She also associated with Hull House and spent as much time as she could staying there and participating in its activities. Her emphasis on needing good data obtained by proper research techniques made Fannie turn to her as a mentor after she graduated in 1902, moved to Chicago and took a job as a science teacher at a Ferry Hall, a college oriented toward wealthy young women. She went to Mount Holyoke and while she was there Florence Kelley, then with the National Consumers League, came to give a lecture. In high school she was influenced by Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives.
At the same time the parents were worried about the spinsterhood that awaited educated women.įrom an early age she showed a concern for the deprived and in her teens declared herself a Democrat in very Republican Worcester. Her father began to teach her Greek at age 8. The father was a Boston Brahmin in temperament and the mother plain and dowdy. While comfortable the family had once had considerably more wealth. These blanks are admirably filled in by Kirstin Downey’s biography The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience (Downey, 2009).įannie Perkins was born Apin Boston but grew up in Worcester where her father was a partner in a stationary and supply store. What is less familiar is who she was as a person and what she went through to become one of the great change agents in American history. She and her major accomplishments are known to many social workers. The title for this entry is adapted from the iconic Star Trek television show. Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, arrives for a special meeting, September 16, 1938 In: Eras in Social Welfare History, Great Depression, People, Recollections Frances Perkins: She Boldly Went Where No Woman Had Gone Before By Harris Chaiklin, Ph.D.
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