a lot of vilification
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to Roosevelt for his New Deal policies, depending on your
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: political stripes. But if you, you know, if you admire
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: him for it, and I think most people should. He
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just him. One of his great talents to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: recognize talent in othersah and to bring those people together
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and then enact policies based on their expertise and their recommendations.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: And one of those people was Francis Perkins, starting when
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: he was governor of New York and then also when
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: he became president too.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So when he came into his governorship, she had
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: already been named and was the chairperson called it a
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: chairman back then in nineteen twenty six of the State
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Industrial Board.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: She was doing a great job there, and.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Then in nineteen twenty nine FDR appointed her as the
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Industrial Commissioner of the State of New York.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: And what happens.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: The stock market crashes, the Great Depression hits America like
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: a punch in the face, and she was the one
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: who stepped in and got it in his ear and said,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: you know what, I know that we have to feed
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: people right now. We have really immediate needs. But like
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier in the episode, she thought about the
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: big picture and long term goal. She said, we need
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: to really take swift action here. So with her help,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: they created a committee unemployment. He appointed her the head
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: of that, and then when he was elected president in
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three, he said, you know what, I'm going
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: to point you to be my Secretary of Labor.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: That was huge.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: I've been working with you for twenty years, I trust you,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: and you're going to do a great job. And the
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: public roundly said, what a woman in the cabinet.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: They really did, I mean like she was the first cabinet,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: first woman to serve it as a cabinet member. I mean,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: women had just gotten the right to vote about thirteen
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen years before.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: So she couldn't vote till she was forty, I know.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: And yet she held public public appointed offices and still
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: couldn't vote, but.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Wasn't allowed to vote for her boss.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly. Yeah, So it was a really big deal
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: that FDR appointed a woman as a to a cabinet position,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and an important cabinet position too. I mean, like it's
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: not like there's any necessarily unimportant cabinet positions, but Secretary
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: of Labor is pretty big, especially, yeah, especially then, right,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and especially you know, at a time when this emerging
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: superpower took a huge punch in the face and got
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: knocked on its butt like the rest of the world
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: by the Great Depression. This is important stuff that they
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: were trying to figure out on the fly. But he
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: chose really great person who wasn't really accepted at first,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: not just by the public but by virtually anybody. The
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: labor unions weren't happy she was there because she had
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a background in social work and policy.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Not yeah, labor than to death, yes, but she.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Eventually won them over, just by virtue of what she did, Like,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the labor movement was on the ropes at the time.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: The Progressive era ran from I think eighteen ninety to
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: about nineteen twenty. So by the time nineteen twenty nine,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty comes around, it's eyeing off the labor movement.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: But under her leadership as the Department of Labor Secretary,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: she revived it. And by the time she either died
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: or left office I can't remember, I think a third
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: of all Americans were members of unions.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and pre the union stuff like kind of right
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: after the Great Depression hit.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: One of the first things.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: They did together was created the Civilian Conservation Corps the CCC,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: which was a really big success, one of the big
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: early successes of the New Deal in that they said,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: you know what, we have all this, We have this
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: workforce of these unskilled, unmarried men, and let's get these
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: guys working in conservation. We have this vast areas of
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: rural land and natural resources, and let's send these guys
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: out there to work on this stuff. And they did,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: and it provided a ton of jobs through the Civilian
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Conservation Corps.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: It did, and it also helped reinforce and build out
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: America's infrastructure too, because they had all this labor that
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the government was putting to work doing it right. So
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: she was in charge of overseeing that. And one of
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the other I guess the next big thing, I think
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: it was before Social Security, was something called the Wagner Act,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: and the Wagner.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Act came, I mean the Wagner Act.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: The Wagner Wagner Act, depending on your persuasion. It gave
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: workers the right to unionize, in the right to collectively bargain.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: And one of her roles was to go out and
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: promote this stuff, not just to you know, other members
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of the government or members of industry, but to individual
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Americans too. So in nineteen thirty three alone, she gave
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: one hundred different policy speeches in just that one year
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: on new Deal projects promoting them. And one of the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: speech as she gave, I don't know if it was
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: in that year or not, but she went to Homestead, Pennsylvania,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: right across the river from Pittsburgh, where Carnegie Steel was headquartered,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and she was going to inform these workers about their
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: newly won rights through the Wagner Act, and Carnegie Steel
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: and the local government would not give her any place
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: to hold this meeting. They wouldn't give the Secretary of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Labor a place to talk to voters. So she and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: there's apparently a famous picture of her leading all of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: these steel workers on foot to a post office. She's like, Oh,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I can think of a place where I can assemble legally,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: and that is the post office. So she gave her
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: speech on the grounds of the Homestead Post Office two
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: thousands of steel workers, informing them that they could legally
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: unionize and bargain collectively for workers' rights.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: I feel like if I feel like we had to
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: have talked about her in our union's episode, and if
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: we didn't, shame on us, but also shame on the
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: fact that she probably didn't pop up in our research,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: which is one.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Of the problems.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mostly the second one.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: All right, So I'm going to pass that buck.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Right the book stops over there.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Well, we're making up for it now either.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Way, Okay, Chuck. So we were saying at the outset
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: that if you got an unemployment check, thank Francis Perkins,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: or if you ever get an unemployment check, if you
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: even like the idea of the fact that an unemployment
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: insurance policy is out there for you in case you
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: ever need it. Thank Francis Perkins. And the reason you
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: fut thank Francis Perkins is because she basically oversaw the
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: creation of the legislation that became the Social Security Act
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty five. And when I say oversaw the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: creation of that legislation, like she that was it. She
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: was the head of this cabinet level committee that was
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: assigned the task of coming up with a social insuranrants policy,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: a social safety net for the country. And they came
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: up with this within six months, this full policy report,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and within two days of delivering the report, FDR turned
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: around and unveiled the Social Security Program idea to Congress,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and another six months or so later, maybe eight passed
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: into law.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and boy, we should do one on social security
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: at some point.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I agree, I think we have. Man, I'm all really positive. Yeah,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it really rings a bell. Go ahead, I'm looking at it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Well, no, I'm going to have our little our assistant
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: over here check that.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Can you go and check on that? Okay, they're on it.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Who is Tommy Chong?
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Like we've ever had anyone that worked for us.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: That's the funny thing is when we get emails over
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: the years they're like, well to Josh and Chuck and
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Jerry or whoever on your staff is reading this.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, it's pretty much us.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well we're these emails while we're having to sweep
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: up the studio.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I want to be fair. To be fair, we
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: work for a big podcasting network and there are a
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: lot of people that help us get stuff out in
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the world, but we have never had like a stuff
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: you should know staff of eight people who only work
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: for us in research for us and all that stuff.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: And I feel like it really shows in the podcast,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: like I'm glad.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: You said that, because I felt like I was patting
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: ourselves on the back for a second.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: There the opposite.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: You dash that very fast.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Sure self deprecation, Chuck, that's our specialty.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: So social security, what we're talking about in general, everyone
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: knows what this is is basically a system where younger,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: hardy people working hard in this country help out older people,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: retired people, perhaps disabled people, people that have had work
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: related accidents.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: People who wear funny hats, people.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Who wear funny hats and pay into this system.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: That ideally, and you know, we're not going to get
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: into the weeds here that would come on our Social
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Security podcasts. But ideally then when you are old or
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: in need, then you have that same money waiting for
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: you because of the younger generation and the younger workforce.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Right, that's the brilliance of the whole thing is it's
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: a transfer payment system to where you are directly funding
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the people who are retired now, but it's on the
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: premise that people behind you are going to fund into
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: this to support you later on. It's beautiful. It's a
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: genius idea. And apparently FDR sent her Francis Perkins to
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: study the British system of unemployment and insurance even before
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: he was president, back when he was Governor of New York.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Then he became the first public official to commit to
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: developing an unemployment insurance plan. And it was at the
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: persistent behest of Francis Perkins that he did that.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not like, I mean, he didn't run
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: for office with social security on his list of things
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Well. Yeah, that's the thing A lot of people say, like,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: if it weren't for her, no joke, this stuff probably
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: wouldn't exist, certainly not in the form that it does now,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and that's not necessarily fair. There are like there were
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: programs that had like Social Security type programs among the states,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: including unemployment programs, but they were ad hoc, they were patchwork.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Most states didn't have them. And it's the kind of
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the beauty of this the federal program is they're basically like, okay,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: states do this, but we're going to oversee and organize
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: it and help fund it.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not like I was saying that all
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the FDR was like not a champion of it or
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: was just lazy. He was He had a bunch of
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: stuff going on, and he had a bunch of irons
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: in the fire. So he needed her to come in
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: and say, hey, listen, this is all great because we're
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: in a tragic situation right now, like we're trying to
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: put out a fire, but what I want to do
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: is make sure another fire doesn't happen in the future.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, And that was like her whole thing, like, we
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: do need to make sure that people get peanut butter
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: sandwiches because their families are going to starve. Like, yes,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: these immediate needs have to be met, but we also
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: simultaneously have to plan for the future too. It was
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: just this persistent drum that she'd beat, like, we're going
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: to continue to have problems. Let's plan for him now.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Like the level of visionariness in this person was, you
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: just don't see that. I can't think of too many
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: other people who've come and gone in the federal government
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: in the United States at least that had that level
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: of I guess, awareness of looking down the line that
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: far rather than just you know, four years out or
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: to the next election.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: And she also, you know, we talked about some of
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: the things she did earlier in terms of her career
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: in terms of fair labor practices, but when she was
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Secretary of Labor, she had real teeth to make real change,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: and during her tenure she helped craft the Fair Labor
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Standards Act, she helped establish minimum wage laws, maximum work
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: hours laws, and she finally said, you know what, maybe
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: we shouldn't make labor for children better. Maybe we should
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: not bring our children to work and make them work.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: So let's just get rid of child labor altogether.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: And you can make the case, Chuck, that she is
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the woman who gave America's kids the concept of a childhood. Yeah,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: at the very least she extended it by many, many years.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I've got another amazing fact about her. She I believe
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: is the first cabinet member who Congress ever sought to impeach.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Oh really, yes, I'm almost positive that's correct. I know
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: that they did try to impeach her, and they failed
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: in the impeachment, not just the conviction. They couldn't get
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: enough support for articles of impeachment. But it was because
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: she refused to deport an Australian longshoreman who'd successfully organized
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: a general strike in San Francisco and the anti communist
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: elements in Congress suspected that this guy was a Communist
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and wanted him out, And she said, you know, I
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: don't think very highly of this guy. I don't really
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: agree with a lot of what he stands for. But
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: I don't think that you have really good evidence, and
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: I think this is all retaliation for the strike you organized.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: So I'm not going to deport him. And you might say, well,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: what did this lady have to do with deporting? Apparently,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: back in the day the immigration the power of immigration
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: or control of immigration was up to the Department of Labor,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: so the Secretary of Labor was also in charge of immigration,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: which really kind of gives you an idea of where
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: America's immigration policies, you know, where their mind was at. Yeah,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: that it was about importing you know, good good, good workers,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: or also controlling who came in to keep competition for
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: jobs down totally. But so she was in charge of immigration, which,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: as we'll see later on, she used to great effect.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Is that our little uh is that our cherry on
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: top at the end?
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, so, okay, that's a good idea. It's
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: it's the kid with the last question in Q and.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: A man uh and not the drunk guy.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I hate that guy.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: So when FDR.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Passed away in nineteen forty five, she was the longest
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: serving Labor secretary and one of only two cabinet members
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: to serve the entire length of his super super long presidency.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: And she held over into Truman as well. He was like,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So you're welcome
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: to stay, which you don't see a lot of that anymore.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: She published a biography, a bestseller about FDR called The
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Roosevelt I Knew. And here are a few other just sort
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: of career feathers in her cap she was the head
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: of the American delegation to the International Labor Organization in Paris.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Truman appointed her to the US Civil Service Commission, which
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: was a position she held till nineteen fifty three. And
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: she basically accomplished every single one of her goals while
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: she was Secretary of Labor except for one thing she
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: went in there wanting to do, which was universal access
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: to healthcare.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is kind of a bummer.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Some people might say it's a bummer. Some people might
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: say good.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Sure. She also played drums for docin for a brief time,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: for a little bit. She did it all and all
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: while wearing a frumpy, tri cornered hat.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: And then after that she did what a lot of
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: people in public policy do. She went on to teach
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: and lecture at the New York State School of Industrial
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: and Labor Relations at Cornell University. She did that too,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: till she was eighty five years old when she passed
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: away in nineteen sixty five.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, there are a couple of other things to throw
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: into Both her husband and her daughter suffered from what
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: we today called bipolar disorder. She cared for them their
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: entire lives.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: That little thing yeah, right, can you imagine.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: No, while she's doing all this other stuff, she made
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: sure that they were cared for, took care of them
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: directly herself. And one of the other things I think
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: is worth mentioning too, that while before FDR became president,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: while she was working in New York, she was already
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: known publicly before she became Secretary of Labor because she
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: was the first public official to call Hoover out on
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: his BS when he was downplaying joblessness numbers and unemployment
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: figures and just general terrible economic news and pretending things
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: were way better than they were. She was the first
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: person to step up and publicly contradict him and made
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: national news for that.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, again, this is a woman doing this
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: in like nineteen thirty, so just that alone makes national news.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: But she was also calling them out on his BS.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: And one thing that we have to say before you
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: finished with the cherry on top, Chuck, she had guys
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: figured out. She had a folder called Notes on the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Male Mind, and she would just take notes on guys
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and men that she worked with and just kind of
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: try to get an understanding of them. And she realized
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: that the way to get male colleagues to treat you
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: normally or maybe even respect you is to remind them
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: of their mother. Wow, that's what it takes, apparently to
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: get a guy to treat a woman with respect. That
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: work well.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: And you know we mentioned why she's undersung there. You know,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: history is written by men. We all know this, and
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of those New Deal histories in the seventies
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: and eighties didn't even mention her, which is just staggering
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: that you can write a history of the New Deal
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: and not mentioned Francis Perkins. It's just like a black
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: eye on any author that did something like that.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: It almost seems malicious in a weird way, like I'd
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: like to think that that's not the.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Case, but what is there? It's nuts, it's weird. So
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: the cherry on top here at the end is World
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: War two. World War two is not a cherry on top.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: But she was watching Hitler do his thing in Germany
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: and got really worried.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: She's like, man, that guy's cranked.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: She was read about anti Semitism and everything that was
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: going on with the violence there, and she wanted to
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: help German refugees escape. And at the time, the Coolidge
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: administration and the immigration laws that came through his administration
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: were really tough, and Americans were very fearful that relaxing
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: these laws would increase the job competition and that Americans
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: weren't going to have these jobs. And she said, you
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: know what, I don't agree the immigration services under the
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Department of Labor, and so I am going to put
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: some quotas down to get some of these refugees here
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: and to aid them. And she did that to great success.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, she made sure that about at least fifty five
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: thousand Jewish German immigrants made their way into the United
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: States through these Department of Labor immigration quotas and another
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I think two hundred thousand people in general were rescued
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: from Europe as World War Two was starting to develop
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: over there because of her. Just on top of everything else,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: she also saved a bunch of tens of thousands of
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Jewish people from Hitler in World War two. Amazing, amazing, Chuck,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I guess that's it for Francis Perkins. Huh, that's it. Well,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: if you want to know more about Francis Perkins, go
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: start reading about her, because there's even more detail to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: her life than we captured here. And she's worth reading about.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Very admirable person. And since I said admirable, it's time
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: for listener mail.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this helping a helper, and this is
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: from a Tawny.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Tony says this.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Hey, guys, have been sewing face masks for almost a
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: month now, and I'm close to my one thousandth mask.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Nice It's a lot I have given and donated to friends, family,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: co workers.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: I'm a nine one one.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Dispatcher by the way, healthcare workers, retail workers, delivery people,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: postal workers, and other essential workers.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: And people wearing funny hats.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: People wearing funny hats and complete strangers.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Now that face masks have become mandatory here in San Diego,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: the need has grown substantially. And through all of this,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: you three have been with me in keeping me company
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: about Jerry too.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, okay, she wasn't talking about Tommy Chong. I'll
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: tell you that.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Old episodes and new have entertained me through the tedious
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: hours of cutting, fabric, ironing, pinning, and sewing. I started
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: listening to your podcast while I was in the Navy
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: and soon introduce you guys to my husband, who was
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: still in the military. We have both listened and learned
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: through the years together. Thank you for continuing your show
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: and helping the helpers of the world. Side note, love
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: the nine to one to one Dispatcher episode and thank
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: you for clearing up the pizza order myth Second side note,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I wrote my master's thesis on the use of body
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: worn cameras by law enforcement, and I decided to focus
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: on that topic after listening to that awesome episode. Oh Na, Yeah,
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: that's pretty cool. All three of you are thanked and
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: mentioned in the thesis.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Even oh that's cool.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: When I'm tired and don't want to sew anymore, I
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: think of this quote.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: For mister Rogers head down.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: When I was a boy and I would see scary
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: things in the news, my mother would say to me,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: look for the helpers. You will always find people who
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: are helping.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Go to them and they will help you.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: And that is from Tawny, And that's a great quote, Tony.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna use that at my own house.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like, if you're afraid of flying, watch
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the flight attendants and as long as they're not freaking out,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: you're fine. It's the exact same thing he's saying when
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: the s goes down, there's people helping, so that's always good.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: God bless mister Rogers and.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: You man man. Yep, thanks a lot, is it?
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: Tony Tawny t a w n Y.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I couldn't tell if you were just putting a little
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: mustard on the Tony.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: No like Tawny Kataan.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah from the white Snake video that cultural icon.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks a lot, Tawny. I apologize for Chuck calling
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: you Tawny Katane. Okay, can I apologize for you? Charge?
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Sure?
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well I'm gonna do that. If you want to
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: get me to apologize for Charles, let's see if you
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: can do it. You can send us an email, wrap
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: it up, spanking on the bottom, and send it off
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.