.ltMiss Frances Perkins The Times, 17 May 1965:obituary SOCIAL REFORMS IN THE U.S. Miss Frances Perkins (Mrs. Paul Wilson), former United States Secretary of Labour, who died on Friday night at the age of 83, was the first American woman to hold Cabinet rank. An enthusiastic and indefatigable social reformer of wide sympathies and advanced views she had established a great reputation in New York as an expert upon social problems when President Roosevelt decided to include her in his first Cabinet. In office she was one of the chief architects of the New Deal and was successful in securing a number of far-reaching reforms. She had, too, many outstanding personal qualities. In all her work she was guided by plain common sense, a natural shrewdness and a true sense of justice and humanity. Frances Perkins was born at Boston, Massachusetts on April 10, 1882, the daughter of Frederick W. Perkins by his marriage with Miss Susan Wight and came of a long line of Puritan ancestry. She was educated at Mount Holyoake College and at the universities of Pennsylvania and Columbia. In 1910 she became executive secretary of the Consumers League of New York and a little later lectured in sociology at Adelphi College. In 1911 Miss Perkins saw from a window in Washington Square, New York, the disastrous fire in the Triangle Shirt-waist factory in which 146 girls lost their lives. The experience deeply moved her and intensified the desire she had already felt to secure improvement in the Labour legislation of her country. Shortly afterwards she was appointed executive secretary of the New York Committee of Safety, a position which she held for five years, and in the same year director of investigations of the New York State Factory Commission. Thus she became a leading spirit in a campaign for the reforms she sought. In 1913 she married Paul Caldwell Wilson-who died in 1952 at the age of 77-by whom she had one daughter. He was at the time employed at the City Hall and in order not to embarrass him she agreed to retain her maiden name, and continued for the rest of her life to be known by it. Miss Perkins's numerous activities in New York naturally brought her into contact with Franklin D. Roosevelt who from 1929 to 1933 was Governor of the state, and after his election to the Presidency, he made her Secretary of Labour in his first Cabinet. She thus became the first American woman to hold Cabinet rank, a distinction which was held by great numbers of Americans to be a due recognition of her long and active career as a social reformer. PERSONAL CONTACT As head of a great department Miss Perkins displayed efficiency as well as energy and courage. Her knowledge of social questions had been gained in direct personal contact with men and women of all classes and before long she had put through a remarkable number of reforms. Child labour was soon abolished throughout the United States, and in 1935 she crowned her earlier successes with the Social Security Act which gave the American worker the benefits of unemployment insurance and health services. At Washington she had her critics. Some accused her of lack of economic knowledge, others of inability to handle the press. Now and then demands for her resignation came from powerful organizations. She had positive though not generally recognized achievements to her credit in the planning and launching of many New Deal projects and was a pioneer in public works planning. In 1938 on her way back from the International Labour Conference at Geneva she visited Great Britain where she made a brief study of conditions and returned full of ideas. In 1941 on the proposal of Mr. Ralph Assheton, M.P., she was elected chairman of the International Labour Organization's Conference in New York. Shortly after her resignation from the Secretaryship of Labour in June, 1945, Miss Perkins was appointed by President Truman to be a member of the Civil Service Commission, the body which draws up rules governing examinations for those positions in government service which Congress places in the classified Civil Service. She served on that commission until 1952, when she retired from government service. Between her work as Secretary of Labour and on the Civil Service Commission she wrote a warm-hearted and admiring book The Roosevelt I Knew, which was published in 1946. She was also the author of several books on fire hazards, maternity care, women as employers, and other problems in which she was interested. .lc .llPower: America .ll .lsWR10:WR10_01S .ls