Devotional Labor: Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins (1880 – 1965) was born Fannie Coralie Perkins in Boston, but spent time throughout her life at the family’s homestead in Newcastle, Maine. The saltwater farm was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2014, and includes remnants from the Perkins’ 19th century brickworks business. Frances graduated from Mt. Holyoke, and became active in the suffrage movement while attending graduate school at Wharton and Columbia. She led the New York office of the National Consumers League, and witnessed the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. As a primary investigator, Perkins’ efforts led to the enactment of some of the first national workplace health and safety laws.

In 1933 Perkins became the first woman appointed to a presidential cabinet, serving as Labor Secretary for Franklin Delano Roosevelt until 1945. She played a key role writing New Deal legislation, enacting an alphabet soup of agencies and programs known by their acronyms: CCC, WPA, NLRB, FLSA, etc. As chairwoman of the President’s Committee on Economic Security, she led the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, to ensure old-age benefits for workers, unemployment insurance, and aid for mothers, children and disabled people. Perkins declared: “I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain common workingmen.” Perkins continued fighting for social and economic justice, serving under the Truman administration on the Civil Service Commission, then teaching until her death. President Carter renamed the US Department of Labor headquarters the Frances Perkins Building in 1980.

Illustrated by Chandler O’Leary and printed by Jessica Spring, in honor of the foundation of labor upon which our society is built. 169 copies were printed by hand at Springtide Press in Tacoma. Poster size: 10 x 18 inches

Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, on archival, 100% rag (cotton) paper. Each piece is numbered and signed by both artists.